The Dungan people are a living time capsule of 19th-century Chinese culture
In short: Fleeing across the Tian Shan mountains during a brutal winter in the 1870s, the Dungan people settled in Central Asia, where they preserved customs that have since vanished from China. Today, they remain a unique linguistic and cultural bridge, writing their Chinese-based language in the Cyrillic alphabet.
The Dungan are descendants of Hui Muslims who migrated from China to the Russian Empire following the collapse of a major 19th-century uprising against the Qing dynasty. During the exceptionally harsh winter of 1877 and 1878, three distinct groups of refugees crossed the Tian Shan mountains to escape the conflict. These groups settled in what is now Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with later waves of immigration occurring between 1881 and 1883 under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg.
Isolated from the rapid modernization of their homeland, the Dungan have maintained traditions that have largely disappeared from modern China. Their language, which they refer to as the Hui language, is closely related to the Zhongyuan dialect of Mandarin but is uniquely written using the Cyrillic script. They continue to observe 19th-century marriage customs, including the use of matchmakers, and until 1948, they practiced foot binding. Their cuisine remains rooted in northwestern Chinese traditions, though adapted to halal requirements, and they continue to use chopsticks in daily life.
The Dungan identity is a complex blend of Chinese heritage and Central Asian reality. While they identify as Hui, the term Dungan itself is of obscure origin, likely borrowed from Turkic languages. Today, the Dungan population is estimated at about 110,000. They serve as vital cultural and economic intermediaries between Central Asia and the Chinese world, though they have occasionally faced ethnic tensions, such as the 2020 conflict in Kazakhstan's Korday region that resulted in casualties and displacement.
Despite their integration into the post-Soviet states, the Dungan remain distinct. They are largely multilingual, with most speaking Russian in addition to their native tongue. Their social structure has historically emphasized strong parental authority and conservative marriage practices, with some subgroups historically preferring to marry only within their own regional lineage. By preserving these archaic cultural markers, the Dungan offer a rare window into a version of Chinese life that has otherwise faded into history.
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