Food insecurity is one of the most serious problems in developing countries, especially in Ethiopia. Therefore, it is important to understand the barriers to improving the state of food security in the country. Thus, this study aims to investigate the determinants of food security of rural households in the North Shewa zone in the Amhara region, Ethiopia. A sample of 796 farm households was considered. This paper used the calorie intake method per day to measure household food security status and a logit model to investigate the determinants of food security. The results show that family size, age of the household head, educational level of the head, off-farm activities, monthly income of the household, and distance from the market are the major determinants of rural household food security in the North Shewa Zone. The findings suggest that expanding the access to education in farm households, expanding the access to off-farm activities to increase household income, and expanding market access to farm households are important to improve rural food security status in the study area. Nowadays, food security issues become one of the critical concerns and top priority areas for both developed and developing countries . This shAmhara national regional state of is one of the severely affected regions of Ethiopia. The region is the second populous region and agriculture is the main economic activity. The intensive use of land in the region has led to the recurrent occurrence of drought, and this has resulted in 14.8 percent of the rural households being chronically food deficient UNICEF . In the Similarly, North Shewa zone is one of the zones of Amhara region, and the zone has experienced acute food insecurity problem and most of the population of the zone has received only limited assistance from humanitarian organizations. Besides, the per capita growth of production of major food items has not been sufficient to satisfy the demand of an increasing population in the zone. There is a growing concern that the situation may worsen , 13, 14 Various studies have been conducted on investigating the determinants of food insecurity at regional and national level , 15–19; The concept of food security began 30 years ago at the First World Food Conference in the mid-1970s, and its scope and definition were narrow. Initially, the concept focused on national and international interest and was defined in terms of food supply, paying particular attention to stable food prices and food availability . Food seFood insecurity became a key problem and development challenge for Ethiopia in the early 1970s and became widespread in the decades that followed. More importantly, since the 1980s, severe droughts and massive famines have triggered the need for food security and food aid initiatives. Conversely, the concept has become more complex as the level of analysis moves from global and national to household and individual levels . The sevThe problem of food insecurity in different parts of the world in general and particularly in Ethiopia is caused by different factors; empirical evidences showed that food insecurity is caused by low per capita income; low and unequal income distributions affect food, particularly low volatile growth rates in agriculture, unemployment and underemployment, small or declining farm size, inequality of domestic distribution, low land use, social discrimination, population growth, market access, food taboos: certain restrictions on food consumption, poverty and climate insecurity due to cultural and social norms, climate change, deforestation, landslides, reduced soil fertility, political instability, poverty, marginalization, ethnic and low-caste groups, and high maternal and infant mortality , there are a total of 117,149 households in the selected district. With this in mind, Vogel  and MalhThis study used both descriptive and econometric methods to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis such as mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum is used to better understand the demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional characteristics of farm households, and an econometric method through binary logistic regression is used to estimate the determinants of food security in the study area.In this study, the food security status of households is measured by the calorie intake method. Based on the calories intake method, the food security line is defined by selecting a “basket” of food items usually consumed by the households. The amount of the basket is decided in such a way that the given bundle meets the predetermined level of minimum caloric requirement by the Ethiopian government such that 2200 kcal . This “bZi represents the dependent variable (household food security status). α is the intersection of the models. ßi represents the unknown coefficient to estimate. Xi is the vector of independent variables that can influence the dependent variable, and εi is the perturbation condition of the model. It should be noted that the estimated coefficients do not directly indicate the effect of change in the corresponding explanatory variables. Thus, the study estimates marginal effects to indicate the effect of change in explanatory variables on the probability (P) of the outcome occurring.In this study, the dependent variable (food security status) is dichotomous, which takes a value of 1 if a household is food secure and the value of 0 if the household is food insecure. Hence, we have two appropriate models at disposal, namely, logit and probit. In practice the logit model is simpler in estimation than the probit model and the logit model also provides more stable results than the probit estimation . TherefoThis section presents the descriptive and regression analysis results of the study. Descriptive analysis used tools such as mean, percentage, standard deviation, and frequency distribution. Logit model was used to determine the determinants of food security in the Northern Shewa region.2 = 0.0001). The table presents the marginal effects of the determinants of the food security situation of rural households