Guldana Salimjan, a Kazakh born and raised in China, reviews the popular Chinese TV mini-series “To the Wonder,” (我的阿尔泰) literally “My Altai,” inspired by Li Juan’s writing:
Ta-Nehisi Coates [Afro-American author] explains how literary works, public monuments, and eventually movies reinforced the pernicious myth of white supremacy and innocence in the long aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction. “[T]he lie of innocence,” he writes, “is the Dream. Historians conjured the Dream. Hollywood fortified the Dream. The Dream was gilded by novels and adventure stories.”
Like Coates’s American dream based on white innocence, the current Chinese dream is based on a myth of Han innocence, conjured up by historians, fortified by the state’s propaganda offices, and gilded by the romantic literature of young pioneers like Li Juan [李娟]. The recent popularity of To the Wonder is a testament to the power of the dream of Han innocence. In China, the series has succeeded in presenting Xinjiang as an adventure land for Han urbanites, a way to return to nature and maybe fall in love without having to worry about going native — after all, the natives will inevitably fade away.
Related reading:
Li Juan présentation (Brigitte Duzan)
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Ethnic ChinaLit 
well, that’s a sad state of affairs. Analogy with the American Civil War and the power of myth making stacks up. Keep kicking against the pricks, Bruce.
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