Beef and Noodles Resicpe Contest Winner
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Student Competition Winner: Halal Noodles in Shanghai
Haronnae Wang's Muslim customers tell him, "It's hard to find halal food in Shanghai, and this tastes like home."
This slice is one of ten winners of our 2022 Profile Contest. You can discover more here . Stephanie Chen, the author, is 16 and goes to Shanghai American School , Pudong Campus, in Shanghai.
Running a Halal Noodle Store in Shanghai
By Stephanie Chen
It'southward lunchtime on Sunday. Sifang Beef Noodles, a little store tucked away in a gentrified corner of Pudong New Surface area, Shanghai, is full of hungry customers. Opened equally a halal noodle store by an Indigenous Hui family, Sifang Beef Noodles has become a neighborhood staple.
Haronnae Wang, the owner, sits behind the counter, taking in the oversupply. At present forty, he's been running noodle stores in Shanghai for 19 years. His 6-yr-old son plays video games side by side to him, and his wife and brothers piece of work the kitchen in the dorsum. They all migrated together, leaving the Hui Autonomous Region in Qinghai Province to earn money in the urban center. Whenever Mr. Wang sees a fellow Hui person walk into the shop, his optics lite upwards with excitement. His Hui customers are happy to exist at that place, too, saying, "Information technology'south hard to discover halal food in Shanghai, and this tastes like habitation."
The following are excerpts from conversations with Mr. Wang, translated from Mandarin and edited for clarity.
Epitome
How did you end upwards opening a restaurant in Shanghai?
My community back in Qinghai was largely agrarian. Everyone I knew farmed for a living, and I thought I was going to exist a farmer, likewise. But then, by the time I was 17, 18, people started moving away. Everyone wants a better life, and at that place are just no opportunities in Qinghai. I had a friend who was already in Shanghai at that time. He helped me and my family move.
I opened a noodle shop the first year I came, and I've switched locations a couple of times, merely I've never changed my business. I think about of the Hui people who come up here run some sort of small business organization.
Is there a reason running a pocket-sized business is such a popular option for Hui migrants?
I wouldn't really call information technology an option, actually, because we don't have many other choices. Few of united states of america have much formal teaching, so white-collar work is out of the moving picture. It's besides difficult for united states to compete with local people for manufacturing plant jobs, since we don't have a hukou [A hukou is a registration organisation in China identifying a person's "permanent residence." For migrants like Mr. Wang, applying for a Shanghai hukou is often an impossibly difficult process. He, like many other migrants, still holds the hukou from his childhood habitation.]
But I too like running a noodle shop. Information technology's manageable, and it's easier for our entire family. We can bring the kids to piece of work. Our profits took a hit with the pandemic, simply we're even so able to send coin home each year.
And then Qinghai is withal home to y'all?
Qinghai will always be home for me. My parents still live in that location, and when my son grows older we'll send him back for school. Without a hukou, he can't receive a public education here, we can't buy a house here and we can't retire here. Qinghai is yet home, no matter what. We try to get back every yr, besides, for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.
The vast bulk of people living in Shanghai are atheist Han people. What is it like living as a Muslim here?
When I article of clothing the taqiyah or my wife wears a hijab exterior, we get stares sometimes. I don't recollect it'south too noticeable, but it'due south quite common. I would say people aren't bigoted or judgmental as much every bit they are curious, still. Most Han people I've met know little about the Muslim organized religion or Hui culture. But no one has always been directly malicious considering of my religion.
I do think there's a tight-knit Hui community in Shanghai, though. Even if I've never met them before, when a Hui person comes into my eating place, they'll use the Arabic greeting, "every bit-salaam-alaikum." It means "peace be upon you." When someone says that, I know that they are Hui too, and I immediately feel like I've met a close friend. In that location'due south a saying that goes "All Hui people under the heaven are brothers." We are an Indigenous minority group in a large country of over a billion people. Peculiarly in a metropolis like Shanghai, every single Hui person is family.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/learning/student-contest-winner-halal-noodles-in-shanghai.html
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