in the study area. The results show that keeping other things unchanged, the variable educational level of the household head has a positive and significant effect on food security status, indicating that householders that are more educated can make more informed decisions about consumption and the importance of healthy eating. In addition, these households are better able to access and use social programs to improve their nutrition. The marginal effect indicates that as the number of years of schooling increases, the probability of food security increases by 2.1% relative to the counterpart. This result is in line with [ine with .The result shows that keeping other things remains unchanged, the variable family size has negative and significant effect on rural household food security status, and this implies that increasing family size, having less active household members, increases the number of dependent members in the family, increases consumer spending, and reduces the ability to provide enough food for a household. Furthermore, increase in the household size puts more burdens on earning members and may affect their food security status due to availability of limited resources. The marginal effect shows that an increase in the household size by one member decreases the probability of a household being food secure by 13.3%, compared with other subjects, all other things being equal. This result is consistent with [The empirical analysis shows that keeping other things unchanged, the variable distance to market has a negative significant effect on food security status of the households. This indicates that households are both consumers and producers as they have to travel long distances to buy agricultural inputs, consumer goods, and sell their agricultural products, costing farmers money, and they would be food secure by consuming their own product. The marginal effect indicates that a household is located one kilometer away from the market; the probability of food security will decrease by 4.6% compared to households. This result is consistent with , 13. TheThe results show that keeping other things unchanged, the variable age of household heads also has a positive effect on food security status; this is possible because farmers get more and more experience in their farming operation, climatic knowledge of their area, accumulate wealth, and use better planning than the younger ones. Hence, they have better chance not to become food insecure. Regarding the marginal effect, keeping other factors unchanged, one year increase in the age of the household head will result in an increase the probability of being food secure by about 0.2%. This study is consistent with , 15, 26.The results show that keeping other things unchanged, the variable income of the household head has a positive and significant effect on food security status, indicating that household food security increases with higher level of a household monthly income. Regarding the marginal effect, keeping other factor unchanged, one birr increase in the income of the household head will result in an increase the probability of being food secure by about 55.7%. This study is in line with , 28.Food insecurity is one of the major development challenges in Ethiopia. This study investigated the determinants of rural household food security status in the North Shewa region, Amhara region, Ethiopia. This study employed quantitative research approach and multistage sampling method was used to select 800 household heads from four districts, namely, Minjar Shenkora, Angolela Tera, Moretna Jiru, and Menz Gera districts. This study employed both descriptive and econometric methods of data analysis. In this study, food security status was calculated using the caloric intake method. The results show that, based on the food security threshold line 2200 kcal, a total of 482 (60.55%) sample households were food insecure in the study area. The logit estimated results reveal that age of the household head, education level of the household head, family size, off-farm activities, monthly income of the household, and distance from the market were identified as the major determinants of food security status in the study area.Based on the findings, this study suggests the following recommendations; first, family size has a negative and significant effect on household food security status. Therefore, the government should sensitize households' heads on the practice of family planning to discourage larger household size. This can be achieved by integrated health and education services. Second, educational level of the household head has a positive and significant effect on household food security status. Policy measures are needed to encourage access education for households to enhance food security in the rural households. In response, regional, federal, and nongovernmental governments should make education accessible to rural households and providing training and other programs that can help families improve their food security.Third, age of the household head has a positive effect on food security status of the rural household. This means younger households are less likely to be food secure. As a result, capacity building for young household heads should be given to the rural households.Fourth, distance from the market has a negative and significant effect on food security. Hence, the government should expand and open new market area to farmers in rural areas. The local and regional governments can improve the role of market access for food security by constructing all-weather roads connecting kebeles to nearby markets. Finally, income of household and off farm activity participation has a positive and significant effect on rural household food security status. Therefore, the government and other stakeholders should support the rural household to increase their income alternatives and to improve food security through engaging in off-farm activities. In addition, food security strategies should be executed to improve households' monthly income earnings and to improve rural households' food security status.


