Storied Answers to Questions about Interethnic Marriage in Multiethnic Qinghai Province, PR of China

Authors

Monika Kolodziej, Jagiellonian University

Abstract

The article discusses the use of stories as answers to direct questions. The author encountered this pattern while conducting fieldwork tracing identity contexts among young Chinese Muslims of the Hui ethnicity in the city of Xining, a cultural crossroads in Qinghai Province in northwest China, between 2016 and 2018. Regardless of a respondent’s ethnicity and gender, respondents shared the same pattern of sharing stories from the lives of unnamed friends and relatives. This pattern appeared predominantly when asking about interethnic relations and personal views on interethnic marriage and can thus be understood as a high-context cultural strategy for politely and indirectly expressing personal attitudes. The article analyzes this pattern in terms of Chinese culture and the national image of harmonious coexistence in a multiethnic society.

Recommended Citation

Kolodziej, Monika (2022) "Storied Answers to Questions about Interethnic Marriage in Multiethnic Qinghai Province, PR of China," Narrative Culture: Vol. 9: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/narrative/vol9/iss1/2