As the cab driver slowed down, and pulled over to the side of the one-lane road, I understood immediately what was going on. We were lost. I had been anticipating this eventuality from the moment that I jumped in the cab, beginning the journey out to the far western edge of the city. Then, while still in the recognizable streets of urban Jinan, I had felt a bit of unease when the cab driver that he "more or less" recognized the address of the village that I showed him. Half an hour later, after driving out past Jinan West Railway Station and onto the outbound highway, when he asked if he could see the address again, I knew that eventually, I would find myself here, past the edge of the city, without a clue about where to go. Presently, the driver slipped out of the car, and ran over to two women sitting on low stools outside of a convenience store alongside the road. The trio animatedly discussed the whereabouts with lots of arm waving and gesturing. In a few moments, the driver returned.
"It's three more kilometers down the road!" He said. "Your friend's text said it was only four kilometers outside of town. No wonder I couldn't recognize the place!" he added smiling.
"Ok." I responded, not feeling anywhere near as confident as he did.
We sped on down the narrow, straight road, passing fields of what looked like wheat being harvested and bundled by farm crews. After a few moments, the driver pulled the car to a halt outside what looked like a construction site in the middle of nowhere.
"You're here. This is it." He said.
Out the window, I could see a man standing around at the construction site waving at me. This, I knew, was my contact. And so I got out of the car and, nervously, strode out into the countryside.
***
One of the surprising things about urban China is how truly rural parts of it are. Often, the administrative jurisdiction of a city includes several county-level territories. Most of these areas are small, predominantly agrarian communities. Jinan is no exception. Within the territory encompassed by "Jinan City" are 6 county level districts in addition to the four core city-level subdivisions. Even these four city level districts reach far out into rural communities. The village of Xi Zhangjiazhuang, which I visited recently, sits alongside the banks of the Yellow River, fully 18 km to the northwest of Jinan's Quancheng Square, which marks the physical center of the city. However, this small community still falls under the jurisdiction of Huaiying Qu (槐荫区), one of the city's core "urban" districts. For reference, here's a map:
The red marker indicates the location of the village. As the map suggests, it's well outside of the concentrated city center. Yet, administratively, it's still considered part of the 'core' of urban Jinan. The point here, in short, is that Jinan, like many Chinese cities, is massive, and includes territory that otherwise might not seem urban. Telling the story of urbanization in places like Jinan requires a look at how even remote places like Xi Zhangjiazhuang Village experience the process of urban change.
***
Driving down the lane toward Xi Zhangjiazhuang Village in the passenger seat of brand new LandRover, I watched the countryside speed by out the window. My contact, a middle-aged Hui engineer on a construction crew politely told me about the village.
"I'll drive you into the village, and you can have a look at our mosque," he told me when I first climbed into his car. "Pretty much the whole village is Hui, so you'll be able to see what Islam is like out here in a small farming village."
After a few minutes of driving, he turned off the main road, and onto a side-lane, fronted by a large, wrought-iron arch.
"Here we are," he declared, and then asked, "Can you read the characters on the gate?"
I squinted in the mid-afternoon sunlight. The gate was made of elaborately patterned wrought-iron in Arabesque forms. In the middle of an arch, which resembled the dome of a mosque, the village's name was emblazoned in script, calligraphic characters. Below, across the lintel of the gate, ornate Arbaic script traced out a single word.
"I can read the Chinese," I replied, "but not the Arabic."
"That's the name of the village," he said. "Xi Zhangjiazhuang."
We drove forward. Soon, houses began to pop up on either side of the road. These relatively new-looking buildings were low, perhaps only two story buildings. They were boxy and concrete. Fairly ordinary looking, except for a few minor details: golden, flowing Arabic calligraphic script adorned the top frame of nearly every doorway in the village, and through the open front doorways I glimpsed painted tile murals of traditional Chinese landscape paintings with mountains, clouds, cranes, and willow trees.
"Most of the houses in the village look like this," my contact said, as we drove on towards the center.
"How many people live here?" I asked.
"In total 1,600," he replied.
"And they're all Hui?" I asked.
"I would say 95% of them are," he said. "We have a few Han living in the village. But even they've adopted a lot of Hui customs."
Curious, I pressed further. "Like what?" I asked.
"Like not eating pork," he answered. "And their funerals. They bury their dead like we Hui do instead of cremating them."
Intrigued, I gazed out the window as the car continued to down the village lane.
***
During many of my interviews in Jinan, I've been urged to check out Hui communities in the countryside. The reasoning usually has to do with some level of traditionalism that long since faded away in Jinan's city center. A common response to my questions from respondents living within urban Jinan is that the Hui community here has "被汉化" (been Han-ified). One respondent likened the attempts to revive certain cultural practices to Chinese dumplings: "他们有皮儿但是他们没有馅儿." They have the wrapper, but lack filling. All form, no substance. Others have told me that they simply don't know that much about being Muslim, or what it means to be Hui. As a contrast, the rural suburbs are offered up as a place where Islamic or Hui tradition is more "浓," or deeply held. This kind of nostalgia about rural Hui communities, paired with an expression of assimilation and loss of distinctiveness in the city led me to think that checking out what was happening in the country might be worthwhile. So, I made some phonecalls, made some arrangements, and I went.
***
Finally, the car drove up a small rise, and the village mosque came into view: a pair of green domes with crescent moon spires, atop a white tile building. As we neared the top of the rise, a familiar sight appeared in front of the building. Standing in life-size white ceramic statuary in front of the mosque and overlooking the village was Mao Zedong. Behind him, his most famous quotation, in glided lettering in his own calligraphic hand: "Serve The People" (为人民服务).
