Yunnan Travel
Halal Travel Guide: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 2 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Halal Travel Guide: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 6 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Halal Travel Guide: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 7 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book. view all
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book.
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book.
South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1)
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Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life. view all
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life.
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life.
South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2)
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 6 views • 7 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel view all
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel
Halal Travel Guide: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 2 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Halal Travel Guide: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 6 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Summary: Jianshui Old City — Yunnan History, Mosques and Food is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Jianshui Travel, Yunnan Travel, Muslim Heritage while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 5th at noon, we left Najiaying in Yuxi for Jianshui. We passed by the Guanyi Mosque in Qujiang, which houses the Awakening Dream Pavilion (Xingmeng Lou) built during the Qing Dynasty. The Awakening Dream Pavilion was first built in 1687 (the 26th year of the Kangxi reign) and was originally called the Awakening Heart Pavilion (Xingxin Lou). It was renamed the Prayer Pavilion (Bailou) after being rebuilt in 1752 (the 17th year of the Qianlong reign).
The mosque also keeps several stone lions in the local style, along with a plaque inscribed with the words "Vast, Refined, and Subtle" (Guangda Jingwei) erected in 1917 by Yunnan Army Major General Ma Wenzhong and Army Major Na Fuxing.
We traveled south from Guanyi to the Jianshui Ancient City and stayed at an old house inn called Xianting. It was very quiet and unique, and it had not been overdeveloped.
In the evening, we went to the famous Zitao Street for a late-night snack. There were so many halal stalls on Zitao Street! The main items were grilled tofu, grilled potatoes, and grilled meat skewers. Of course, there were also various types of cattail shoot rice noodles (caoya mixian), tilapia, and pounded chicken feet. There was just too much to eat! We started with a fruit bowl, then had grilled skewers, grilled tofu, and grilled potatoes. Having lived in Beijing for a long time, it had been ages since I visited such a lively night market.
Actually, the area around Xiaogui Lake outside the Chaoyang Tower in Jianshui Ancient City is also very lively at night, with many halal restaurants. If you stay near Chaoyang Tower, you don't really need to go all the way to Zitao Street to have a great night out.
At the Zitao Street night market, we drank pomegranate juice and ate local clay pot rice (guanguan fan) and corn cakes (yumi baba).
On the morning of October 6th, we ate the local specialty, cattail shoot bridge-crossing rice noodles, on Mashi Street near the Chaoyang Tower in the old city of Jianshui. We also bought beef jerky mooncakes (niu ganba yuebing) and purple rice lion cakes (zimi shizi gao) to eat on the road.
According to the inscriptions inside, the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque was first built during the Huangqing era of the Yuan Dynasty and is the oldest mosque in southern Yunnan. The existing main hall was rebuilt in 1730 (the 8th year of the Yongzheng reign) and features a simplified hip-and-gable roof typical of the Jianshui region.
The beam structure of the east-facing hall of the Jianshui Ancient City Mosque is simple and sturdy, and it is believed to be original woodwork from the Yuan Dynasty.
Halal Travel Guide: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History
Articles • ali2007fr posted the article • 0 comments • 7 views • 2 hours ago
Reposted from the web
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book. view all
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book.
Summary: Tonghai, Yunnan — Ma Family Courtyard and Hui Muslim History is presented here as a firsthand travel account in clear English, beginning with this scene: Author: Zainab. The account keeps its focus on Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, Ma Family Courtyard while preserving the names, places, food, and historical details from the Chinese source.
Author: Zainab
On October 4, we drove 33 kilometers east from Dabaiyi Village in Eshan, Yuxi, Yunnan, to reach Dahui Village in Tonghai County.
Dahui Village was originally called Hexi Dadonggou. It is home to over a thousand Hui Muslims, the most famous of whom are the Ma family of Tonghai. The Ma family’s ancestral home was Nanjing. They came to Tonghai to do business with the army in the early Ming Dynasty and settled there. In the early 20th century, the Ma family built up great wealth through horse caravans and international trade. They built three large courtyards in the village between the 1930s and 1940s, which were named Yunnan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units in 2018.
