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Show liiursaay, June H, KUNMING, China (AP) Yunnan province's 24, colorful minorities are a public relations boon for Beijing, but the picture-postcar- d image of ethnic groups happily dancing and singing is often a facade. Many minorities face grinding the superior attitude of Han Chinese. "They look down on us; that's wrong," said Xuan Ke, an intellectual of the Nakhi minority group in northern Yunnan. He said Han Chinese insult minority people by refusing to eat the local food, complaining of lack of hygiene and criticizing them for not bathing. Still, Shen said, "we have fewer minority problems than the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe because, historically, we have been a multin-ationali- People's Congress. Even in remote Lijiang, reachable only by a bumpy two-da- y bus ride across mountains, several Nak-h- i (Naxi in Chinese) people say, "We are Chinese first, then Nakhi." "Yunnan's minority issues are d the in China," said Shen Qirong, director of culture and education for Yunnan's Nationalities Affairs Commission. "Here, we are like a family." "We have conflicts and arguments, but that's inevitable," he said, adding that most of the disputes were territorial. Shen said none of Yunnan's mi40 percent of all those in norities China ever had demanded independence. He acknowledged the ethnic groups in Yunnan did not like the idea of being under Chinese rule, but he said they did not have specific complaints. Many minority people say what they dislike is, as they describe it, best-handle- poverty, illiteracy and isolation. Some find their cultural existence threatened by years of forced assimilation by the surrounding Han Chinese. The minorities in this remote, mountainous province of southwest China give the government litt'e trouble compared to Tibetans and the Moslem minorities of Xinjiang, who have demonstrated violently for independence. An old Sanyi woman selling bags, seat covers and aprons in Kunming, the provincial smile capital, flashed a and proudly told a visitor she belonged to the Chinese Communist Party and had served in the local gap-tooth- ty country." Nearly 50 percent of the Soviet Union's population is compared to less than 8 percent in China. Many minority people, especially in Yunnan, were assimilated into Chinese culture long ago. Tibetans have been rebellious, battling Chinese security forces in protests for independence. On May l, the Chinese lifted martial law in Lhasa, capital of Tibet, after more non-Russi- than a year. In Xinjiang province, home to 7.3 million Huis, 6 million Uygurs and TIO several other Moslem ethnic groups, the latest violence occurred in April, when at least 22 people were killed in the suppression of a Moslem Khirgiz "holy war" for independence. Yunnan has major advantages over other parts of China in dealing with its minorities. The ethnic groups are comparatfcrely small, ranging from 4,000 Dutongs to 3.6 million Bais. They also are scattered in an area the size of California, separated from each other by rivers and mountains. Instead of dealing with ethnic .11 Mf-.'.'J-- rage ca iHt-- HERALD, Provo, Utah, laaO I ! 'J' i disturbances, the government of Yunnan issues propaganda brochures that show beaming girls in colorful traditional garb, women with odd headdresses working in the fields or markets, and entire counties turning out for exotic festivals. During the 1966-7- 6 Cultural Revolution, minorities were persecuted and forced to give up their traditions, dress and language. In recent years, China has generally allowed minorities to resume their old patterns of life, speak their own languages and wear traditional clothing. In Dali, women of the Bai minority wrap colorful strips of cloth around their heads, wear bright red or pink aprons and carry their babies in elaborately embroidered cloth boards on their backs. Planeloads of tourists fly to in south Yunnan every festispring for the val, when the Dai people start their new year by dousing everything that moves with buckets of water. The government gives minorities preferential treatment, including special food and lower minimum scores on college entrance exams. Minority couples are allowed to have two children, Chinese couples only one. water-splashi- AP Laserphoto Two elderly Nakhi women find a spot to gossip in Lijiang, China. VlCTORINOX The Original Swiss Army Knife AP Laserphoto Xuan Ke explains the history of traditional Nakhi music during a recent concert in Lijiang, China. Musician crusades for his culture - Yangtze River. They had a matriarchal society in ancient times. Property belonged to the woman and there was no marriage. Women took lovers, who visited only at night, and children never knew their fathers. Only one group of Nakhis in a Xuan LIJIANG, China (AP) Ke is a crusader trying to save the culture of his Nakhi people from being swallowed by the Chinese. Xuan, a musician by training and high school English teacher by trade, is an impassioned man who is convinced he will fail. "This is a culture that's going to die out," he said bluntly in English. "The Han (Chinese) love that." For two years, Xuan and his orchestra including four musicians in their 80s and four in have given concerts of their 70s traditional Nakhi music for foreign tourists. t) "It's not for the admission fee that we do this; it's for the preservation of our traditional culture and arts," he explains at the start of each concert. The orchestra has performed 79 times for a total of 3,900 people from 31 countries. The musicians are giving lessons to 22 young people in an attempt to preserve music once passed from father to son. Nakhi people, Naxi in Chinese, have lived for 2,020 years in this lovely valley of northern Yunnan province near the first bend of the with jokes, often Xuan was imprisoned for 20 years for criticizing the government during the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1957, when intellectuals were encouraged to speak out. Since returning to Lijiang in 1978, he has used whatever means available to preserve the culture. He spent five years translating from English to Chinese a book by a Russian adventurer who lived in Lijiang for nearly a decade before the communists gained power in remote mountain basin remains matriarchical, but even among other Nakhis, older women dressed in traditional lambskin capes and blue aprons still have more authority. According to Nakhi history books, the Han Chinese arrived in Lijiang in 1428, when millions of soldiers were sent out to border areas. Only 250,000 Nakhis remain, making up 52 percent of Lijiang's population. Their way of living has become similar to the Chinese, and about half the Nakhi language now is Chinese. "But ... inside our hearts ... runs a kind of special blood," Xuan said. The champion of Nakhi culture is 60, a refined man with a dark, d glasses square face, and a quick laugh. He can talk for hours about his music, his life and his people, filling up an ashtray with cigarette butts. His stories are punctuated (85-cen- FRSS5 reg. $80 COUPON (Mod.ltnown) Sale 66.98 BOOKLET OFFER CUTLERY Look for it in the Creamette cookbook CORNER in today's CLASSIC reg. $18 Sale TINKER reg. $23 Sale SUPER TINKER reg. $36 Sale At the corner of Gallery 28, University Mall ZCMI 14.98 19.48 29.98 1JL 225-947- 1 paper 1949. Three years ago, Xuan started an experimental class, using the Nakhi THE FREEDOM FESTIVAL AND WILS0NW00D language rather than Mandarin Chinese to teach English. 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