A New Entrance Gate in Urban Minorities: Chinese Muslim Minority, the Hui People Case

Abstract

This article identifies a newly emerging young, urban, Chinese Muslim class that is evolving during a time of significant modernization. In this study, measures were developed to record each participant's degree of receptivity to modernization via background information gathered from test groups. The results identified those most open to new information (Entrance Group). An empirical survey to gather this data was conducted among 232 young, educated, urban (YEU) individuals from the Hui people and the Han Chinese majority. Results from the study suggest that the YEU's media and program preferences will strongly impact research regarding effective mission strategies. The analysis proves that the YEU-Hui is a distinct group within its traditional community setting, and accordingly, has distinct preferences and needs. As such, this modernized Muslim class is theoretically influential among its own people, open to new information, specific in its media consumption of similar applications, and similar in many ways to young adults within similar demographics from foreign populations. This article is based upon afield survey for my Ph.D. dissertation, “Receptor-Oriented Communication for Hui Muslims in China: With Special Reference to Church Planting” (2009).