Non-Muslim residents living near Weigongcun have witnessed changes in the street over the years.

"Nowadays, the Uygur people feel more at ease living on Xinjiang Street than before. Some 20 years ago, there were smaller hole-in-the-wall restaurants serving exotic and savory Muslim food. Today, the businesses have grown much bigger," recalled a local resident interviewed by one of Zhuang's students.

"They dressed more formally in their distinctive ethnic clothes in the past. Now they don't. I still remember those young Uygur kebab vendors' colourful skull caps. Today's Uygur restaurant owners seldom wear them."

But the Uygur restaurant owners have tried to maintain their traditional family lifestyle and ways of doing business on Xinjiang Street, a place thousands of miles away from their original homes in the west of China.

The Uygur people in Beijing have a strong sense of community and a clear awareness of their ethnic identity.

Zhuang said their collective behaviour reveals the irresistible power of their rich and ancient Muslim culture.

He said in most cases, the father of a Uygur family would come to Beijing by himself to first establish himself before inviting the rest of his family to follow him.

Uygur women usually have little to do with the management of the restaurants.

The typical Uygur restaurant serves various Muslim foods - some that served only noodles in the past have been forced by competition to adopt a more complicated menu and better marketing skills, Zhuang's report shows.

The most popular and interesting Uygur foods include lamb kebab (yangrou chuan'r) sprinkled with cumin and hot pepper; various types of "pasta" (mian pian, la tiaozi); roast fried spicy mutton (chao kao rou); square noodles in tomato sauce (chao pian'r); naan, a type of bread; a salad (Xinjiang shala), usually consisting of tomatoes, cucumber and onion; and pan ji, a gigantic plate of chicken and potatoes cooked with tomatoes and red and green chillies.

The decorations in a Uygur restaurant usually evoke the owner's Muslim religion, with Islamic inscriptions on the windows and walls.

In the interior rooms where the owner lives can be found traditional Chinese paintings depicting Uygur daily life.

Many of the restaurants hire Han workers to do chores such as sweeping, mopping, serving dishes or greeting guests for the owners, who often do not speak standard Chinese.

These Han employees are not allowed to enter the kitchen or bring non-Muslim foods into the restaurant.

As well as running businesses side by side, many restaurant owners on Xinjiang Street like to share rented apartments.

They often party or dine together and go to a nearby mosque to worship every Friday.

Without full-time imams to serve the community, the Uygur residents on Xinjiang Street usually carry out their own simplified religious services.

Most of their dead are buried in the Muslim cemetery in Beijing, although wealthy families send their loved ones back to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for a formal burial.

Public affairs on Xinjiang Street are jointly managed by the residents' committee, the local police office and a village leader who is generally accepted and respected by the Uygurs there and has authority in handling internal affairs and disputes between Uygur people and other local residents.

Surveys show non-Uygur restaurants have been moving onto Xinjiang Street in recent years.

The newcomers include Dongxiang Muslim, Tibetan, Korean, Dai, Yi, Mongolian, and Sichuan restaurants.

There are also Mao (Zedong) family style restaurants, which are run by Han people and serve spicy Hunan foods said to be the favorites of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, a Hunan native.

The growing diversity of restaurants on this compact block have made the food business on Xinjiang Street increasingly competitive and vigorous.

It has also become more attractive for visitors from home and abroad.

Some people Zhuang interviewed suggest that the Uygur restaurants should take the initiative in "creating something new and fresh," or "borrowing from other ethnic cultures" to enhance their competitiveness.

Regular patrons of Xinjiang Street said that they "want more delicate, more exquisite Uygur foods" and want to try foods from different parts of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, with different flavours.

The Dongxiang cuisine

Some of the new restaurants have taken a cunning approach to attract more guests.

For example, the spacious Youhao Restaurant on the east end of Xinjiang Street claims to be a Xinjiang Uygur style restaurant, but it is actually owned by a Dongxiang Muslim woman with a university education who speaks Mandarin and the Dongxiang language, not Uygur.

The restaurant owner employs several Han, Dongxiang and Hui workers from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Shandong Province.

Her restaurant serves Dongxiang, Hui and Xinjiang Uygur food.

She has also adapted some Dongxiang and Hui dishes by adding spicy seasonings or tomato sauce to make them look like and taste like Uygur foods.

Asked why she does not call the restaurant "Dongxiang style," she replied: "When we first arrived here, we had to stick to the rules of the game. Most guests came from afar just to savour Uygur foods and to experience Uygur customs. If we didn't pretend to be Uygur, we would surely have been ignored and forgotten by guests."

While making superficial compromise to achieve commercial success, the Dongxiang restaurant owners have clung to their own traditions and customs, Zhuang's report shows.

They are now planning to change their selling tactics as the restaurants on Xinjiang Street become more and more diversified.

"We'll make it a real Dongxiang restaurant offering special Dongxiang foods. We even plan to change the employees' uniforms into Dongxiang style," the Youhao Restaurant boss said.