ABSTRACT

This chapter tells a story of a migratory family of the Hui Muslim national minority from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in north-western China, who ran a Lanzhoustyle beef noodle restaurant in the northern coastal city of Tianjin in the late 2000s. It traces the geographical and social mobility of the family at different points of the life course involving three and in particular the older two generations’ unremitting efforts to sustain and secure livelihoods through initiating, engaging in and developing a range of entrepreneurial endeavours within the north-western region and later beyond it. The chapter explores the meanings of the narrative about the major events in the livelihood trajectory of the migratory family, situating these in a broader context of rapid and profound societal and institutional change.