CHAPTER TWO

CHOOSING

Citizenship, Faith, and Marriage

Sitting in a chair by the window on the fifteenth floor of a sleek, modern office tower in Yinchuan’s Jinfeng District, my respondent, a thirty-two-year-old Han woman who worked as an executive for the creative design company housed on the floor, beamed as she described the television production she was set to oversee. As one of the leading cultural production companies in the capital city of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the company had decided to showcase colorful aspects of Hui culture by filming a series of documentary programs to air on local TV. The next of these, she explained, would be a traditional Hui wedding. Her excitement stemmed from the fact that the wedding set to be filmed was her own.

As a Han woman marrying into a Hui household in a city where such marriages rarely occurred, my respondent occupied an uncommon position. When asked whether her marriage required her to make lifestyle changes, she remarked that her fiancé’s family expected her to convert to Islam. Doing so entailed a preparatory course. “I’ve got to go to an ahong [imam] at the mosque,” she explained, “and the ahong will teach me a course about how to observe matters of the faith after I’ve converted.” She described the path toward conversion to be completed before the wedding: “[The ahong] will also ask me why I want to convert to Islam, because before I join the faith, everyone needs to know if my conversion is voluntary and free. If I was forced to join, he wouldn’t really approve of the conversion. Their requirement is that conversion must come from your heart. You must think this faith is good.”¹

The conversion journey my respondent described illustrates the powerful connection between ordinary lifestyle choices like marriage and cohabitation, and deeply held identity. In choosing to marry a Hui man, she also took on a different religious faith and the lifestyle practices involved in observing it. Her choice reflects the complicated role that cultural and religious norms about partnership play in ethnic identification. While she noted that the imam required her conversion to be free, her remarks also suggest that her in-laws’ insistence on her becoming a Muslim in order to marry their son steered her choice. Her story highlights the asymmetries in autonomy and ability to choose freely surrounding matters of ethnic and religious identification.

Choices made in the course of everyday life maintain the boundary of ethnic identity.² Among the many choices that reproduce the boundaries of ethnonational identity, decisions about marriage and family often have special ethnic or national significance. Choices concerning whom to marry and under what conditions become imbued with ethnonational weight, especially in cases where institutions of the state attempt to limit or restrict the form ethnic identity may take, and the ability of citizens to choose it.

In more conservative communities, a literalist reading of Islamic law may take choice entirely out of the equation where matters of partnership are concerned. These Hui sometimes cite Islamic fiqh (religious jurisprudence) based on conservative interpretations of the Qur’an (2:221) in their insistence that non-Muslim women must convert before marrying Hui men and that Hui women are forbidden to marry non-Muslim men altogether.³ However, in less strict communities Hui may cite more pragmatic justifications—such as eligibility for state-issued benefits for minorities—for relaxing norms about conversion or allowing intermarriage with non-Muslims. Such a wide range of attitudes about choices related to marriage not only illustrates the ways in which ordinary choices about partnership may resonate with ethnic significance but also highlights the ways in which gender may limit autonomy—especially for Hui women—and limit the ability to exercise choice at all.

REPRODUCING THE NATION: MARRIAGE, CHILDBIRTH, AND MAKING ETHNIC CHOICES

Even choices that ostensibly have little to do with ethnic or national identity can be structured by institutional framing that reveals ethnic significance. If the ethnic significance of the choice lies hidden, actors may still directly acknowledge it in the decision-making process.⁴ Matters such as choosing where to live, whom to keep as friends, or whom to marry are not explicitly ethnonational in nature, but the logics of institutions or long-standing cultural norms may imbue these choices with ethnonational significance. Institutions that require actors to make choices reveal the “edges” of an identity—those situations in which identity is “lurking just beneath the surface”—by rendering implicit meanings explicit. In demanding that participants take declarative actions that make the otherwise obscured peripheries of identity manifest, institutions breach and reveal the edges of identity.⁵

As an example of how institutions can permeate relatively mundane lifestyle choices with enhanced ethnic meaning, consider the processes associated with citizenship. Choices related to citizenship most strongly demonstrate the ways in which citizens makes decisions in an ethnically motivated manner. Citizenship offers those who seek it the “symbolic reward” of being a member of a community.⁶ Though in some cases claimants may hold membership in multiple communities, citizenship often acts as a form of enclosure, asking would-be citizens to select a single membership at the exclusion of others. As such, citizenship choices make attachments to community overt.⁷

Citizenship also provides the state with a means of establishing social control over what options for identification those under its jurisdiction may choose. The national census provides a tool for measuring citizenship that directly prompts selections, often within a limited menu of options defined by the state.⁸ In granting the state the power to identify the categories into which its citizens fall, the census empowers the state to limit or control the forms of ethnic or national identities its citizens may claim.⁹ As a result, the state gains the ability to favor or disempower certain groups.¹⁰

Given the state’s ability to limit or control choices surrounding self-identification, the way citizens respond on a census frequently becomes a strategic choice that is constrained by the influence of politics. Census respondents must consider the social, cultural, and (occasionally) material advantages and disadvantages of the choices they make.¹¹ In some cases, the incentives that come attached to self-identification as a member of a particular group may prove strong enough to revive moribund or waning cultures.¹² For example, benefits associated with choosing to be officially counted as Manchu by the Chinese census led to a revival of interest in Manchu culture and history and a rise in the total population of Manchus in China, beginning in the early 1980s.¹³

In forcing citizens to select a single, official identity, states may turn matters of citizenship into a strategic choice to secure the benefits of preferential policies.¹⁴ In treating ethnic identity as singular, indivisible, and permanent, the policies of the state present ethnicity as immutable and rooted in descent. Such a picture of ethnicity may mirror the descent-based, popular understandings about ethnic identity held by ordinary citizens.¹⁵ Such a belief in the primordial nature of ethnicity among ethnic actors may lead ostensibly quotidian matters such as selecting a neighborhood to live in or engaging in socializing, marriage, or childbearing, to become freighted with ethnic connotations. Pairing these social norms with state preferential policies that incentivize identifying as one identity over another only intensifies the ethnifications of these decisions.

