What changed
A major cultural program about the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps’ intangible heritage aired on 2 October 2026. Produced jointly by China Media Group and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Shihezi episode featured host Long Yang and guests Shan Jixiang and Guo Tao exploring drum art, Qin opera, Uyghur pottery, enamel painting, cold skin noodles and flower buns.
Why it matters
The episode’s central idea is practical, not decorative: Shihezi’s cultural life was assembled from many places and then reshaped by local work, materials and daily habits.
Military-reclamation drum art turns farm tools and labour chants into percussion. Qin opera carries the memory of Shaanxi and Gansu settlers while absorbing modern and Uyghur musical elements. Potters use local clay alongside techniques and colours associated with Jingdezhen, Guangzhou and Foshan. Even cold skin noodles combine different regional cooking traditions.
That makes the program a portrait of cultural fusion built through repetition: people bring customs with them, adapt them to a new landscape, and pass on something changed. Its strongest images are also the simplest ones: a hoe becoming an instrument, a city rendered in thousands of strands of thread, and a meal adjusted over time to suit workers from many backgrounds.
The broadcast presents this blending as evidence of shared cultural life across the city. Its audience size, commercial impact and wider effects remain unclear.
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