ABSTRACT

Many Hui and Han informants in Lanzhou explained ethnic behavior in their beloved city in terms of traditionality and modernity.1 The said pair embodied the two end points of an evaluative continuum of urban life. Behavioral patterns were immediately labeled as “modern” if they were considered as individualistic, instrumental, cosmopolitan, and universalistic, as opposed to “traditional” behavior that was communal, expressive, parochial, and particularistic.