Inside the mosque courtyard, late afternoon sunlight pored in over the roof of the building, casting its twin domed minaret in stark relief. I strolled through the courtyard, taking it in. Pasted on the wall in faded, red paper, handwritten signs promoted patriotic slogans:
"All Muslims Must Love Their Country, and Their Faith."
"Loving one's country is part of faith."
After a short moment, my contact called me over. "I just spoke to the Ahong (阿訇. imam)." he said. "He can give you a tour of the place, and tell you more about the vilage. But he's a little busy at the moment. We can wait for him over there," he said motioning to the building next door. As we walked over, a middle-aged woman walked up and greeted us. "This," my contact explained "is our village's leader." Greeting her, we continued to walk to the building next door, a two story building, non-descript in appearance. As I climbed outdoor staircase to the second floor, my contact informed me, "This is the office of the local party. We can wait for the Ahong here." We shuffled into a meeting room which contained a conference table. From the back wall, the watchful eyes of the every Chinese leader since the founding of the People's Republic looked out at me. Here, under the gaze of the Great Helmsman, himself, I sat, and, while drinking tea with the local party secretary and my contact, patiently waited.
After about half an hour, the party secretary excused herself. She had matters to attend to. My contact, perhaps fearing I would grow bored of waiting, led me to a small storage room down the hall. On the wall, images of community life adorned the small room: Members of the village performing New Year festivities; The Ahong leading the community in ceremonies to celebrate the end of Ramadan. He pointed to a picture of a small, old looking building with a sagging roof. "This," he said "is what the old mosque looked like. Before we built the new one."
Turning around, he gestured to a shelving unit full of colorful items: masks, costumes, drums, and lanterns in bright reds, yellows, blues, and greens.
"These are the costumes for our New Year's Lion Dance," he explained. "It's the most important part of the village's New Year celebrations." Images on the wall of young men dressed in the bright costumes attest to this fact. The lion dance was a tradition that was kept with pride in the community. A cherished local custom.
My contact pointed to another row of items. "And there are also the lanterns we light for Lantern Festival at the end of Spring Festival. They're also very important. These are our most important local customs."
I pondered this for a moment. The village was 95% Hui, and yet, the most important traditions were all secular holidays.
We returned to the conference room. After a few minutes, the Ahong arrived, breathless, and perspiring, as if he might have run up the steps. After shaking my hand and greeting me emphatically (when I returned his 'asalaamu alykum' with the proper Arabic 'w'alykum as-salaam,' he noted with suprise "Oh! Your pronunciation is so clear!"), he took a paper cup of green tea and sat down next to me at the table, catching his breath. He tells me that he has been an Ahong both here in the countryside and in Jinan proper.
"What is the difference between working in the city, and in farming villages like this?" I asked him.
"The differences are huge!" he replied. "Peoples lives here are simpler. I can go out my door here and know who my neighbors are. I could never do that in the city!"
As we continued to chat, I asked him about Hui culture in the village:
"Are there differences in religious belief between people in the city and the villagers here?" I asked him.
"There more government policies concerning ethnic minorities and religion in the city. Here there are not as many," he said. "But the basic belief system in the country and in the city is the same: Love your country, Love your faith."
"Are people here in the village able to read and speak Qur'anic Arabic?" I asked him.
"No," he replied. "It's not like out in Northwest-- in Ningxia and Gansu-- where people learn to read the Qur'an from their childhood. People here may not be as educated as they are in those places, but their faith is very strong."
Our conversation drew to a close. The Ahong and I snapped a few pictures in front of the mosque. I climbed back into the LandRover, and my contact drove me back towards Jinan. As we rode out of the village, back towards the edge of the city, a large amusement park complex came into view. Roller coasters, water slides, and Ferris wheels rose up in the distance behind a large parking lot. My contact gestured at the park.
"That's new," he said. "It just opened. Some rich bussinessman from Shenzhen built it."
Seizing on the moment, I asked "Has much changed in the village over the last 20 years?" Surely, I thought, change works on a smaller scale out here. What would be so different in such a small, distant place?
"There have been so many changes," he said, much to my surprise. "When I was young, all of the houses were built with mud-brick. Back then, having a bicycle was rare! Everyone wanted to own a bike. Now everyone drives cars. And Jinan has developed, too. The city just keep pushing out farther to the west."
Indeed, the city was coming out to meet the village. The theme park. The highway. All of them extended further and further into the countryside, bringing changes along with them.
***
Rural development follows a very different pace than the kind of urban renewal that commonly occurs in the city. While development in the city may involve repurposing space (e.g. building shopping malls and highways where neighborhoods once stood), rural development often involves the expansion of the city. Often, in these cases, farmer's fields become the site of new towers or housing developments. Jinan bears marks of this kind of rapid expansion into the suburbs. While talking with an interviewee on the west end of the city, in a neighborhood that now sits adjacent to the west train station, I asked what the last ten to twenty years of development had meant for the suburbs of the city. The respondent, who grew up in this part of town said, "About 15 years ago, there wasn't anything out here at all. No houses, no stores, nothing. Now it's all tower apartment buildings." Elsewhere in China, like in the Yinchuan suburb of Najiahu, once rural communities find themselves encircled by urban sprawl. While visiting Najiahu, I asked my friend, and impromptu tour guide what had previously stood on the site of a large culutral theme park at the center of the village. "This all used to be farmers' fields" she said.
China's shift from a majority rural to majority urban society happened rapidly. In the span of only 35 years, China urbanized at blinding speed. Cities became engorged. Construction boomed. The transitions were mind-boggling. There isn't much sign of this transition slowing down, as Jinan continues to build. The changes in these spaces of "urban countryside" are sure to be enormous in the coming years, as the push to expand cities continues. For now, though, places like Xi Zhangjiazhuang Village remain a quirk of administrative geography: pockets of countryside in urban China.