Citizenship status influences a host of other, less formal practices as well, particularly those related to partnership and childbirth. In these circumstances ethnicity and gender inextricably inform and construct one another.¹⁶ Societal pressures may make the choice of whether or not to have children one influenced by community norms rather than individual preferences.¹⁷ Notions of “appropriate” or “proper” maintenance of boundaries govern women’s choices concerning marriage.¹⁸ Groups frequently emphasize the role of women to reproduce the community both as literal mothers and as “cultural reproducers” who symbolically embody the group.¹⁹

Choices about marriage and childbirth are therefore often linked to the survival of the group and to the transmission of culture. States frequently invoke such symbolic discourses surrounding motherhood as part of political campaigns to increase population.²⁰ Such rhetorical and social pressures ethnicize matters related to marriage and registration. In these instances, choices related to partnership or child rearing may become explicitly tied to acceptance or exclusion.²¹ Individuals must weigh these social and cultural constraints when making these decisions.²² Notably, such restrictions are not distributed evenly across gender boundaries. In some instances, the imposition about taboos concerning childbearing or norms about purity may effectively negate women’s autonomy in these matters. In some cases, women’s primary method for gaining citizenship comes through marriage and birth.²³

CHOOSING TO BE “OFFICIALLY ETHNIC”: THE MINZU SYSTEM AND ETHNONATIONAL IDENTITY IN CHINA

By filtering the identities of its minority populations through the process of strict categorization and census, China has reified the boundaries of minority identities through codification and established a fixed set of criteria that establishes recognition. A number of policy measures that provide benefits to those registered as ethnic minorities encourage participation in this system. Indeed, these benefits make being officially designated as minority minzu desirable to some.

Presently, the minzu system allows the state to play a supervisory role over the contestation of identity within its borders. In controlling which groups receive recognition and which do not, the CCP dramatically impacts contestation of identity. As of the 2010 census, 640,101 people lack any categorization at all and are what the PRC refers to as unrecognized (wei shibie) minzu.²⁴ Effectively, the system makes the CCP the final arbiter of the content of ethnic boundaries for the purposes of recognition. Though expressions of group identity remain negotiable, particularly when dealing with lower-level local officials, the Party’s power to recognize or promote certain practices and characteristics as essential features of a particular minzu identity and empower some actors over others enables the CCP to exert authority and guidance over ethnic expression.²⁵ Control over the content of a group’s identity gives the state a position of relative advantage when attempting to minimize resistance and incorporate ethnic borderlands into the state.²⁶

The minzu system presents China’s citizens with a choice. Because the system does not allow for multiethnic identification, nor are citizens easily reclassified once given a designated minzu status, the system forces citizens to make decisions concerning their ethnic registration. While for many citizens one is simply born into a minzu, those from multiethnic backgrounds must select official membership in only one group. For those whose ethnic identity does not conform to the tidy categories outlined by the state, the minzu system may contribute to loss of identity, as claimants either adapt to a minority identity that does not align with their self-identification or, in cases where acculturation is more complete, simply choose to identify as Han.²⁷

Because of such rigidity, the minzu system makes all Chinese citizens countable and sortable.²⁸ One of the major consequences of China’s institutionalizing of ethnicity is the attempt to promote homogenization within groups by consolidating various subgroups into a single uniform category for expedient classification. Paradoxically, the state’s attempts to create “discrete categories” of identity actually result in greater variation within identity.²⁹

The case of the Tibetan-speaking Muslims (Zang-Hui) of Kaligang (referred to in Tibetan as Khargang) in Hualong Hui Autonomous County of Qinghai provides an example. The PRC officially classifies these Muslims as Hui.³⁰ However, the group’s identity blends Muslim and Tibetan cultural traits. They often wear Tibetan clothing, speak in local Amdo Tibetan dialects, and resist the label Zang-Hui. Due to the rigidity of the Chinese ethnic classification system, the group’s self-identification diverges from official state classification.³¹ Similar ambiguities exist among the Naxi, Zhuang, Yao, Yi, Miao, and various other minzu that cobble together several disparate groups under the heading of a single nationality.³²

Such heterogeneity illustrates a fundamental dilemma that China’s ethnic minorities face under the minzu system. The inability of the rigid system of categories to accommodate intragroup differences or allow for multiethnic identities places citizens into one of fifty-six tidy boxes of ethnic self-identification. These categories do not reflect the diversity within groups but instead reify differences and harden otherwise blurred ethnic boundary lines. In imposing state-mandated categories of identity on top of existing, informal markers between groups—often in a way that does not perfectly align—the minzu system complicates practices of ethnic identification.³³ By forcing citizens to select one and only one minzu identity, the system turns the process of self-identification into an ethnically motivated choice for reasons of self-preservation and adds heavy ethnic significance to choices concerning marriage and childbirth.

MARRIAGE AND ETHNIC IDENTITY IN CHINA

Official categories of ethnicity have encouraged China’s ethnic minority communities to engage in endogamy and having additional children as attempts at ethnic preservation. For example, increased Han migration to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has prompted a self-enforced taboo among Uyghurs on interethnic marriage. Uyghurs—especially those living in rural, southern Xinjiang who consider children “a blessing from Allah”—chafe at family-planning policies imposed by the Chinese state.³⁴ Both issues heighten the salience of the boundaries between Han and Uyghur. Goldstein et al.’s 2002 examination of family-planning practices in Tibetan communities identifies competition with Han and Hui migrants as one of the primary drivers of Tibetans’ preferences for having large families.³⁵ Because the minzu system does not allow for citizens to select multiple ethnicities, they must often weigh matters of ethnic preservation when considering whether or not to marry outside the group.

