One-year picture.
When I was on my trip a met a few cool little kids.
One night after dinner, Teya and I were walking around next to Xiamen University. I was looking at some CDs, and when I turned around, I saw she was talking to a little boy who was selling something. I came over to see, and found that the boy was really photogenic, strangely so, and was also super-articulate. He was giving her this well-reasoned shpiel about why she should buy these dangly cell-phone charms. He said they would make great gifts for people back home, etc. He was just so charming that I started talking to him too, just for fun. To sort of pay him back for the chat, I actually bought two (at a jacked-up price, I’m sure). Then I asked if we could take a picture of him. The boy said yes, but then the man he was with (his big brother) said we had to get rid of the picture in one year. I wasn’t sure what he was saying, so Teya and I went back and forth for a while trying to figure it out.
Then the kid, whose Putonghua was really clear, explained. He said he was a member of the Hui minority, and according to their tradition, you can’t have a picture of someone for more than one year. I’d never heard of that before. I do know, though, that there are a ton of different kinds of Hui people. The Muslim restaurant near my house is run by a Hui family from Qinghai. Some of their employees are from Lanzhou. The Lanzhou guys shave their heads every Chinese New Year, but the Qinghai people don’t. The Lanzhou guys said it’s traditional for Hui people in their hometown to do this. What I mean is, Huis are a pretty diverse bunch, although they all belong to one ethnic group and belive in Islam.
After we finally figured that out, I had a little chat with the kid about Islam. He really knew a ton about it, and we were able to ask him a lot of questions. Like for example, I wanted to know if Hui people fasted during Ramadan and at what time a Hui boy was considered a man. He told me they did fast starting age 12 (bad for people working in restaurants — it must drive them crazy to serve food all day!) but were only considered men when they turned eighteen. I told him I had a lot of Muslim friends in high school, and I asked him if he read the Koran. He said yes, and advised me that I could go to the net bar, go online, and read it in English there. Well okay!
Then Teya took my picture with him. It came out really well, and in fact, he came out looking all modelly, as if he were striking a pose. It was really funny! But unfortuantely that was one of the pictures that disappeared when my camera malfunctioned. At least now he can be sure I won’t keep the picture for more than one year!
February 16th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Interesting story. I wish the photo was around (at least for the year), so that we could see this great-looking kid!