When gymnast and entrepreneur Li Ning capped off the opening 4 hour Olympic opening spectacular by moonwalking around the top of the bird's nest, torch in hand, few foreigners watching knew that he was a member of China's most populous ethnic minority. Claiming all Chinese look alike is a bad racist joke but since 92% of mainland Chinese are Han – some 1.2 plus billion people – it's easy to forget that China is not a completely homogenous country. China is home to 55 ethnic minorities, the biggest minority is the Zhuang, 15 or 16 million of whom live in southern China's  Guangxi province.

While the Zhuang (壮族 | Zhuàngzú) population is almost that of Australia, in China 15 million is merely the size of a big city. Because the one child policy doesn't apply to minorities they are growing at a faster rate than the Han population but their numbers will always pale compared to the billion plus Han. Nonetheless, China's ethnic minorities have been instrumental in China's evolution.

The Zhuang descend from the Tai people, an umbrella ethnic group whose constituents stretch from Eastern India through Hainan and down through Thailand and Laos. The Tai came to China 5,000 years ago and split – the Zhuang went to Guangxi while other Tai groups headed to Yunnan. They didn't exactly come for the rivers but they developed an irrigation system that allowed them to efficiently grow rice.

Recorded Zhuang history begins in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (475-221 BC), around the time the Han conquered eastern Guangxi and built the Lingqu canal. For the next several hundred years friction persisted betweent he Zhuang and the Yao groups that had moved into the region but generally the Han and Zhuang stayed out of each others way.

Then the area was annexed by the Song Dynasty in 971 AD. After 80 years of more aggressive Han government and continued fighting with the Yao something had to give. Nong Zhigao led a revolt against the Han government and established an independent kingdom. The Han snapped back, crushing the revolt, and the Song rule became much more brutal. The oppression also had the effect of clearly defining the Zhuang as an separate culture.

The leaders of the new Yuan dynasty didn't know what to do with the region they'd inherited control over. Miao minority people flowed from other parts of southern China into Guangxi further complicating the existing Zhuang-Yao problems as Zhuang relations with the ruling Chinese authorities disintegrated. 

The Ming (1368-1644) armed the Zhuang to wipe out the Yao and when this was accomplished they then turned the armies on the Zhuang themselves. There was a lot of bloodstained ground – some battles claimed up to 20,000 dead – but the larger urban areas prospered under Ming rule.

For the first eighty years of the Qing Dynasty the region remained in chaos until 1726 when direct rule was imposed. Still, in 1831 the Yao revolted and in 1850 the Taiping Rebellion broke out nearby. The Second Opium War followed just a few years later and the Franco-Chinese War in 1885 gave the French control over nearby Vietnam and complicated the situation even further.

Guangxi partook in Sun Yat-sen's revolution but the Zhuang involvement turned into open revolt in 1927. The Zhuang self-governed for the next two years, doing much to modernize Guangxi during that time, but were crushed by Chiang Kai-shek in 1929. Chiang failed to put Guangxi under direct rule and the region remained chaotic until 1950. Wide dislike of the Kuomintang caused Guangxi to rise up in support of the Communists.

Guangxi suffered Japanese attacks throughout WWII and repelled a major offensive that sought to take control of western Guangxi. Zhuang guerillas fought with Chinese forces to repel the attack.

Today the Zhuang live mostly in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region speaking their own language and using a writing system that has evolved from logograms to Chinese characters into it's current romanized form. The Zhuang celebrate many of the same festivals as Han but also have their own unique celebrations including Devil Festival, the Ox Soul Festival, and a Singing Festival.

Education has improved, from just three colleges in the region in 1950 to more than 20 today. Medical facilities have advanced as agriculture and farming have brought more wealth to the region.

While the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region still lags behind many other provinces the Zhuang have survived to become the biggest ethnic minority in China and have managed to maintain good relations with the mostly Han government and preserved their unique culture as well.

When Li Ning soared around the Birds Nest he carried the torch for all of China. Like every country with a long and distinguished cultural history, China is struggling to modernize and preserve it's cultural heritage. Cultural tourism and assimilation are complicated and unavoidable issues in every culture. China is not as homogeneous a society as it may appear at first glance and the developments in minority law and protection, how the minorities and authorities balance tourism and economic success, will define how China honors and acknowledges it's past and impact it's evoluction in the coming century.

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