Previous scholarship on Hui identity notes the importance of intra-Hui marriage for maintaining Hui identity.³⁶ Even in non-majority-Hui urban settings, the Hui are more likely to prefer endogamy to intermarriage. Likewise, Hui are more likely to express the idea that religion and ethnic differences put up barriers that make exogamy difficult, if not undesirable.³⁷ Those rare partnerships between Han and Hui that do occur almost always result in the adoption of Islam by the Han partner. Interethnic marriages like these provide one of the “most important channels for conversion,” genuine or otherwise. To many Hui clergy, Hui identity is “constitutively gendered” and rooted firmly in patriarchal lineage, necessitating religious conversion in exogamous marriages, especially of Han women to Hui men.³⁸ Likewise many Hui frown on intermarriage, especially of Hui women to Han men, as they fear that women who marry outside the community might abandon Islam.³⁹

In many rural Hui communities, the primary ethnic entrepreneurs are the unmarried young men and women. Endogamy enables Hui to increase the size of their community without fear of losing traditions or of cultural dilution. Because isolated, rural communities seek Hui marriage partners in neighboring towns and villages, endogamy not only serves the role of preserving Hui lineages; it also plays the important dual role of facilitating increased contact with co-ethnics and strengthening the communities’ experience in dealing with other Muslims.⁴⁰ Individuals attempting to navigate these social pressures may feel the weight of the implications of their partnership choices most acutely.

“MY FAMILY WOULD NOT HAVE ACCEPTED A NON-MUSLIM”: SOCIAL PRESSURE AND MARRIAGE CHOICE

A long history of exclusion, differentiation, and partial assimilation complicates the uniformity of the contemporary category of Huizu.⁴¹ In cautioning scholars against simply replicating the logic of these PRC-established categories, Jonathan Lipman writes that, “upon even cursory examination, the supposedly exclusive minzu categories break down, become muddled, invite deconstruction.”⁴² Some, like historian Raphael Israeli, have cast doubt on the applicability of terms like “ethnicity” or “nationality” in reference to the Hui, noting that Hui have not used such terms to describe themselves in either a historical or contemporary context.⁴³ On one rare occasion, a twenty-eight-year-old man from Yinchuan echoed these sentiments. He insisted that the category of Hui did not make sense and that he was merely a Han who believed in Islam.⁴⁴

Contrary to Israeli’s assertions, however, most respondents saw Huizu as a distinct and separate category. Many reasons explain why, despite such heterogeneity and complicated history, this is the case. Most notably, interactions with the state reinforce the legitimacy of the category. Hui actors and the Chinese state have administered ethnic politics to Muslim communities not just as a religious group but as a minzu.⁴⁵ As my own observations suggest, the importance attached to choices related to minzu registration reflect that Hui stands not only as a meaningful category but as one that inspires contestation.

Notions of ethnic identity in Hui communities are often framed in relation to the minzu system. While some respondents cited the incompatibility of the system’s rigid categorization with the ambiguity that pervaded lived reality, several claimed that the process of registering an ethnic identity provided the primary means of association with being Hui.⁴⁶ A fifty-fiveyear-old Hui retiree from Xining recounted, “The first concept I had [of being Hui], when I was young, with a child’s understanding, I just knew I was Hui. Because at that time, when I went to sign up for school, I had a hukou [household registration], and that hukou said my minzu was Hui.”⁴⁷ In this respondent’s case, without the state-imposed definition, being Hui lacked specific meaning or significance. For him and others I interviewed, access to Hui identity came primarily through the state’s formal designations rather than daily lived practice.

Some respondents’ discussions of their ethnic identification echoed the logic of the minzu system, asserting the singularity and indivisibility of ethnonational identity. These respondents connected ethnic registration status to transmission by descent. One, a nineteen-year-old college student from Jinan, posited that ethnicity was always passed on in patrilineal fashion: “In China, it seems like this kind of thing goes according to the father. So, because my father is Hui, my hukou is also Hui, just like my father’s.”⁴⁸ Others insisted that so long as one partner was Hui, the system would automatically treat their children as Hui. “My little brother and I, our hukou are both written down as Hui,” recalled a forty-four-year-old woman who worked as a bank teller in Jinan. “My children are also written down as Hui. My little brother’s children are also written down as Hui. But my spouse is Han. My brother’s wife is also Han. It’s that kind of situation [qing kuang].” As to whether she might register her children as Han, she remarked that this would be impossible: “Regarding this kind of situation, there’s absolutely no dispute whatsoever. Moreover, when going to write down your hukou, so long as one party is known to be Hui, the public security will take the initiative to ask you whether or not you wrote down Hui.”⁴⁹ Her experiences with public registration illustrate bureaucrats’ rather rigid understandings of ethnic identification as promoted by the minzu system. So long as one parent registers as a minority, the children automatically receive that designation, whether or not such descent comes through the mother’s or the father’s family.

Regardless of patrilineality, both these respondents’ conceptions of ethnicity hinged on biologically determined membership in the group. If one parent was Hui, a child would be considered Hui. Interestingly, the bank teller’s comments suggest that children of interethnic marriages retain only the ethnicity of the minority parent. The dismissal of the notion that a child with one Han parent and one Hui parent might also be considered Han reveals that the minzu system deals with even such ambiguous cases of multiethnic citizens by employing a one-size-fits-all solution: if a citizen holds any minority descent, they may be registered as a minority. Such inflexibility places added ethnic significance on the selection of a partner.