The Ma family courtyards were confiscated after the 1950s. In 1986, they were returned to the Ma family as private property belonging to overseas Chinese, and the family has lived there ever since. As the elders of the Ma family passed away and the younger generations moved to cities, the family handed over Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2 to the village for safekeeping. They only return during holidays, while Courtyard No. 3 is still occupied by Ma family descendants. By asking helpful village elders, we were able to visit Courtyard No. 1 and Courtyard No. 2. We were very sorry we could not enter Courtyard No. 3 because the owners were not home.
Courtyard No. 1
The first large courtyard is No. 102 in Dahui Village. Built between 1932 and 1933, it is a traditional Yunnan-style courtyard with a layout known as 'three bright and five dark' (ming san an wu) and a corner-turning corridor (zouma zhuanjiaolou). This means you have to walk a distance from the main gate before reaching the courtyard itself.
The outermost part is a traditional Yunnan-style gate with a ridged roof and upturned eaves. It is very interesting to see two sets of couplets from different eras layered on top of each other. The bottom layer is a traditional couplet: 'Han dynasty tile inscriptions bring long life, Zhou dynasty bronze plate inscriptions bring wealth and luck.' The yellow upper layer has a first line that reads, 'Study hard, Allah is the master, put effort into your writing.' I cannot fully identify the second line, only the words 'hardened' and 'hatred'.
After entering the gate, there is a small courtyard filled with orange trees heavy with fruit.
Entering the courtyard, there is a Western-style gate from the Republic of China era. Its Roman columns look very similar to the minaret (jiaobailou) of the Dabaiyi Mosque in Eshan, built in 1935. You can also see the slogan 'Be united, tense, serious, and lively' on the gate, as this place once served as the Dahui Village committee office.
The hollowed-out partition wall inside the gate is very different from the traditional screen wall (zhaobi) or folding screen found in other courtyards.
The first small section of the courtyard contains a small house built of cement. This cement was imported from Japan at the time and transported via Kunming.
The front hall of the Ma family courtyard is unique, featuring a six-sided, multi-eaved, pointed-roof pavilion. It was used exclusively by the clan leader, Ma Yuanwu, for namaz, so it is also called the prayer pavilion (libaiting). It later became the village broadcast station. The pavilion has exquisite colorful paintings, wood carvings, and tiles imported from Japan.
Ma Yuanwu (1862-1955) originally made his living as a farmer. In the early 20th century, he sent his eldest son, Ma Tongzhu (1880-1958), to lead a horse caravan. At first, they carried salt to Xinping County to sell to people from Sichuan. After three or four trips, they saved some money, and then he sent his eldest grandson, Ma Bingzhong (1899-1972), to open a soy sauce workshop in Panxi Town, nearby Huaining County. At the same time, the Ma family used their horse caravans to transport brown sugar boiled in Panxi to Kunming for sale, then brought salt back to Panxi, gradually growing their business.
At the entrance to the first floor of the prayer pavilion, there is a couplet: 'Orchids and cassia in the pavilion spread fragrance far, the shade of the ailanthus and birch trees in the hall lasts long.' The ceiling inside features clouds, cranes, and the characters for 'blessing' (fu) and 'longevity' (shou). The second-floor ceiling has two lotus flowers, and the surrounding windows feature very fine wood carvings.
You can see the pastoral scenery from the balconies on both sides of the prayer pavilion.
The Ma family courtyard was built under the direction of Ma Tongkuan, the second son of clan leader Ma Yuanwu. During the early Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan lived in Mojiang County, east of Pu'er, managing various business dealings. Because he kept his word and managed things well, he became a very wealthy man in southern Yunnan. In the middle and late Republic of China, Ma Tongkuan returned to his hometown of Dahui Village and oversaw the construction of the three Ma family courtyards. In 1956, Ma Tongkuan served as deputy county magistrate of Qilu County. In 1957, he was labeled a rightist, and in 1968, he returned to Allah (gui zhen).
When building the Ma family courtyards, Ma Tongkuan hired craftsmen from Shanghai and Annam. It took about twenty years. They fired their own bricks and tiles, quarried stone, and selected and cut their own timber. The garden kept peacocks and even had an advanced boiler room.
Tonghai has always been famous for its wood carving craftsmanship, and the exquisite wood-carved doors and windows of Courtyard No. 1 are proof of this. The doors and windows feature not only various flowers, plants, birds, and animals, but also pavilions, waterside structures, and Western-style architecture, showing the unique style of the era.
