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Li Shengjun, 38, practices traditional Hui martial arts in front of the mosque in Zhabu, a township in Central China's Hunan province, where Hui Muslims have lived with Han people in harmony for hundreds of years. [Wang Jing / China Daily]
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Muslims keep their traditions and mingle with neighbors, report Yang Yang and Feng Zhiwei in Taojiang, Hunan province.
Several days of rain had dispelled the mugginess that's usually so typical of Hunan province in summer. Swallows glided swiftly across the low, leaden sky and small plots of land planted with rice nestled between the two-story tiled houses in Zhabu in Taojiang county.
Insects chirped tirelessly in the surrounding shrub-covered hills, and every so often, cars, trucks and motorbikes roared down the concrete road that winds through the village. Generally, though, everything is quiet until the late afternoon, when children walk briskly home after school in groups of two or three.
Apart from a sign at a fork in the road in nearby Nanjingwan village that points the way to the mosque in Zhabu, there are few indications that the area is home to a large number of people from the Hui ethnic group. Sometimes, facial features help one to identify people's ethnicity, but it's not always immediately apparent.
Zhabu is one of six Hui centers in central China's Hunan. About 44 percent of the town's 180,000 population are members of the ethnic group. According to local legend, the first Hui family - called Li, originally from Beijing - settled in the area in 1477, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Later, another Li family arrived from Nanjing in Jiangsu province, and other Hui people called Huang, Liu and Ma also moved to the area and gradually formed a community.
More than 500 years have passed since the first Hui moved to the area, but their faith and ethnic cohesion have seen the people weather the ups and downs of Chinese history over the centuries since their arrival in Hunan.
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