Ma Hailun (left) talks to a boy at a rehabilitation center for children with disabilities on International Children's Day on June 1, 2022. CHINA DAILY
Like most families, Ma Hailun and her loved ones gather around the table for major celebrations such as Lantern Festival in the first month of the traditional Chinese calendar.
They always prepare a feast of boiled dumplings filled with meat and vegetables that are taken piping hot from the pot.
The plump dumplings, stuffed with each family member's individual preferences and enjoyed together, are a good reminder not only of the family's closeness but also the ethnic harmony enjoyed in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui autonomous region.
Ma, 45, is a member of the Kirgiz ethnic group. She left her home more than 2,000 kilometers away in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region two decades ago to join the family of her husband, Liu Hao, 46, in Ningxia's capital Yinchuan.
Ma's extended family presents a snapshot of the country's ethnic diversity and the way people of different ethnicities in China live harmoniously together.
Her husband is ethnic Hui, while her mother-in-law, Zhai Shuhui, 74, is ethnic Han.
When she was a young woman, Ma studied in Yinchuan, where she met her future husband. She graduated in 2000 and returned home, leaving him behind.