If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll probably note that there are several oft-recurring themes that it hits on time and again. These well worn topics for posts reflect the patterns that I’ve noticed during my time in the field. As I head into the final month of my case study in Xining (and, thus, my final month in China!) I’ve begun to try and think about the things that have jumped out at me again and again over the course of the last year. One of them, without a doubt, is the significance of food production, and the role it plays in shaping the boundaries of Hui identity. It’s something that comes up time and again in my interviews and often provides some of the most clearly identifiable dividing lines between the majority Han and the Hui. While I’ve covered this subject a lot in my posts, lately a number of new and interesting aspects of it have cropped up. Most interestingly, these developments concern aspects of official regulation and promotion of standards for qingzhen, or halal, food.
As a recent article in the international relations focused journal, Foreign Policy, noted, food quality is a topic of growing importance in Chinese Muslim communities. The article focused on the China’s often uneven track record to produce halal foodstuffs of high quality. By comparison with Malaysia or Turkey—both of which are major exporters of halal products—China lags behind. The halal industry is, indeed, plagued by the same safety and quality concerns that linger over all of China’s domestic food industry. What is the solution to this problem?
The Islamic Food Production Association of Qinghai, headquartered in Xining, poses a solution: a universal standard for halal certification that can be applied throughout China. As I learned on a recent visit to the organization, Qinghai is spearheading the efforts to standardize Islamic food quality certification. When I arrived at the office, I met with a visiting consultant from Malaysia, who agreed to sit down and talk through the process with me. Citing Xiningi as, “the defacto Islamic capital of China,” he began to describe the impetus behind the project.
“China doesn’t have a national standard for halal certification. The communist party doesn’t work that way.” He continued to explain, “All of the associations are pretty well connected but there's no national standard. We want to create a standard and do some branding.”
When I asked what problems might arise from a lack of standardization, he got up from his seat, walked over to the front desk of the association’s office, and began digging around in a drawer.
“For instance, we found this in the supermarket the other day,” he explained, as he walked back over, carrying a tube of toothpaste covered in Arabic script. Handing it me to inspect, he continued, “This says it comes from the UAE, though I'm not sure which city. But if it really came from a middle eastern country it would have some kind of halal stamp on it. It would say so somewhere on the package. But, since this toothpaste doesn't have it, it probably was locally produced and it's never been certified.”
Gaps in certification occur throughout the country. In every city I’ve visited, interviewees tell me that they are greatly concerned about “fake” halal restaurants, run not by Hui or other Muslims, but instead by run and staffed by Han entrepreneurs looking to cash in on the high demand for halal food in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods like Jinan’s Hui Min Qu, or Xining’s ChengDong Qu.
The Qinghai Halal Food Production Association’s goal is to eliminate many of these concerns by implementing a replicable standard for halal certification which could be adopted nationwide. As the advisor suggested to me, “We want to create a standard that the whole country can follow. We want it to become a kind of brand that stands for halal.”
The Association hopes that the process—which is based on Malaysia’s halal certification process—becomes a brand that is so widely adopted that restaurants or companies that don’t have it will be seen as not being truly “halal”. In other words, the standard could be used to weed out impostor halal restaurants. Slowly, but surely, the Association hopes to become the ultimate source of authority on halal food. Ultimately, the goal is to have the process become so widely accepted that the Association can petition to have it become absorbed into national law. The timeline for the project is not short—the Association is optimistic that they can pull this off in ten years—but they feel it will ultimately be worth it to have a system that assures safe and standard dining options for Muslims nationwide.
As further proof that Qinghai is a leader in the halal food process, Xining has just concluded the 10th annual “Halal Food and Ethnic Products Exhibition”. The event, which is held at Xining’s Provincial Expo Center, showcases halal vendors from around the country, and the globe. Merchants from across China sells a variety of objects: dried fruit, powdered yak milk, halal ice-cream, silk carpets, hijabs, halal tea, and various packaged meat items (sausage, jerky, frozen food, etc.). However, the expo also stretches the definition of what can and should be considered either a halal foodstuff or an “ethnic product”. Alongside the yak meat jerky and the halal fruit and frozen meat products, I also saw stall for things that seemed completely unrelated to anything to do with halal food. One stall was selling knock-off Nike and Adidas athletic wear. Another was selling what appeared to be run-of-the-mill bathroom scales. At one stall, run by a small business from Shanghai, patrons could buy cutesy stationary and diary-style notebooks. I decided to press the owner a little about why they belonged at this fair.
“What are you selling that’s halal or an ‘ethnic product’?” I asked.
“We have postcards featuring pictures of world-famous mosques,” she replied.
“Is that it? Is there anything else?” I wondered aloud.
“We also have this envelope wax, and this seal,” she told me, as she produced a small circular seal with some Arabic on the underside.
“Oh,” I said “what does that say? Is it from the Qur’an?”
She admitted that she really didn’t know. The tangential connection to the “Halal” theme seemed to be enough. One of the vendors, who was selling halal ice-cream told me that the Expo actually had a fairly rigorous application process that vendors had to go through in order to get a stall. They had been lucky, she attested, because nobody else had applied to sell halal ice-cream.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the expo was in the enormous Section B of the hall, which contained the spaces reserved to showcase the provincial, domestic, and international halal vendors. This cavernous hall, which was roughly the size of an airplane hangar, held spaces for vendors from each of Qinghai’s administrative districts, at least 10 of China’s provinces, and 12 different international displays (11 of which represented countries, and one of which—in perhaps a moment of geographic/social ignorance simply read “Africa”). These exhibits provided a space for vendors to offer local (either provincial or national) specialties, as well as to show off the best each region/province/country had to offer.
But the most fascinating aspect of these displays, by far, were not the items being sold. Rather, the most interesting items at any of the displays were the messages that each delivered. The Qinghai displays often provided space for each prefecture to showcase an ongoing development project in the area. The Haidong Prefecture stall contained a scale model and artist’s rendering of a brand new development park under construction in the prefectural capital city. Datong County ran a display called, “Enchanting Datong” to showcase the local tourism industry. Meanwhile, international displays all too often showcased the positive aspects of the state’s diplomatic relations with China. The Pakistani display included a huge photo of a decorative gate at a border crossing that displayed both Chinese and Pakistani flags. The booth for Turkmenistan displayed a huge photograph of the country’s head of state grinning as he shook Chinese President Xi Jinping’s hand. In each case the exhibits showcased progress and cooperation. The picture provided by the expo was one of mutual benefit and advancement for China and its partners in Islamic nations.
What’s the lesson to be learned here? If nothing else, the Qinghai Halal Food and Ethnic Products Expo illustrates the ways in which the state has an interest in being actively involved in regulation of food and culture. Strengthening the halal food industry, and showcasing Islamic culture and diversity is one the major prerogatives of the Chinese state which is actively building ties to the Middle East. Putting a sanctioned, and official Chinese Islamic culture on display allows China to make a pitch to Islamic-majority states that it is a friend and ally. But perhaps more interesting than this are the unintended consequences of such grand expos. In leaping headlong into the production and regulation of halal food, the state may unintentionally be tweaking some of the most important boundary markers of Hui identity. By setting an official definition and standard for what counts as halal, the state interjects and institutional force into the ethnic boundary setting process. Whether or not the Hui can participate in setting these standards, and thus participate in the process of contestation, is an open question. Whether China’s Hui—or for that matter, any of the other Muslim nationality groups—will accept these standards as legitimate or dismiss them is an even less clear answer. Regardless of outcomes, the question reinforces the importance of how something as minor as what and how we eat says so much about who we are.