My friends and I are leaving the mosque. We just finished our afternoon prayer time. Most of us have worshipped together at this mosque our entire lives. I remember when this mosque was surrounded by fields and now it sits in the center of a large city. At my age, my daily life revolves around the mosque. I try to go five times a day when I am healthy. I spend most of my time with family or talking and playing games with these other guys. All of the families connected to the mosque are like one big family.
I grew up in the city. As a result, I am very accustomed to Han people and their ways. In fact, many of my friends are Han. Although my husband is Hui, his mother is Han. I do not wear a headcovering and I honestly do not think much about my religion. Of course, I do not eat pork, and I enjoy celebrating our Muslim holidays. I have heard about Jesus and about what Christians belief. If I were to believe this, even though my family is not very devout, they would disown me. I was born a Muslim, and therefore I must stay a Muslim.
Mei Li’s parents teach her about Jesus and tell her stories from the Bible, and her grandparents help her understand the Muslim culture and holidays she experiences in her small village. Sometimes she feels confused about how her parents’ faith and her grandparents’ faith are similar and how they are different.
As a college student, Mary is struggling with identity, wanting to fit in to this new world at university with more freedom but still knowing the importance of her Hui identity.
YeYe (“grandfather”) spends his retirement years sitting outside in the sun in his apartment complex and walking back and forth across the street to the Mosque five times a day. Like most elderly Chinese Muslims, he’s devoted to his faith because thoughts of the afterlife seem more pertinent at his age.