The Ma family courtyard once had twenty or thirty plaques, including 'Cultivating Virtue to Protect Descendants' inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek and 'Five Generations of Prosperity' inscribed by Long Yun, as well as plaques from Yu Youren, Bai Chongxi, Feng Yuxiang, and many others. However, they were all destroyed in the 1960s. All the beautiful couplets were replaced by slogans. Figure 1 shows the marks where the plaques used to hang above the door.
In 1918, the Ma family sold their soy sauce workshop and opened the Yuanxinzhai firm in Mojiang. They switched to trading cotton yarn, cloth, silk, and satin. At the same time, they bought mountain goods and medicinal materials like tea, purple stick (shellac), cowhide, deerskin, velvet antler, and ivory. Later, they also boiled deer glue, expanding their reach from domestic markets to Thailand and Myanmar.
In 1921, the Ma family changed the name of 'Yuanxinzhai' to 'Yuanxinchang' in Kunming. They mainly traded ivory, velvet antler, tiger bone, otter skin, tea, cloth, silk, and dyes. They also transported Chinese medicinal herbs like saffron, sweet flag (changpu), musk, and fritillaria to Thailand for sale. Later, the Ma family established the Jingchang Tea House in Jiangcheng and founded a tea factory to press seven-piece tea cakes (qizi bingcha), which were carried by horse to Laos and then to Vietnam and Hong Kong for sale.
An empty room.
A small house in the backyard, which also has its own little courtyard.
The water vat in the courtyard was likely used for fighting fires.
A safe from the Republic of China era sits in the courtyard. It is labeled 'Southwest Industrial Company Safe Department' and 'Improved fire and Thief Resisting safe Made in China'. "
In 1951, the Ma family deposited all the gold, silver, and silver dollars (yuan datou) buried under their compound into the Hexi County People's Bank. This included about 2,000 taels of gold bricks and bars. The largest gold brick weighed over 400 taels, making it too heavy for one person to carry easily, along with 2,000 to 3,000 silver dollars. This event was reported in the Yunnan Daily, and the Ma family was called 'enlightened landlords'. After the land reform movement (tu gai), this gold and silver was taken back to Dahui Village to be displayed as 'fruits of struggle' during public meetings, and then the three compounds and all the furniture were confiscated.
Courtyard No. 2.
Courtyard No. 2 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is located at No. 57 Dahui Village. Built in 1937, it is also a 'key-shaped' (ke yi yin) courtyard with corner towers, but it has a larger skylight, a spacious yard, and simpler decorations.
A plaque reading 'Five Generations Under One Roof' once hung over the gate of Courtyard No. 2. Today, you can still faintly see the words 'Dongqu Brigade' and 'School'. After it was returned to the Ma family in 1986, it was lived in by the family of Ma Zishang (1914-2007), the grandson of Ma Yuanwu. In recent years, the Ma descendants only return during holidays.
In the 1930s, besides running horse caravans for trade, the Ma family set up branches across central and southern Yunnan, as well as in Kengtung and Monghsat in Myanmar, and Lampang, Chiang Mai, and Bangkok in Thailand. During the War of Resistance, trade routes were cut off, and Pu'er tea began to pile up. Once the war ended and the routes reopened, the Ma family immediately hired ten large ten-wheeled trucks to transport over 40 tons of Pu'er tea to Guangdong for resale in Hong Kong. Because the Pu'er tea had been stored for years, it was fully fermented and aged, making it very fragrant and popular with buyers. On the return trip, they brought back flashlights and batteries, which were scarce in Yunnan and sold out quickly.
The Ma family was not only good at business but also very devout. I saw several plaques in the courtyard celebrating their successful Hajj pilgrimages.
Courtyard No. 3.
Courtyard No. 3 of the Tonghai Ma Family Compound is at No. 101 Dahui Village. Built between 1947 and 1948, it is the most modern of the three. The Ma family had not yet moved in when the liberation occurred, and after land reform, it became a warehouse for the production team. It is still occupied by Ma family descendants. We were disappointed that we could not visit because the owners were away when we arrived.
