Identity
During the Qing dynasty, the term Zhongyuanren was synonymous with being Chinese, especially referring to Han Chinese and Hui Muslims in Xinjiang or Central Asia.
Because of religious reasons, while Hui people do not consider themselves Han and are not Han Chinese, the Hui consider themselves wider Chinese and also refer to themselves as Zhongyuanren. The Dungan people, descendants of Hui who fled to Central Asia, called themselves Zhongyuanren in addition to the standard labels Lao Huihui and Huizi. Zhongyuanren was used generally by Turkic Muslims to refer to general Chinese people. When Central Asian invaders from Kokand invaded Kashgar, in a letter the kokandi commander criticizes the Kashgari Turkic Muslim Ishaq for allegedly not behaving like a Muslim and wanting to be a Zhongyuanren (Chinese).
Read more about this topic: Dungan People
Famous quotes containing the word identity:
“Personal change, growth, development, identity formation—these tasks that once were thought to belong to childhood and adolescence alone now are recognized as part of adult life as well. Gone is the belief that adulthood is, or ought to be, a time of internal peace and comfort, that growing pains belong only to the young; gone the belief that these are marker events—a job, a mate, a child—through which we will pass into a life of relative ease.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Whether outside work is done by choice or not, whether women seek their identity through work, whether women are searching for pleasure or survival through work, the integration of motherhood and the world of work is a source of ambivalence, struggle, and conflict for the great majority of women.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)