Recently, I talked about the subtle, yet profound, differences that distinguish Hui and Han ethnicities. I also talked a lot about how these are often not binary distinctions of Hui/Not Hui of Han/Not Han that are separated by clear, brightly drawn lines. Instead, the boundary lines between what counts as Han and what counts as Hui are usually blurry. Sometimes they're completely unintelligible. Where the line often gets drawn most clearly, however, are in matters related to eating. Diet and food, the most mundane things, are often the most significant divider between Han and Hui.
To get a good sense of this requires an undestanding of a single Chinese word: 清真, or, qingzhen. Pinning down a specific meaning for qingzhen is problematic, an issue of incompatiblity between three languages: Chinese, English, and Arabic. In the most literal and simple terms, qingzhen is "pure and true". It often denotes things which are Islamic, like mosque (清真寺, qingzhensi, or literally, "qingzhen temple"), or sometimes even Islam itself (which I've heard referred to as, "清真教," qingzhenjiao, "qingzhen teaching/faith" on occasion). Frequently, the word is taken as the Chinese equivalent of the Arabic word, halal, (for those of you not familiar with Islam, it's a set of food preparation rules and standards, basically like kosher). And for the most part, that's a pretty useful translation (though some scholars like Dru C. Gladney are quick to argue that they think qingzhen encompasses much more than a simple set of dietary regulations and describe a particularly Chinese understanding of what Islamic faith is about. That, however is for another entry). Unsurpringly, the word crops up frequently around food that is served in Muslim-run restaurants. The cuisine of China's Islamic communities is qingzhencai (清真菜). These restaurants are ubiquitous throughout China, and due to successful ethnic branding, they are immediately recognizable. The signs not only contain the characters qingzhen, but are usually made in such a way to prominently display their Islamic character. Usually, this means that signs are green, or use green font. Frequently, the signs display some form of Arabic script (most often the word "halal"), and some other iconography associated with Islam: crescent moons, Arabesque domes in silhouette, or intricate geographic patterns like the ones on the ceiling domes of mosques (not unlike the one that makes up the background image of this site, taken at a mosque in Najiahu). Below are some examples:
In fact, qingzhen restaurants are common enough throughout China that Dianping, China's equivalent of Yelp! includes this rather nebulous category of restaurant along with others like "Hotpot," "Sichuanese," "Xinjiang," "Western Food," "Cafes," and "HongKong/Cantonese" as a search filter on its mobile app. And indeed, food is the primary way in which most Han Chinese interact with Hui culture. Take, for example, the Han couple I met while at lunch near the NiuJie Mosque on Friday afternoon. I shared a small table with the couple, in their 50s, at a crowded restuarant selling "qingzhen tese xiao chi" (清真特色小吃, or Islamic Specialty Snacks). As we ate, I asked them what had brought them to Niu Jie from their northern suburb of Beijing, almost an hour an a half away. The husband responded, that they had come to buy "Spiced Beef" (酱牛肉), a specialty associated with the Hui. "And shao bing (烧饼，a kind of flaky, round, oven baked bread made with sesame seeds)," his wife interjected, "Niujie has really famous shaobing." An hour and a half seemed a long commute for grocery shopping. I asked the couple about what made them want to come so far. "But, it's so far from your home," I began, "why come so far for meat?" "The people who live here on Niujie are all Muslim," the man explained. "They eat a lot of beef and mutton. So the beef and mutton here is very tasty (好吃) and safe to eat (保证)." And there was the answer: the reputation of qingzhen meat as not only more flavorful than other meats, but also more "pure," or more "clean" due to the rigors of Islamic dietary codes. "But it's so expensive!" he grumbled. "Nearly 70 kuai per jin! (the equivalent about of $11/half of a kilo)." Despite his protests, however, a large shopping bag full of meat sat beside him on the table.
The demaraction of Hui culture with food isn't isolated to NiuJie. In my former Chinese hometown of Jinan, as in much of China, Hui areas are associated with Chinese-style barbecue, or shaokao (烧烤). And for good reason: the Hui Quarter (回民小区) is lined with restaurant after restaurant selling lamb kebabs (羊肉串儿，yangrou chuan'r), shaved mutton hotpot (涮羊肉, shuan yangrou), and hand pulled beef noodle soup (牛肉拉面, niurou lamian). Cab drivers use this fact as a means of verifying where they need to go: "The Hui Quarter? You want to go eat yang rou chaun'r and drink beer, right?" (回民区? 你想去吃羊肉串儿喝啤酒，是吧?). For most Jinan cabbies, and indeed many Jinanese, the Hui Quarter is synonymous with barbecue. Despite the prominence of the neighborhood's Great Southern Mosque, one of the larger, older and more famous in Eastern China, the neighborhood remains centered around its reputation as the best place in town to enjoy some lamb and beer with your buddies after work. Which points to the centrality of food in providing a space where Han Chinese can have some interaction with Hui culture. It also points to a potential problem: such interaction may lead all too quickly to oversimplification or caricature.