After 1945, cross-border trade from Simao to Thailand and Myanmar was gradually replaced by inland trade from Shanghai and Guangzhou to Yunnan. After careful consideration, the Ma family closed their trading businesses in Simao, Mojiang, and Jiangcheng after 1948. The Ma family planned to start trade between Yunnan and Chengdu, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, but new conflicts made this impossible. They finally decided to work together to open the Mingde Cotton Yarn Shop in Kunming. In 1950, the Ma family invested in the Mingde Textile Mill, starting with an investment of 2,000 bales of cotton yarn. After the public-private partnership reform in 1956, Ma Ziming continued to serve as the manager of the Mingde Textile Mill.
Dahui Village Mosque.
The Dahui Village Mosque in Tonghai was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in 1829. The Tonghai Ma family led an expansion in 1946, and the main prayer hall was recently rebuilt as a modern structure.
Tonghai Dahui Village is a Jahriyya (a Sufi order) village. In 1781, Ma Shunqing (1770-1851), the eldest son of the Jahriyya founder Ma Mingxin, was exiled by the Qing government to Simao, Yunnan. He was later rescued by the imam Ma Yunguang from Gucheng and settled in Talang Village, Mojiang, where he became known as the 'Old Ancestor of Talang'. The third son of the Old Ancestor of Talang, Ma Shilin (1813-1871), moved from Talang to Dahui Village in Tonghai and became known as the 'Third Elder of Yunnan'. Ma Shilin ran a horse caravan business in Kunming and became a famous wealthy man, making Dahui Village in Tonghai a well-known Jahriyya village in Yunnan.
The 'Private Yuanwu Chinese-Arabic Primary School' next to the mosque was founded in 1947 by Ma Tongkuan, the second son of the Tonghai Ma family patriarch, Ma Yuanwu. At the time, the school had six classes and an attached kindergarten, with over 300 students from various villages in the northern plains of Hexi County. to the standard curriculum of public schools, they also added English and Arabic. The first class graduated in 1950. Among them, Ma Qichao became the deputy county magistrate of Tonghai, and Xiao Hanjie became the principal of the Tonghai County Teacher Training School.
Some old houses in Dahui Village.
The most detailed book about the Tonghai Ma family is the oral history 'Legendary Family on the Tea Horse Road', and some of the information in this article was compiled from that book.
South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1)
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Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life. view all
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life. view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life.
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 1). Author: Zainab. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Author: Zainab
From October 4th to 6th, our family rented a car from Kunming to travel to Yuxi, Tonghai, Jianshui, Shadian, Kaiyuan, and Mengzi. This first article covers our departure from Kunming and our visits to three Hui Muslim villages: Liren in Xishan, Daying in Yuxi, and Dabaiyi in Eshan.
I. Departure from Kunming
We flew from Xishuangbanna to Kunming on the afternoon of October 3rd, took the airport subway line to the terminal station at Tangzixiang, and after walking a few steps, we arrived at Zhenghe Beef Restaurant. The owner was incredibly welcoming, and the food was so delicious that my parents, who have lived in Urumqi for fifty or sixty years, couldn't stop praising it and immediately fell in love with Kunming.
Some of their meat dishes were written on a board, but for vegetable dishes, we had to choose directly from the restaurant's classic display case. We ordered crispy red beans, stir-fried bitter greens, stir-fried piao mushrooms (a type of local fungus), mashed potatoes with mint (laonai yangyu), stir-fried meat with bean curd, and steamed beef with rice flour. The owner also gave us some meat broth on the house. It was the first time our whole family had eaten crispy red beans, and everyone loved them. The piao mushrooms had a texture like meat and were very fresh and delicious. Laonai yangyu is the Yunnan version of mashed potatoes; it tastes very savory. The bean curd is more tender than tofu and has a very mild flavor, so the meat mixed with it is seasoned relatively strongly. We all agreed that the best dish they made was the steamed beef with rice flour. They were very generous with the meat, unlike some shops that use so much starch you can't even taste the meat.
On the morning of October 4th, we ate Dali ersi (rice noodles) and papaya water with rose jam and chilled shrimp at the entrance of the Yixi Gong Mosque in Kunming, beginning our three-day trip to Kunming, Yuxi, and Honghe.
