Hui Nationality

Major Festival :Eid Qurban , Festival of Fast-Breaking

The Huis was gradually formed after absorbing living customs from Han, Mongolian and Uygur by means of many factors such as intermarriage, etc during the long historical process. Chinese is the common language of the Huis. The Huis had preserved some Arabian and Farsi vocabularies in the routine communications and religious activities. This Huis people in border national areas are frequently using local minority nationality language as well.

The Huis have the residence characteristics of small concentration and large distribution. The Huis are mainly inhabiting together with Han nationality in central China; The Huis are mainly inhabiting together with local minority nationalities in border areas; Most of are living alongside land and water traffic arteries, therefore their economy is developed.

The clothes of the Huis are basically the same with Han nationality, and the difference is only reflected on the headgears, most of the Huis men wear white or black and brown small round caps, most of Huis women wear scarfs and particularly in northwestern areas: the young girls and newly-married women wear green scarfs, the middle-aged wear black and cyan scarfs and the old women wear white scars.

The Huis people believe in Islamism. Islamism once played an important role in the formation of the Huis. The Huis people mostly undertake farming and some of them undertake animal husbandry and handicraft industry concurrently. The Huis people are good at business, particularly prominent in food and drink industry.

The migration of the Huis into Qiqihar has a history of more than 300 years and it’s one of the lifetime residing nationalities of Qiqihar.

Festival of Fast-Breaking and Corban Festival are the most important festival for Hui .

All must have showers and change clothes on the Fast-Breaking Day and gather at the mosque to pray, and then start the celebration activities for the festival. The people wear colorful national clothes to pay visits to relatives and friends and present festival gifts to each other. All households prepare various delicious foods to entertain the relatives and friends. The men and women and the old and the young play in groups and young boys and girls get together to sing and dance to their hearts’ content.

70 days later since the fast-breaking day is the Corban Festival of the Huis. Each household will kill a sheep on this day and some households will kill cows and camels as well.

Taboos:

The Huis people have many taboos. As for food and drink, they don’t eat pork, dog meat, and horse meat and so on, they don’t eat the meat of all dead animals and the blood of all animals; they only allow a professional butcher who knows how to slaughter to kill the livestocks and they don’t eat the livestocks slaughtered by butchers of other nationalities.

The Huis people have to wash their hands first before they going to wells or water jars for water, the surplus water in the container cannot be poured back; they don’t borrow other’s dishwares and they don’t voluntarily eat at other’s homes.