Several respondents, both married and unmarried, reported feeling that their families expected them to marry within the group. One man, a Jinan fitness instructor in his late twenties, recalled, “Choosing a Hui partner was my decision. I wanted to marry a woman who was devout and knowledgeable about Islam. But regardless, my family would not have accepted a non-Muslim. They would tell me that it’s imperative that I find a Muslim girl to marry.”⁵⁰ A nineteen-year-old college student in Jinan remarked that even without pressure from family and friends, young Hui may consider marriage in ethnic terms: “Sometimes even though parents don’t have any preference, their children do. For instance, my little sister, she’s like this. My parents did not say, ‘You have to marry a Hui,’ but she really wants to marry a Hui.”⁵¹ Even absent explicit admonishment to marry within the community, unmarried Hui—like the respondent’s sister—may infer pressure from parents or others in the community. The unspoken expectations of the community place limits on the ability to exercise autonomy in partnership choice, lest the chooser suffer disapproval.

The kind of social pressure that surrounds marriage often leads to public scrutiny from members of the community. Especially in rural communities, such pressure may dramatically influence marriage choices. Several respondents explained that marriage outside of the group might draw unflattering attention. One woman, a student in Jinan, remarked that in her rural Shanxi hometown, “Han and Hui intermarriage is really rare. Marrying outside of the group is especially rare. In any case, every Hui in the village knows about almost every family’s daughter that marries a Han.”⁵² In other cases, tradition may prohibit choice in matters connected to marriage, especially for women, upon whom prohibitions derived from religious law may be more stringently enforced. A respondent in Xining contrasted the environment in the city with nearby Xunhua: “Here [in Xining] people choose who they marry, but in Xunhua people usually don’t.”⁵³ In Xining, where the larger population and the presence of other ethnic and religious groups lessened the compulsions to marry within the community, partnership was a matter of choice. The same could not be said for the more traditional confines of the countryside, where norms were enforced with greater vigor.

Those who choose to marry outside the group may suffer the scorn of others in the community. The Hui fitness instructor in Jinan expressed his disapproval of friends who had married non-Hui partners, stating his belief that they had compromised their identity. “I know some people who got married to a Han person and kept an Islamic lifestyle,” he remarked, adding disdainfully, “I don’t really get along too well with these people.”⁵⁴ Another respondent in Xining explained that marriage to a Han might be met with disapproval, reasoning, “More traditional Muslims might say it’s important to marry a Muslim and wouldn’t accept otherwise.”⁵⁵ In more conservative communities the choice a person makes when selecting a partner boils down to marrying within the community or being disavowed.

“IF MY DAUGHTER MARRIES A HAN, MAYBE SHE’LL START TO FOLLOW HIS LIFESTYLE”: CULTURAL SURVIVAL AND MARRIAGE TABOOS

Concerns about cultural preservation help to explain the rarity of Han-Hui intermarriage. Hui respondents frequently cite cultural distance between Han and Hui as the major obstacle to intermarriage between the two. A Xining shopkeeper in her forties contended that Hui rarely married Han because “most Han are Daoist or Confucian or Buddhist. It’s not a good arrangement because of the religious differences.”⁵⁶ However, a factory worker in his thirties in Jinan insisted that fear of a loss of tradition and ethnic identity, not religious concerns, compelled the taboo on intermarriage with Han: “It’s definitely not because of religious reasons. It’s because of ethnic reasons. I’ve heard a funny explanation: people say, ‘My daughter isn’t allowed to marry a Han, because if my daughter marries a Han, maybe she’ll start to follow his lifestyle.’”⁵⁷

The man’s citation of the adoption of Han cultural practices, like celebrating secular holidays, engaging in ancestor veneration, or consenting to being cremated after death as opposed to being buried reflect a fear that living with Han would lead to Hanification (Hanhua) was behind respondents’ declaration that differences in lifestyle, particularly regarding cleanliness and diet, made marriage between Han and Hui “inconvenient” (bu fangbian).⁵⁸ In explaining why her parents wouldn’t accept her marrying a Han, a fiftytwo-year-old receptionist in Jinan said, “In China, the theory is like this: normally you hope your son or daughter can find a partner of the same minzu. Firstly, it’s because it makes diet and matters of food and drink easier. There are also a few customs that aren’t alike, just like between you and me there are Chinese and Western customs that aren’t alike. So, that’s the reason.”⁵⁹ These lifestyle differences put a strain on families, especially when dealing with in-laws or extended family members who may not place similar emphasis on tolerance and understanding. Some respondents said these fault lines broke families apart. For example, one Jinan respondent, the child of a marriage between a Hui father and a Han mother, recalled the divisions that happened between in-laws because of her parents’ marriage: “Even after they got married, [the two families] would still break out into quarrels, and it was just really hard to deal with.”⁶⁰

These cultural and religious differences, some respondents attested, became especially problematic when dealing with rituals related to death and burial. Respondents expressed concern that a non-Hui spouse might fail to observe the Islamic prohibition on cremation.⁶¹ A twenty-nine-year-old Hui woman in Xining illustrated this dilemma with an anecdote: “A friend of mine married a Han woman who converted to Islam. But her parents are still Han. She died suddenly, before she turned thirty. Her parents wanted to cremate her, and her husband didn’t want to because we Muslims can’t be cremated. We have to bury our dead. But her parents didn’t care. They said ‘We’re not Muslims. We have our own traditions and you have yours, but she’s our daughter.’ And so they cremated her. It was a problem, but there was nothing her husband could do about it.”⁶² Such gulfs in understanding and fear of a loss of Islamic tradition drive many Hui to deem marriage to Han undesirable. A woman in her twenties in Xining explained, “Very few people intermarry, and after they get married, they’re also more likely to get divorced. This is because lifestyles are just too different, and you’re not used to it if you haven’t lived that way since you were young.”⁶³ Having to endure the strain put on interethnic relationships by the perception of incompatible lifestyles, pressure from less sympathetic members of a couple’s extended family, and looming fear of eventual divorce make these partnerships appear less desirable and lead Hui to avoid them altogether.

