HUI

also spelled Hwei, or Hui-hui, also called (Wade-Giles) T'ung-kan, or (Pinyin) Tonggan, Burmese Pathay, Russian Dungan, Chinese Muslims, intermingled with the Han Chinese throughout China but relatively concentrated in western Chinain the provinces or autonomous regions of Sinkiang, Ningsia, Kansu, Tsinghai, Honan, Hopeh, Shantung, and Yunnan. Considerable numbers also live in Anhwei, Liaoning, and Peking. The Hui are also found on the frontier between China and Myanmar (Burma) and in Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, in Central Asia. They number about nine million. The ancestors of the Hui were merchants, soldiers, handicraftsmen, and scholars who came to China from Islamic Persia and Central Asia from the 7th to the 13th century. After these ancestors settled in China, they intermarried with the Han Chinese, Uighur, and Mongolian nationalities and came to speak Chinese languages, or dialects (while often retaining Arabic too). Eventually the Hui's appearance and other cultural characteristics became thoroughly Chinese. They now engage mostly in agriculture, and most of them live in rural areas. The urban residents are generally in the trades of spices, jewelry, jade articles, tanning, fur processing, and catering. There have been a number of famous Hui thinkers, navigators, scientists, and artists. The Hui Brigade was active in World War II, in the resistance against Japan (193745).