But many young people drink alcohol and dress as fashionably as do their Han Chinese counterparts.
In 2009 almost 200 people - mostly Han Chinese - were killed in deadly rioting.
Figures alone might suggest that Mr Zhang (a hardline Han Chinese) is making headway.
It extends well into areas of the city where ethnic Han Chinese form the majority.
Yet Uighurs worry that any wealth that comes Xinjiang's way will be grabbed by Han Chinese.
Many Han Chinese complain that the government has not done enough to keep them informed.
In Xinjiang as a whole, Uighurs and other minorities are now outnumbered by Han Chinese.
Many Han Chinese say they no longer dare go into Uighur areas or eat in Uighur restaurants.
But since the communists triumphed in 1949, the grip of the Han Chinese has tightened ever further.
Since 1949, the Han Chinese have grown from 5% to 38% of the population of about 18m.
China wrongly blamed him for the ferocious ethnic attacks on Han Chinese in riots in Lhasa, in 2008.
State media reports said most of the workers were ethnic Han Chinese, with two reported to be ethnic Tibetans.
China, meanwhile, is warier of external influences, and remains about 90% Han Chinese.
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The violence in Xinjiang was crude, racist stuff on both sides, with the Han Chinese suffering the brunt of it.
For both the Uighurs and the Tibetans, economic development has been inseparable from immigration by ethnic-Han Chinese, 92% of China's population.
They are less likely to advance in the civil service, and many feel that Han Chinese do better in business too.
In these crowds, the Han Chinese stood out not so much for their lack of swagger as for the lack of a decent hat.
Uighurs make up about 45% of the region's population, but say an influx of Han Chinese residents has marginalised their traditional culture.
The Han Chinese are the country's dominant ethnic group, and the Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority who consider Xinjiang their homeland.
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Service industries produce more than half of Tibet's GDP and Han Chinese are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of the growth.
For most Chinese observers, what happened was an outburst of vicious racist thuggery directed at ethnic Han Chinese in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
During the night, a lorry driven by an ethnic Han Chinese driver hit one of the herders, called Mergen (single-named, like many Mongols).
This is the latest crisis plaguing Xinjiang province and its capital city of Urumqi, where tensions have boiled over between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.
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On February 19th a crowd reportedly set fire to police vehicles in Nagqu after a fight between a Tibetan and a Han Chinese taxi driver.
More than half its people are Han Chinese, but the area is home to more than 40 different ethnic groupings, including Tibetans, Hui and Mongols.
The doctor said the Han Chinese are trying to defend themselves.
So there is this very visceral anger among many Han Chinese.
Sure enough, ethnic-Han Chinese, many of them recent migrants hoping to profit from a train-related tourism boom, were the main targets of the violence in Lhasa.
But as a result of inward migration over past decades, that number is now almost matched by residents from the Han Chinese majority, our correspondent adds.
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