“THEY HAVE TO BECOME MUSLIMS FIRST”: RELIGIOUS CONVERSION AND BRIDGING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN INTERETHNIC MARRIAGE

To bridge the cultural gaps that complicate intermarriage between Han and Hui, many respondents argued, Han partners should convert to Islam. In traditionalist Hui communities, restrictions go even further by stipulating that these standards be applied only to Han women, while Hui women are not allowed to marry Han men at all. This mandate originated from Islamic jurisprudence that utilized a conservative reading of the Qu’ran (specifically, 2:221), yet few respondents explained the practice in these terms. Instead, they claimed conversion was necessary for convenience of lifestyle habits and maintenance of tradition. Though few seem to believe that Han women take their conversions seriously, the act provides a symbolically important function by adhering to norms that encourage a woman’s submission to Hui male hegemony.⁶⁴ Cultural motivations bolster citations of religious law. The idea among religiously conservative Hui that only those interethnic marriages between Hui men and non-Hui women may be deemed acceptable—and even then, only upon the condition of religious conversion—rests upon long-standing myths of ethnogenesis telling of Arab or Persian traders taking local Chinese women as brides. Stories like these place Hui communities on the “receiving” end of a marriage exchange. Even though scant historical evidence exists to uphold the veracity of these tales, they are accepted as truth in devoutly religious Hui communities.⁶⁵

Some respondents noted a recent change in attitudes regarding such strictures. In previous eras, some recalled, the community considered conversion in cases of intermarriage to be mandatory. Noting that intermarriage between Han and Hui occurred more commonly than in previous eras, a Beijing author in his seventies explained the kinds of stipulations typically put on interethnic relationships in the days of his youth. Conversion to Islam, he remarked, was the minimum requirement for a couple to get married. Further, different standards applied to Hui men and women. He described the traditional attitudes regarding intermarriage, recalling that in his youth women were not permitted to marry outside the Hui community.⁶⁶ His memories, and the contrast they draw with more accommodating attitudes of Beijing Hui in the present, illustrate the greater flexibility and autonomy Hui men have traditionally possessed in marriage practices, especially in religiously devout communities.

Though such absolute prohibitions softened in the years since the start of the era of Reform and Opening in 1978, many respondents cited conversion of the non-Hui partner to Islam as a necessity for interethnic couples. One respondent in Xining laid out these terms bluntly, asserting, “Hui can marry Han, and Tibetans and Tu, but they have to become Muslims first. Otherwise, it can’t happen.”⁶⁷

Some respondents saw the imposition of this requirement as a way for accommodating parents to support their children while still upholding cultural norms. A respondent in Xining, a teacher in his late forties who was himself the son of a Hui mother and a Salar father, suggested conversion might smooth over any objections parents might raise to the union: “It’s just that maybe if two people love each other, then maybe the families won’t oppose [the marriage]. Maybe it’s normally just that the man must convert to Islam, that kind of thing. He’ll go to the mosque, and the ahong can give him an Islamic name [ jingming].”⁶⁸ A nineteen-year-old Hui man from Heze in Shandong studying in Jinan explained his parents’ position on the matter: “About this problem . . . If, say, I go home and my girlfriend is Han, if I bring her home to meet my parents, and say we want to get married, my mom and dad certainly won’t say that they object, but they also won’t say that they consent. If she agrees, then before we get married, we’ve got to give her some education. It’s like that. Education and a xili.”⁶⁹

Even marriage within the faith presents obstacles for many Hui, if the partner belongs to another of China’s Islamic minorities. While many Hui respondents considered marriage outside the faith—to Han or other non-Muslims—as impermissible, attitudes concerning intermarriage between Hui and one of China’s other Islamic minorities varied. A forty-year-old Hui professor from Xining observed that the relatively unified religious atmosphere of his city allowed for a more accommodating attitude toward marriages between Muslim groups: “People here have a mentality of zujiao yiti [ethnoreligious integration]. This means Hui are Muslims and Muslims are Hui. We don’t really separate into minorities.” He added, “The Salar speak a different language. But otherwise, the cultural differences aren’t so large.” However, despite such a positive outlook, he concluded that such marriages “only sometimes happen.”⁷⁰

Many respondents commented on the infrequency of interethnic marriages, even between Muslim groups. While most agreed that nothing prohibited partnering with a non-Hui Muslim, many cited cultural and linguistic concerns that made such marriages rare. A Hui government service worker from Xining his fifties remarked that nothing prohibited marriage to other Islamic minorities, but that such relationships often struggled because of cultural incompatibility: “Hui and Salar or Dongxiang can marry, but there may be different traditions.”⁷¹ Likewise, a Salar prayer goods salesman in Xining mentioned that marriage between Muslim ethnic groups was not forbidden but pointed to language differences as the primary reason for the rarity of such occurrence. In his hometown of Xunhua, for example, “everyone there speaks Salar.” Most Hui, he reasoned, would struggle to communicate in such an environment.⁷² A twenty-nine-year-old from Xining with a Hui mother and a Salar father mentioned language as a reason she identified as Hui. Despite her Salar heritage, she bemoaned the linguistic limitations that distanced her from the Salar community: “Mostly at home I speak Qinghai Hui dialect [Qinghai Huihua]. I can’t really speak much Salar.”⁷³

