Comparative Study Of Art, Beliefs, And Customs On China’s Ethnic Minority Of Hui And Uyghur

Cultural understanding matters in china not only there is a large gap between the majority and the minorities, but also among the minorities. Taking place as the first and the second largest Muslim groups, the Hue and the Uyghur are having much dissimilarity in their cultural aspects of life, especially in art, beliefs, and customs.The Hui people, numbering9.8million concentrated in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, are greatly influenced by Han in art and daily customs. Meanwhile, the Uyghur, with8.4of total populations, their cultural life styles are mostly central Asian. The aspects of daily life between the groups are different, though they have the same belief. The purpose of the study is to explore these differences between and to explain the reason caused these diversities.Uyghur ancestors was the Huns-Turkeys, meanwhile, the ancestors of the Hui is Arab, Persian and Han nationalities, the Hui was generated from these nationalities intermarriage. From the national history and the national ingredients, the two nationalities are not blood relations. The similarities of the two nationalities are only based on common religion. From the appearance, Uyghur belongs to European race, the Hui lives in mainland and the looks more tend to ethnic Han. In the dress, the Hui’s traditional is orthodox Arab clothing, wore a white turban. In general, men wear a long gown and women wear coverage. There are many patterns in Uyghur dress. Women like to wear skirt with complex patterns and gorgeous colors. Men wear a kind of gown named "“祫袢”(qia pan)". Uyghur people like to wear all sorts of embroidery caps. Uygur and Hui nationality is different in language also. Uygur language belongs to the Altaic language and Turkic branch, however, Hui use Chinese. Even in religious terms, some Islamic vocabulary, Uyghur use Persian and Hui use Arabic. For example, Hui call god "Allah" and Uyghur call "HuDa". In the festivals, Uygur pay attention to the "Corban Festival", Hui pay more attention to the "Id al Fitr".Because of the different national origin, there are cultural and social differences between Uyghur and Hui nationalities. However, because the both nationalities have exchanged with Han nationality for long term, both are similarities in social and cultural aspects. To this, the author expounded from the cultural assimilation and acculturation in the paper.In order to understand deeply the differences and similarities between Uyghur and Hui nationalities and to interpret the diversities, the author had carried fieldworks in Xinjiang and Ningxia. This study contributes to present an accurate foundation to those who seeking deeper research on Hui and Uyghur’s culture in the future.