In the late 19th century, as the Hui Muslim caravans traveling through Kunming and Dali to Myanmar and Thailand flourished, Hui Muslims from western Yunnan, such as those from Weishan in Dali, began to settle in the Qingyun Street area of Kunming. In 1899 (the 25th year of the Guangxu reign), the Hui Muslims of western Yunnan in Kunming, together with the Xingshunhe firm established by Yuxi Hui Muslims, pooled their funds to build the Chongshan Gongsuo (Chongshan Public Office) at the east end of Qingyun Street. Afterward, Hui Muslims from Dali merged the Zhuiyuan Hall, Chengyi Hall, and Baozhen Hall with the Chongshan Gongsuo. In 1919, it was renamed Chongshan She (Chongshan Society) by order of Yunnan Provincial Governor Tang Jiyao, officially renamed Yixi Gong Mosque in 1942, and was known as the Kunming Overseas Chinese Mosque in 1951.
II. Kunming Haikou Liren Mosque
After picking up our car at Kunming Station, our first stop was the Haikou Liren Mosque in the Xishan District of Kunming, 46 kilometers away from the station.
Liren was originally called Heihuzhai, and it is said that Muslims have lived there since the Yuan Dynasty. Liren Mosque was first built in 1645 (the second year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), destroyed in 1856 (the sixth year of the Xianfeng reign), rebuilt in 1872 (the second year of the Tongzhi reign), and expanded in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) with funds raised by "Lady Yang the Third," a local heroine. It was newly designated as a cultural relic protection unit of Kunming in 2020.
The main gate of the mosque also serves as a minaret, designed in the traditional Yunnan style: the lower part is a single-eave gate tower with a hip-and-gable roof, and the upper part is a hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof, inside which hangs a bronze bell used for the call to prayer.
Inside the main prayer hall, there is an exquisite mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) featuring traditional Yunnan-style calligraphy, as well as a traditional-style minbar (pulpit) built in 1945, inscribed with "Qingzhen Shengyu Tai" (Pure and True Holy Preaching Platform) and dated "the 34th year of the Republic of China," which is very rare.
The flower beds built in 1940 look very elegant.
According to records, Xu Xiake passed through Liren Village in 1638 (the 11th year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty), so there is a sign inside the mosque marking it as a "Xu Xiake Travel Route Landmark."
III. Yuxi Daying Village
Continuing 52 kilometers south from Haikou Liren Mosque, we arrived at the Daying Mosque in Yuxi.
The mosque's main gate was rebuilt in 1914 as a two-story gate tower with an inward-facing eight-character screen wall. The upper level has four corners, and the lower level has eight corners, featuring exquisite decorative dougong (bracket sets), carved beams, painted rafters, and upturned eaves. Entering the gate, one finds the Xingmeng Lou (Awakening Dream Tower/minaret), a three-eave, four-cornered, pointed-roof pavilion standing 30 meters tall.
The main hall of Daying Mosque has been expanded many times. The front hall was built in 1605 (the 33rd year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty) and completed in 1617 (the 46th year of the Wanli reign). The middle hall was expanded during the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, and the rear hall was expanded in 1985, with a total capacity of 2,000 people.
While visiting the market in Daying, we bought some local crispy roast duck at a 30-year-old shop. The lean duck is much better than Beijing roast duck, though the accompanying sauce is not as good as the one in Nanjing.
During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the Hui Muslims of Daying, Yuxi, were famous for their caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand. The most famous of these was Xingshunhe, founded by Ma Youling in 1846. Ma Youling initially bought yarn in Kunming, transported it to Yuxi to exchange for cloth, and then dyed the cloth with local indigo into blue or black fabric for sale. During the Guangxu reign, upon learning that Chiang Mai, Thailand, had foreign indigo that produced better dyeing results, Ma Youling began organizing caravans to Chiang Mai to purchase foreign indigo, which he then sold in Kunming after dyeing the cloth. In the late Guangxu period, Xingshunhe grew larger and larger, dealing in cloth, straw hats, foreign indigo, and Sichuan salt, and opened branches all over Yunnan. Later, to facilitate caravan transport, they switched to lighter goods such as deer antler, musk, tortoise-deer glue, tiger glue, and tiger bone, opening branches in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Old Hui Muslim houses in Daying Village.
The front of the house is inscribed with "Yingchen Li," and on the right, it says "the Yihai Year of the Republic of China," which is 1935.
