To know the ethnic groups, read their prose

Aydos Amantay, a young Kazak writer who grew up in Beijing, pulls the reader's heartstrings with his passionate confession about the loss of his cultural roots.

In his novella titled Loser, a university dropout returns to his hometown in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region as a temporary volunteer teacher. The students offer him buttered naan bread dipped in milk tea, then they sing folk songs, holding hands in a tight circle.

Still, the teacher finds it hard to get back to his cultural roots, just as it is hard for him to pick up Kazak, or for his students to learn Mandarin.