Henan Hui Nationality In Xi'an: Its History And Present Situation

Most of the Henan Hui people were found immigrated to Xi'an duringthe first half of the 20th century. However, no enough academically attention has beenpaid. One reasonable explanation could be that we get so used to the Hui communityand its unique culture in Guanzhong area of Shaanxi province, which, instead, has madeus ignore them. For they have built up a wholesome mosque centered community, tounderstand the urban minorities better, some academic research based on that becomesnecessary and valuable.This thesis will take time as a clue with filed work to analysis the history and presentsituation of the Henan Hui immigrations by methods of ethnology, history and sociology.This paper focuses on the discussion of their community construction, economic andliving situation after the immigration.The first part of the thesis reviews the three periods of the immigration during thefirst half of the 20th century by analyzing some specific regional features formed onthese people. The second part which is also the core part of this paper, elaborates theformation and the development of the mosque centered Henan Hui migrationcommunity, and their economic, cultural activities, especially the construction of femalemosques and the affection on native Hui people by female education. The third partanalyses its social communication and their cultural identification by means of filedworks collection.Based on the above analysis, we can come to the following conclusion: 1: Shaanxiprovince was the main distributing center for the Henan Hui migrations. 2: Henan huiNationality had already established their regional community since the 1930s. 3:Henan Hui Nationality has constructed mosques for females which has its valuableaffection on native Hui people. 4: the original living pattern of urban Huicitizen--"widely dispersed individually concentrated communities" will be replaced byanother totally dispersed living pattern, which will as well weak the Islamic religionconsciousness of Hui people. How to remain the tradition culture of Hui has becomesa problem which needs an urgent solution.