First thing's first: I should explain what I'm doing, and where I'll be in China. I'm a fan of maps, and the one below makes this a much easier question to answer:
As you can see in the map above, even though my home base will at my sponsor university in Beijing, I'll be spending most of my time, and doing most of my research in three locations.
Jinan in Shandong Province:
The suburb of Najiahu, near the city of Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (seen here from the 11th story of an Song Dynasty Pagoda):
And Xining in Qinghai Province:
Why these three cities? As you can see from the map, Xining and Najiahu lie out in China's peripheral western region. Much like many Americans fantasized about the "Wild West" in the 19th century, many Chinese regard these western provinces as a kind of "fronteir". Save for Jinan, a city whose culture is very traditionally Chinese, these cities historically sat on the edges of the Chinese world. In 2000, the central government undertook a massive economic and development program called the "Develop the West Campaign" (that's 西部大开发, or xibudakaifa for those of you following along in Mandarin). In recent years, the campaign funded massive building projects: dams, highways, railroads, bridges, shopping centers. For this reason, these western cities are ideal places to watch China's new urban renewal unfold. Furthermore, all of these cities are home to vibrant, longstanding ethnic Hui communities (more on them later). Over the next few days, as I wait for departure, I'll do a feature post on each of these cities, to describe them each in depth. Stay tuned.