At the entrance of Daying Village stands a Qing Dynasty bluestone memorial archway, erected in 1896 (the 22nd year of the Guangxu reign) by order of the Guangxu Emperor to honor the highly respected Hui Muslim centenarian Ma Xuekuan and his wife, Madam Ma. It is a Yuxi municipal-level cultural relic protection unit.
The archway has three gates. The middle gate is inscribed with "Imperial Decree of Commendation," the front says "A Centenarian of Peace," and the back says "Gate of Chastity and Longevity." The inner sides of the pillars have a couplet: "Reaching the age of one hundred, competing to praise the supreme longevity; the imperial decree commends virtue and age, permitting the construction of this lofty arch." The side gates also have couplets: "Ten thousand miles of dragon light engrave the virtuous people, a hundred years of crane marks signify the extraordinary." And: "Life is not full, but you have fulfilled it; it is hard to meet in the world, yet I have encountered it." "
Two watchtowers were likely built in the past to defend against bandits.
IV. Eshan Dabaiyi Village
Continuing 42 kilometers south from Daying, Yuxi, we arrived at Dabaiyi Village in Eshan County.
The founding date of Dabaiyi Mosque is unknown. It was rebuilt many times during the Kangxi, Qianlong, and Tongzhi reigns, destroyed by an earthquake in 1913, rebuilt in 1915, and the call-to-prayer tower was rebuilt in 1935.
The call-to-prayer tower, also known as the Awakening Dream Tower, was built in 1935. The first floor's facade is in a Western gate tower style, while the second floor is a traditional Chinese hexagonal pavilion with a pointed roof. Currently, the first-floor gate tower has been renovated, with only the middle door frame remaining.
The front hall of the main prayer hall was built in 1915, and the rear hall was expanded in 1980. Very interestingly, the roof uses yellow glazed tiles to spell out the three characters for "Mosque" (Qingzhen Si).
Dabaiyi in Eshan is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. From the donation list for the construction of the mosque's teaching building in 1996, it can be seen that the donating overseas Chinese came from many regions, including Chiang Mai, Mae Sai, Bangkok, Wang Yang, He Fei, Da Duan, Mae Salong, Man Tang, Su Ming, and Lampang in Thailand, as well as Tachileik and Kengtung in Myanmar.
The history of Dabaiyi Hui Muslim caravans "traveling abroad" to trade in Myanmar and Thailand is very long. During the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, Dabaiyi Hui Muslims would lead caravans every year, carrying local cloth, yellow tobacco, wool felt, and daily necessities through Simao and Pu'er to trade in Kengtung and Tachileik in Myanmar, and Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, bringing back goods such as indigo, deer antler, ivory, tiger bone, and cattle and sheep hides. Some Dabaiyi Hui Muslims settled down in Thailand and Myanmar, opening shops and marrying local women. Some stayed because of rampant bandits on the road, fearing their property would be looted.
At noon, we ate stir-fried cowpeas with meat, stewed squash, cold sliced meat, and stir-fried chayote at the Yipinxuan Restaurant at the entrance of Dabaiyi Village in Eshan. Their cold sliced meat was not very good. After eating, we entered the village and saw a private kitchen run in an old courtyard; the environment was so good that I regretted my choice!
Next to the Dabaiyi Mosque is a traditional courtyard with a Western-style gate tower at the entrance, inscribed with "Dingxingxiang," which I suspect might be the name of the caravan firm their family opened during the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China. The environment inside the courtyard was very good and felt very refreshing. When we went, there was only a grandmother with her grandchildren, and the family seemed very happy. The traditional bluestone bricks had been replaced with terrazzo, giving a sense of overlapping eras. Corn was hanging in the courtyard, and walnuts and sunflower seeds were drying under the windows, giving it a very strong sense of daily life.
South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2)
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Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel view all
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel view all
Reposted from the web
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel
Summary: This travel note introduces South of Kunming Halal Travel Guide: Liren, Yuxi Daying and Eshan Dabaiyi (Part 2). Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of. It is useful for readers interested in Yunnan Travel, Hui Muslims, China Mosques.
Another Republic of China-era gate next to the Dabaiyi Mosque, inscribed with 'Wobo Shanfang' (Mountain Villa of Resting Waves), featuring beautiful traditional Arabic calligraphy of a dua, with a pair of horse-tethering stones on both sides of the gate, one with a lion and the other with an elephant.
Other old houses
Residential gate lintel