Xinjiang traditions: Endangered or a living legacy

By Chen Ziqi  

When Xinjiang is mentioned abroad, the question might arise, “Are those traditions still around, or are they just museum pieces now?”

They’re not only around, they’re and expressed through fashion shows, celebrated at music festivals, and everywhere in markets and street performances.

Time-honored whispers meet modern style

It’s one of those timeless, everyday scenes: local families spread wool across the ground to dry. In the hands of the local designer Magauia Yrsbek, this age-old craft glimmers anew: silk threads shimmering like water, woven into sturdy felt.

The inspiration of the Kazakh designer came from the elegant lines of the silk qipao, a one-piece dress that makes its wearer appear as if stepping out of a painting. Drawing on this image, Magauia began experimenting with blending silk into felt-making, a process often takes weeks of handwork, including carefully spreading the wool and drying it under the sun. After hundreds of trials, she finally succeeded. The felt emerged brighter, with a refined texture, yet remained as strong as ever.

But she didn’t stop there. Magauia brings Kazakh embroidery into contemporary fashion. The embroidery patterns her mother once stitched onto pillowcases and wedding dresses, flowers, feathers, and the famous sheep-horn spiral, are now added onto chic modern coats and dresses. The result? Ancient nomadic vibes meet cosmopolitan cool.

And the fashion world noticed. Her innovative collections have reached international stages, including the 2024 Milan Fashion Week and the 2025 ASPARA Fashion Week in Kazakhstan. Today, she is pursuing one of her most ambitious projects, to make a felt dress formed from a single seamless piece of cloth.

“For me, craftsmanship is not just repeating the past,” she says. “It’s daring to innovate.” She believes heritage is a memory, carried in the strength of felt and the care of mothers. Her work keeps these stories alive, so the world can see not just clothing, but the life of people. Each experiment proves that heritage can be both preserved and re-imagined.

Rocking the epic

If you thought heritage epics were long, slow, and better left in enshrined old books, let me introduce you to Memet Turgun and his band. Dressed in distinctive Kirgiz traditional costumes and playing the stringed Kumuzi and flute, they sent the crowd into a fevered frenzy.

At the heart of their performance was The Epic of Manas, a Kirgiz tale comparable to Homer’s epics, now energized with rock beats. It tells the story of Manas and seven generations of his descendants, who led their people in battles against invaders. With a history of more than a thousand years, the epic remains a cultural cornerstone for the Kirgiz in China and a shared heritage with the people of Kyrgyzstan.

And today, it is remixed with electric guitars, pounding drums, and Kirgiz flutes. This storytelling which once echoed in yurts and pastures, are now shaking up music festivals in Nanjing.

Memet, a nationally recognized inheritor of Manas singing, grew up on the pastures of the Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture.

As an oral tradition, The Epic of Manas had to be learned firsthand. When young, Memet and 20 other children often traveled over 50 kilometers by truck to a master’s home to study. Today, his own son, eight-year-old Mayken, is already belting out the songs at home.

And the crowds love it. At the 2024 Spring Festival Gala (China’s biggest TV show), his band blasted The Tales of Manas across millions of screens. Turns out, a thousand-year-old tale plus some shredding guitar solos equals pure fire.

Tradition lives in daily life

The best way to keep a tradition alive is to let it flow into everyday life.

On Kashgar’s bustling streets in western Xinjiang, passersby can still step into small shops and pick up a Yengisar knife, a handmade blade with centuries of history.

In Aksu in central Xinjiang, instrument makers have brought their craft into the modern market, offering time-honored santurs and drums among other instruments in local shops and even online, making them accessible to music lovers everywhere.

In Hami in the eastern part of the region, young women in flowing Etles silk skirts dance to lively rhythms, accompanied by the drum beats. Amazon might deliver faster, but you can’t beat the soul of a handmade Xinjiang drum.

Still living, not just remembered

Chinese civilization is built on the rich and diverse cultures of its many ethnic groups, as President Xi Jinping noted during his first visit to Xinjiang in 2022. Here in Xinjiang, those cultures aren’t fading into memory. They are worn, sung, baked, and danced into the present.

So, the next time someone wonders whether Xinjiang’s traditions are endangered, the answer is clear: they’re rocking festivals, strutting fashion shows, and delighting taste buds around the world.

About the author: Chen Ziqi is a reporter from CGTN Radio, China

 

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