“OUR MINZU PROBLEM IS ALSO A MARRIAGE PROBLEM”: URBAN SPACES AND ATTITUDES TOWARD INTERETHNIC MARRIAGE

Urban spaces present particular challenges in regard to making marriage choices. Unlike small and often homogeneous rural enclaves, urban settings provide greater opportunities for interethnic interactions and thus increase the likelihood of interethnic relationships. Cities also provide greater stratification of income, education, profession, and other factors. As such, in these contexts other dimensions of identity that in rural settings seem less salient gain importance. For instance, in urban contexts where community norms around ethnic or religious practices are weaker and cultural institutions that normally enforce them have a less powerful presence, norms surrounding class, profession, level of education, or other competing identities may take on greater salience.

Longtime Beijing residents note increasing tolerance in local Hui’s attitudes toward marrying non-Hui. Some attribute such changes to loss of tradition following the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. One resident, an author in his seventies, remarked that prior to the Cultural Revolution (approx. 1966–76), when the Party prohibited open practice of religion, Beijing Hui observed far more restrictive limitations on marriage: “Before, Hui didn’t ever marry Han. Or if they did it was a Hui man marrying a Han woman, and she had to accept Islam and learn how to be Muslim. Generally speaking, we didn’t allow Hui women to marry Han men. But after the Cultural Revolution this changed a lot.”⁷⁴ As religious traditionalism waned, so too did concern over ethnic identity in matters related to partnership. In particular, women’s ability to exercise choice in selecting a partner increased as insistence on observing Qur’anic dictates on marriage subsided. Respondents explained that these types of restrictions softened during the era of Reform and Opening. A twenty-nine-year-old artist described how her parents’ experiences during that period made them more tolerant to the idea of her marrying her Han partner: “My parents, because they were sent down to the countryside in Inner Mongolia to work for so many years, they’re more convinced that two people need to be in love, and hope that I can find a partner that I like. So they actually haven’t really restricted me.”⁷⁵ For her, choosing a partner rested primarily on romantic attraction, and ethnic identity played little part in her choice to marry a Han man.

A fifty-seven-year-old woman working as a cab driver in Shijiazhuang in nearby Hebei described the choice facing her daughter who lived in Beijing, where she was married to a non-Hui man. Recently she had given birth to her first child, a boy. In response to questions about her grandson’s minzu status, the cab driver expressed her hope that the child would embrace his Hui identity. Ultimately, she admitted, minzu status remained a choice that he alone could make later in life. She reasoned, “When he’s older he can choose to be Hui like his mother or choose to be not Hui like his father.”⁷⁶

However, relationships outside the Hui community did not come without complications. The twenty-nine-year-old artist bemoaned the difficulties that her own marriage had caused for those in her extended family. Of the restrictions they had sought to impose, she remarked, “For us, the question of marriage was especially messy [jiujie]. Because for our family this situation has been messy for a long time. They [extended family members], of course, want us to find a Hui partner to marry. It’s not permissible to marry another minzu, and marrying someone from another country is even less permissible. We must find Hui partners.” She continued, commenting that many young Hui experienced these difficulties, even amid changing social attitudes. “If you have conservative parents, they will completely disagree about these things.” Volunteering an example, she said, “My uncle—my dad’s older brother—his two daughters both must marry a Muslim.” She explained her uncle firmly believed that “if both sides are Muslim, then the family atmosphere will be stronger—it will be very strong.” She reasoned that fear of cultural loss drove many to these positions. “Our minzu problem is also a marriage problem. In order to protect their own minzu’s purity [chunzheng], everyone must be with their own minzu.”⁷⁷ Her concern illustrates her understanding of an intrinsic tie between identity and descent. The notion that an ethnic identity might become diluted through marriage outside the group highlights the idea that the group must be literally reproduced through childbirth and continuing lineages.

In Beijing, historic Hui communities like those at Madian, Douban Hutong, and Dong Si were dispersed by urban renewal that made marrying within the community less common. With Hui populations scattered throughout Beijing, partnering outside of the community occurred with greater frequency. As migrants from rural Hui communities in China’s interior—especially the northwest—arrived in the capital, attitudes changed yet again. These arrivals coincided with a consolidation of Hui cultural and religious institutions around Niu Jie, with the neighborhood becoming Beijing’s de facto Muslim stronghold. A thirty-three-year-old Hui software engineer who moved from his hometown in Harbin to attend university described the changes in Beijing’s community following his arrival: “Most of the residents on Niu Jie are not long-term residents. They’re only temporarily living here. Most are waidi [outsiders].”⁷⁸ As these Hui from other places arrived in Beijing, respondents told me, they changed the social landscape of the Hui community. Such change was twofold. First, migrants coming to Beijing, especially younger singles, might adjust expectations about partnership after living in an urban environment where the norms about marrying within the group weighed less heavily. Second, the arrival of rural, more religiously observant Hui to Niu Jie underscored differences in understandings of religious and cultural norms held by local, usually more secular Beijing Hui. As the artist reasoned, “The situation in Beijing is a totally different environment from Xinjiang and the northwest.”⁷⁹

