Unity, strength in diversity
Family made up of people from different ethnic groups mirrors Ningxia social harmony
Like most families, Ma Hailun and her loved ones gather around the table for major celebrations such as Lantern Festival in the first month of the traditional Chinese calendar.
They always prepare a feast of boiled dumplings filled with meat and vegetables that are taken piping hot from the pot.
The plump dumplings, stuffed with each family member’s individual preferences and enjoyed together, are a good reminder not only of the family’s closeness but also the ethnic harmony enjoyed in Northwest China’s Ningxia Hui autonomous region.
Ma, 45, is a member of the Kirgiz ethnic group. She left her home more than 2,000 kilometers away in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region two decades ago to join the family of her husband, Liu Hao, 46, in Ningxia’s capital Yinchuan.
Ma’s extended family presents a snapshot of the country’s ethnic diversity and the way people of different ethnicities in China live harmoniously together.
Her husband is ethnic Hui, while her mother-in-law, Zhai Shuhui, 74, is ethnic Han.
When she was a young woman, Ma studied in Yinchuan, where she met her future husband. She graduated in 2000 and returned home, leaving him behind.
“My life and work were smooth after returning to Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi, but I missed him
and my heart always seemed empty,” she said. “After a long conversation with my mother, I decided to return to Yinchuan.”
After going back to Yinchuan, Ma was assigned to work for a local organization assisting people with disabilities. Work colleagues and other members of the community helped her settle into her new home and circumstances.
They gave her daily necessities such as a quilt and cooking oil. To ease Ma’s initial homesickness, Liu and his mother would invite her for dinner on weekends, when there were always freshly cooked dumplings on the table.
Ma eventually married Liu, who works in the public sector, and they had a daughter, Liu Jintian, who is now 15.
Her steady integration into her new home and community is not an unusual story. Across the country there have been growing efforts by local communities to build and strengthen harmony among the nation’s 56 ethnic groups.
President Xi Jinping has stressed that ethnic unity is the lifeline of all ethnic groups in the country and that a strong sense of community is key to ethnic unity. Efforts must be made to strengthen such a sense by furthering education on ethnic unity, he has said.
In March 2022, at the fifth session of the 13th National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, underscored the need for all ethnic groups in the “big Chinese family” to remain close like “the seeds of a pomegranate”. He also called on them to work together to build a great country and strive for better lives.
Measures to forge ethnic unity in Ningxia include youth and tourism exchanges, and community projects in cities and counties that provide different ethnicities with mixed residential areas for educational and social activities.
Regional authorities said they are accelerating the construction of a demonstration area for “forging the consciousness of the Chinese nation” by building a common home for all people and “promoting all ethnic groups to jointly move toward socialist modernization”.
Ma Hancheng, a member of the standing committee of the Party committee of Ningxia, said the region has a strong tradition of unity, with integration of various ethnic groups a major part of its history.
“Ningxia has always attached great importance to ethnic harmony, carrying out major projects in previous decades to that effect,” he said. “We strive to promote the exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups, such as improving policies and guidelines and long-term mechanisms for cultural inclusiveness, and economic prosperity.”
Ma Hailun was born into a family of Party members. She said her father, a former soldier, often told his children, “Without the CPC, the Kirgiz herders deep in the mountains would not have been able to make the transition from nomadic practices to settlement.”
In 2022, Ma Hailun’s work required her to transfer to the Ningxia rehabilitation center for the disabled as a result of policies to help ethnic group members with disabilities regain confidence and also aid the development of their communities.
“As a family, we share weal and woe,” she said. “We share a common destiny together.”