Zheng Xiaoyun, a researcher with the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, told an international symposium on human rights that while ethnic culture should be protected, the right of ethnic people to progress should also be respected.

Zheng, from southwest China's Yunnan province, said some Westerners, struck by the primitive and bizarre culture of some ethnic minorities in the province, proposed to turn ethnic villages into isolated islands with no road or modern telecommunications links to the outside world.

Yunnan, home to 25 of China's 55 minority ethnic groups, is a target province of China's planned West Development, a program launched at the end of last century to boost economic and social development in the country's west.

"Western people think economic and social development will change or even destroy the local culture of ethnic minorities," Zheng said.

The idea of roping off Chinese ethnic minority villages and keeping them as museums in the name of preserving culture actuallywent against human rights.

"This is really impractical and immoral," he said.

In the globalization process no ethnic culture could remain untouched by outside influences and at the same time development was also a basic human right for each ethnic group.

"It's unfair if all the world are enjoying modern civilization while these ethnic groups are segregated in their huts as cultural relics," Zheng said.

Most ethnic cultures in China came into being in a remote agrarian age and strict adherence to tradition without any change would certainly mean they could not keep pace with advances in the world.

Zhang said ethnic communities also wanted to see their own culture develop.

As for the trend among some ethnic people to wear modern dress, Zheng said it was their choice. "They have the right to choose what they think is beautiful."

Some traditional costumes needed complicated sewing and might take four years to make. "They are also thick and heavy because of the use of silver and other decorations, and inconvenient for daily wear."

Choosing modern clothes for daily wear did not mean abandoning tradition, as ethnic people still preferred their traditional costumes on festivals and ceremonies, he said.

Yunnan province was actually seeing a revival of some traditional customs of ethnic groups, like the folk music of the Naxi people and festivals of the Dai and Yi people.

"This is mainly because of social and economic development locally and their communication with the outside world," Zheng said.

( November 1, 2002)