In Jinan—where the Hui represent the only non-Han population of any size—many respondents reported an ongoing loosening in attitudes regarding intermarriage.⁸⁰ Respondents frequently asserted that while older generations insisted that Hui marry other Hui, younger Hui felt less strongly bound by these norms.⁸¹ One woman, the owner of a small pan-fried dumpling (guotie) shop in Jinan, lamented her adult son’s romantic choices : “It would be best to marry a Hui girl. Hui should be with Hui and Han should be with Han, but young people don’t really listen.”⁸² Young Hui in Jinan, who often grow up in largely secular homes, aspire to choosing a partner based on romantic attraction rather than prerogatives related to ethnicity or religion. While many recognize that a relationship with a Hui partner would smooth over some difficulties, this did not override the more important factor of being in love. One woman, a twenty-two-year-old working in the airline industry, explained her family’s shifting attitude toward Han-Hui intermarriage:

Some Jinan respondents cited the small size of the Hui population as a reason for the lower resistance to marrying outside the group, claiming it was hard to find Hui partners who were suitable.⁸⁴ An engineer in his fifties likened the tendency of Hui to marry only other Hui to inbreeding and declared that, in his opinion, finding partners of another minzu would be “good for the children of the next generation.”⁸⁵ Middle-class, secular Hui like this engineer dismissed the idea of mandating marriage within the Hui community as backward and unsuitable. Instead, they insisted that their children find partners whom they liked and who were of capable of looking after and providing for a family. The fifty-two-year-old receptionist explained why she did not follow her parents’ example in forcing her daughter to seek a Hui husband: “The Hui social circle is too small. If you want to find someone you like, and fulfill these requirements [to marry another Hui], it’s not easy. So, for the sake of my child’s happiness, I broadened this category. If I absolutely wanted to require [my daughter] to find a Hui man, I maybe could find one, but I imagine this wouldn’t be that great. I want her to find someone who’s outstanding in all respects.”⁸⁶

Another woman noted that living in Jinan allowed for more flexibility when compared to rural Hui communities. In her rural hometown, she observed, marriage to a Han might require him to become Muslim: “In order to marry a Han there would be some formalities to go through. Here, where we’re pretty far away, we wouldn’t go through those formalities.”⁸⁷ Though the village’s conditions of allowing women to marry outside the group if their partner agreed to convert provided slightly more autonomy than those communities in which such marriages were prohibited to women, these requirements still proved limiting. In Jinan’s looser environment, however, such cultural norms held less power, and as such granted Hui women more autonomy in marriage choices. Compared to the village setting, where Hui ethnic and religious norms predominated, in Jinan’s urban atmosphere a partner’s identity as Hui proved less salient.

In stark contrast to Jinan, in Xining, where Hui are one of many different ethnic groups living in a truly multiethnic environment, Hui largely remain firmly opposed to marriage with Han. Many respondents argued that Hui could marry Muslims of different minorities (e.g., Salar, Baonan, Dongxiang) without any controversy but not Han.⁸⁸ An entrepreneur in her late thirties claimed that such marriages couldn’t work because Han converts rarely took Islam seriously: “If Han and Hui get married, the Han person certainly has to convert. If not, it’s impermissible [bu yunxu de]. But we try as much as we can to not promote marrying Han, because converting to Islam for marriage isn’t meaningful belief. Instead, it’s because ‘I like this person, so I’ll follow them. At best, I won’t eat pork.’ But it’s not serious belief, so going about your life can be really troublesome.”⁸⁹ When asked if Han-Hui marriages ever occurred, one young man in his late twenties insisted, “That’s something that happens more often in places back east.”⁹⁰ He held up local Hui as an example of more pious Muslims who did not marry outside the community. Another respondent observed that intermarriage “was more common in those situations where children strived their hardest” and made great effort at making the marriage work despite cultural differences or their parents’ objections. She admitted, however, that these were exceptional cases.⁹¹

Preservation of Islamic customs motivated several respondents’ opposition to marriage across ethnic lines. When explaining why she would not accept her son’s marriage to a Han, one woman said that fear of cultural degradation motivated her stance: “I’m afraid they’ll become Hanified. Because I think a minzu can be maintained, passed down. I’m not saying this because of bloodlines, it’s just minzu traditions. It’s best if you can keep them completely intact and maintain them as best as you possibly can. If Hui, especially women, marry Han, then they’ll lose a lot of our culture, and it’s very sad. Of course, because I’m a minority, I’m really concerned about this.”⁹²

While residents in Xining emphasized the importance of cultural preservation, many in Yinchuan complained about the fact that these traditions had, in large part, already eroded. Over the course of the past twenty years, Yinchuan’s population had swollen due to waves of internal migration from all parts of China. The effects this migration exerted on the city, and its culture, led numerous respondents to remark that Yinchuan had become a “city of migrants” (yimin chengshi).⁹³ As wave after wave arrived, many locals groused about the disappearance of Yinchuan’s distinctive Muslim culture and griped that leniency and permissiveness in regard to Islamic traditions contributed to a decline in the quality of the city’s religious atmosphere. Interethnic marriages, they argued, were partly to blame. One man in his early thirties moaned that standards in Yinchuan had grown too lax and families weren’t serious enough about religious observance: “There are some people who, because the religious atmosphere in this city is very lax, might have one eye open and one eye closed. Of course, on the surface, they they won’t accept it. If a boy and girl have a good relationship, there’s nothing the family can do, and they’ll get married. The non-Muslim bride or groom will convert to Islam. But this conversion is only in appearance. You tell me, those converts, are they really Muslim? I don’t think so.”⁹⁴

A restaurant owner in the suburban community of Najiahu echoed these sentiments and longed for a return to the era where members of the community took a more active role in making sure their children married other Hui. He recounted that, in the past, people felt obligated to persuade other families not to allow their children to marry Han, lest they be complicit. “Now,” he admitted, “in this society, there’s nothing you can do about it. Everyone minds their own business. Just looking after your own children is enough.”⁹⁵ A woman in her early twenties who worked as a secretary in the offices of a neighborhood association recalled parental disapproval led to a breakup with a former boyfriend: “I dated a Han guy before, but my family didn’t approve, and I think it was because we had different religious faiths.”⁹⁶ The social pressure exerted by the family’s unwillingness to accept the relationship illustrates just how the judgment of the community acts as a constraint on individual autonomy.

