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A big day for Zhou as his family gets together to celebrate Corban Festival
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AT around 9am, Zhou Shengqi, 80, left the village mosque after prayers and returned to the house he has called home for more than 40 years. Yesterday was an important day for him, as 33 of his relatives had returned home for an annual family celebration.
For Muslims it was the start of the Corban Festival, also known as Eid al-Adha or the feast of the sacrifice, a three-day event centering around a large feast where a meal of lamb takes center stage.
Zhou lives in Mumin New Village in Wuzhong, a city in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The region is home to China’s biggest concentration of ethnic Hui people, who are Muslims. By the end of last year, there were more than 2.4 million Hui people in Ningxia, about 36 percent of the region’s population.
Zhou’s house has a large courtyard with a jujube tree and the smaller children used a bamboo stick to try to knock the fruit from its branches.
“Corban is one of the most important festivals for Muslims. I am so happy that most of my family have returned from the cities to break bread with me,” said Zhou.
For this year’s feast, Zhou bought a cow and six lambs, which cost around 20,000 yuan (US$3,000). He wanted to make the day one to remember.
Zhou has the biggest family in the village. He has five daughters, a son, 13 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, with three more on the way.
“It is very rare to have such a big gathering like ours in my village,” Zhou’s wife Ma Kaihua, 74, said. “Each year everything about our Corban celebration gets bigger, the food, the celebrations, but most importantly, the family.”
Mumin New Village is a typical Hui settlement, and 68 Hui families live in what was listed as a national-level intangible cultural heritage site in 2007. In 2011, the local government selected some of the families as homestay hosts to offer tourists bed and board.
Zhou’s family was one of those picked. His daughter-in-law and granddaughter-in-law take care of the business and welcome around 400 visitors a year, guaranteeing a handsome income.
In 2004, Zhou went to Mecca for Haj. Three years later, his wife also went on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, followed by their daughter and son-in-law.
“Such journeys would be impossible in the past because we just didn’t have the money,” Zhou said.
As he spoke, Zhou’s daughters brought in cold cucumbers, rice, pancakes and beef with pickled vegetables, and the family gathered around the table for breakfast. The men came in from preparing the cow and lambs and the women began to pass around dishes of rice, pancakes and pickled vegetables.
“Breakfast is usually simple,” one said. “Our main meal will be ready at around 3pm.”
“In my eyes, the meal is not the most important activity,” Zhou said.
“What matters is that all of our family are here at our home, and that’s what makes this day so meaningful for us.”
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