Next to the Islamic supermarket on NiuJie, a large, ornately decorated tea shop adverstises qingzhen tea. When I notice this, I am taken aback, simply because I assumed that tea, unlike certain meat or dairy products, was qingzhen by default. Curious, I wander into the shop. The woman behind the counter wears a white prayer hat (a garment most frequently associated with men's dress), and says she is, herself, Hui. I ask her what exactly it means to have qingzhen tea. "I didn't know that tea could possibly be not qingzhen," I begin. "What's the difference between qingzhen tea, and regular tea?" She ponders my question for a second. "It has to do with how the tea is grown," she explains. "Down in Fujian, where the tea is grown, lots of a people of all nationalities, including Han and Hui, grow tea. But the Han, when they go home, they don't eat qingzhen diets, and they do things that are not qingzhen. So the tea is exposed to things that are not qingzhen. The Hui eat qingzhen food, and so their tea is grown in a way that is qing zhen." I press the issue further. "But what about the taste? Does qingzhen tea taste different?" She responds, "Qingzhen tea is very nong (浓, concentrated or intense)" she says. "What does that mean?" I ask. "It's very bitter (苦，ku)" she answers. "Why is that?" I ask, skeptically, "I've never heard of this before." She pauses for a moment. "Well, the Hui, they're Muslims, right?" she begins. "And they mostly like to eat beef and mutton. So they prefer a tea that is more nong, to go with it." I remain unconvinced. Later, when in the primarily Hui suburb of Changying to the east of the city, I see another tea shop, and stop in to inquire about qingzhen tea. The owner, upon hearing my question, offers a fairly similar explanation about what makes qingzhen tea. "The people who grow this tea in Yunnan are all Muslims," he says. "Because they live qingzhen lifestyles, we say that the tea is qingzhen." However, when I ask about taste, he offers a very different explanation. "There is aboslutely no difference whatsoever (没有任何差别) in taste between qingzhen and normal tea." "Really?" I ask. "None at all." He waves his arms emphatically at the strip of qingzhen restaurants up the street and says, "It's like those restaurants that serve qingzhen food. Some of the waitresses there are certainly not Muslims (并不是穆斯林). But that doesn't change how the food tastes. What does what they believe have to do with how the food tastes? It's the how its prepared that matters." And such standards are not only important to his Hui customers, he says. "I have some Han who buy tea from me as well," he says. "Some Han choose to eat Hui food because they know that can count on it to be clean and of high quality."
Through descriptions like these of qing zhen, some important aspects of what Han Chinese (and also many Hui) percieve Hui culture to be about become apparent. Hui follow strict dietary codes, so Hui food is safe. This also means that Hui food is clean. And it means that Hui food is associated with a certain level of quality. And this quality carries the connotation of superior taste. However, these kinds of statements also illustrate a problem. While qingzhen dining provides a useful shorthand for many Han in defining Hui culture, it also may overly simplify or caricaturize it. Eating at a Hui restaurant ma provide a way for Han to gain some understanding of what Hui identity is all about, but these interactions may be no more than superficial. By making qingzhen a primary avatar of Hui culture, and by assigning that avatar to food and food culture, Hui culture becomes almost unidimensional. In this view the Hui are just Chinese who don't eat pork. Missing from this view are the significant cultural and religious traditions that inform and underlie WHY the Hui don't eat pork. Or perhaps worse, the reduction of qingzhen cai to represent all of Hui culture may lead to misinformation spreading in regard to what it means to be Hui, or what qingzhen is about. Like qingzhen tea having a different flavor from regular tea, for instance.
In some senses, the tea merchant's assesment in Changying is correct. One's belief has almost no impact on how food will taste. That is the result of cooking skills, technique, seasoning, etc. And he's correct that qingzhen lies in how food is prepared. However, in another sense, his explanation doesn't address the religious and cultural imperatives that give qingzhen meaning in the first place. Such explanation may provide a simple explanation of how Han and Hui differ. They may allow for the blurry line that separates the groups to appear sharper, brighter, more focused. Or it may result in a misunderstanding of why the line exists in the first place, and that there are more things at stake than mere matters of diet.