Despite these concerns about Hanification, several respondents described a change in the community. The Han woman working in marketing and preparing to marry a Hui man told me that her decision provoked strong reactions from her parents, who feared that her conversion would prohibit her from observing the practices of ancestor veneration and wearing mourning clothes. Her husband’s family, however, showed great tolerance in allowing her to observe such traditions, even after she became Muslim: “This is where two families must be comparatively open-minded. My husband’s family is very open-minded, and they can accept Han-Hui intermarriage, and they must tolerate these traditions. For instance, with respect to the rules about dying, they surely approve of my doing these things.”⁹⁷ Others mentioned that young couples were beginning to disregard such concerns altogether. One Han woman in her early thirties who worked as an elementary school teacher related the story of a Hui friend: “Intermarriage between Han and Hui is becoming more common. My coworker’s new boyfriend is Han. Her parents weren’t very accepting, but she told them she doesn’t want to marry a Hui man.”⁹⁸ Thus, while community censure still influences the decisions made regarding marriage and partnership, the social landscape of Yinchuan also reflects changing attitudes among young people. This shift in attitudes toward a more tolerant stance on intermarriage occurs simultaneously with transformations in the demographics of Yinchuan wrought by migration to the city—both from inside and outside Ningxia.

CHOOSING HUINESS IN THE CITY: MARRIAGE AND ETHNICITY IN A CHANGING SOCIAL LANDSCAPE

The wide array of difference in attitudes found across these communities illustrates how and when marriage choices take on ethnic significance. Importantly, cross-cutting gender and religious cleavages significantly impact the amount of autonomy individuals possess in making choices about partnership. Predominantly secular Hui may view marriage outside of the group as workable, even though it requires compromise and mutual accommodation. Elsewhere decisions about who one marries may not allow considerations about marrying outside the group, particularly for women. Especially in more religiously devout Hui communities, marriage within the community may be compulsory for women and may be enforced by family members or community authorities. Thus, for more pious Hui women, ethnicity is highly salient in matters concerning marriage and childbirth, and as such these practices may not be matters of choice at all. Men in such communities, by contrast, may feel less pressure to marry within the group but may still be bound by norms derived from conservative interpretations of Islamic law that mandate a non-Muslim partner must convert to Islam.

Because the state set hard parameters on official ethnic registration, choosing to marry within or outside of the community varies with the importance attached to ethnic identity relative to other identities. The concentration or dispersion of a population may heighten the degree to which ethnic identity takes precedence over others. When the concentration of the group is small, other identities may take precedence. Where multiple ethnic identities interact, the urge to prevent cultural degradation may give ethnicity precedence where marriage is concerned or perhaps lead to resignation that ethnic degradation is inevitable.

In isolated communities like Jinan, Hui are less likely to consider marriage strictly as an ethnonational choice and less likely to consider ethnic intermarriage as taboo. In these communities, where the Hui population is smaller and the community is surrounded by Han, ethnic salience wanes when making marriage choices in favor of class difference, level of education, or even romantic attraction between partners. Respondents’ willingness to accept marriage between Han and Hui without requiring religious conversion exemplifies flexibility and adaption in the face of demographic isolation. In these cases, a Han partner’s promise to show tolerance and respect for Hui culture and lifestyle habits provides a form of compromise.

By contrast, in multiethnic communities like Xining, where religious observance is more stringent and linguistic divisions between ethnic groups may complicate relationships, marriage is framed as an explicitly ethnonational choice. The insistence on the part of many Hui parents that their children marry Hui for the sake of cultural preservation illustrates a fear for cultural survival in the face of increased interaction with other groups. That many Xining residents consider conversion of Han partners to Islam as a minimal requirement before allowing interethnic marriage clearly illustrates these urges. Residents may prioritize religious and ethnic choices over others, electing to return to enclave neighborhoods and marry within the faith. In these cases, ethnicity gains increased salience over other forms of identity.

In Yinchuan attitudes are shaped, in part, by the city’s formal institutional status. In this capital city of a titular autonomous region, Hui culture and identity take a prominent, if superficial, place. However, the recent influx of rural migrants raises specific challenges concerning marriage and partnership. Migrants arriving from more conservative rural locations observe different standards about partnership from those urbanites who view themselves as open-minded and cosmopolitan. Likewise, children of rural migrant parents who grow up in urban settings may form different attitudes than those of older generations. In this sense, in cities like Yinchuan, questions about the appropriateness of interethnic marriage may be subject to debate even within generations of the same family.

As a “city of migrants,” Yinchuan illustrates a broader trend occurring throughout the country. China’s push toward urbanization (chengzhenhua) moves Hui migrants from various locations into close proximity with each other, as well as with other ethnicities and religions. In Yinchuan, the interactions of Hui with Han, as well as with Hui from different parts of China, reopen contestation over the appropriateness of interethnic marriage. As these arguments unfold, they renegotiate the boundary markers that define Hui identity. Debating whether or not non-Hui spouses should convert, or whether children of Han-Hui intermarriage should be claimed as Hui, may lead to drawing internal distinctions within the Hui community that divide it along regional, sectarian, class, age, or gender lines. The reignition of these debates prevents the minzu system from achieving the political goal of solidifying a singular, standardized Hui identity that aligns with the state’s definitions. Instead, the divisions that emerge from within the community expand notions of what it means to claim Hui identity.