As the domestic interprovincial migrants, Uygur traders have been engaged in the Hetian jade trade from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the city of Nanyang in Henan Province. Having lived in the private rented houses around the market in the early days, they moved into the government-built public rental housing in 2017, an independently managed community. They have maintained their past residential pattern of living around the market, and gradually develop the community into an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community together with other ethnic groups. Through the history of the formation of the Uygur community in Nanyang Stone Town, this paper presents the process of interaction between the ethnic minority migrants and the local community, examines the responses and influence of the market, society, government, and individuals in this process, aiming to understand how the minority community was formed, to deepen understanding of the “inter-embedded multi-ethnic community", and, in turn, to promote research and reflection on the development of the ethnic community during urbanization in China. This study suggests that such communities surrounding the market are socially extended based on inter-embedded livelihood. The open national market is the core of the social structure of inter-embedded ethnic groups, and market exchange is one of the main relations generated in the current interactions between the ethnic groups. The government’s efforts to build inter-embedded communities are conducive to transforming the relationships among ethnic groups from limited interaction to comprehensive and balanced development. Moreover, the improvement of common living environments and increase in exchanges are conducive to upgrading interactions between individuals to extensive and in-depth exchanges among different ethnic groups. As China is in a transitional period from a traditional society to a modern society, its industrialization, marketization, and urbanization has led to large-scale social and geographic mobility within China. Since China’s reform and opening up in the late 1970s, it has been a distinctive feature of ethnic migrants that they form ethnic economy or migrant community in cities around a certain industrial chain. Examples of this include Ramen shops operated by the Hui from Qinghai, the sale of dried fruits, fruits and barbecued foods by the Xinjiang Uygurs, the sale of Buddha statues and ornaments by the Tibetans, and the sale of silver jewelry and Miao embroidery by the Miao. The focus of Xinjiang Uygur migrants on the jade trade is one of these examples. Through fixed and mobile sales, they have developed widely distributed jade sales networks in Xinjiang, Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, where they have gathered and formed residential areas, and interacted with the local communities, thus shaping the space for spontaneous interaction and exchange and intermingling of different ethnic groups Liu, Sun .There are two basic frameworks with which to analyze such ethnic communities. One, which is mainly based on analysis of ethnic minority groups, believes that the closeness of the same ethnic minority group in terms of language, culture, and customs makes it easier for them to establish a group identity in a new city, with the bond of ethnic origin becoming an important social resource on which members can rely in the new environment. Uygurs in Beijing’s “Xinjiang Village", which has previously received attention from scholars, is a typical example of this  in 2014From the perspective of the formation and development of the Uygur jade trader community in Nanyang, this paper focuses not only on the influence of residential patterns on social exchanges and spiritual culture but also on the process of interaction between the original community, the migrant group and the local government. It also studies the influence of the interaction process on the three layers of interaction: residential pattern, social exchanges and spiritual culture. In the case shown in this paper, the influence has led to positive development in the business environment and community environment of the Uygur jade traders living around the market and developed a new outlook on the spiritual culture of the minority group and their social interaction with the locals.This study mainly adopts ethnographic and anthropological methods for field research, through in-depth interviews, participating observation and small-scale seminars and other methods. We have conducted over 150 interviews with migrant Uygurs from Xinjiang engaged in the jade trade and relevant industries in Nanyang, more than 80 interviews with management staff of relevant governmental agencies in Xinjiang and areas to which Uygurs have migrated, more than 50 interviews with local residents, and over 40 interviews with non-Uygur origin jade traders; along with the interviews, we have compiled field materials of nearly 200,000 words. We have also observed the business operation and everyday life of Uygur migrants through field research, and compiled field materials of nearly 100,000 words. In addition, we collected relevant historical information, policy documents and other documentary materials. This paper is the stage achievement of the research.The conclusion and discussion of this paper consist of five parts. Part 1 describes the background and scale of Uygur jade traders in Nanyang, a historic jade distribution center. Part 2 describes the formation of a specialized Hetian jade trading market for raw stones as Uygur jade traders have gathered in the Nanyang Stone Town. This market has transformed from an initial roadside market to a standardized indoor market, where an internal management mechanism of “middlemen" and “managers" emerged as the market started to be standardized, rather than loose or disordered as it was to begin with. Part 3 describes the shift of Uygur jade traders’ residence from rentals around the market to concentration in government- built public housing, a process that has enabled Uygur jade traders and their families to interact more with the locals; to some extent, the concentration is the beginning of a multi-ethnic community. Part 4 describes the development of this multi-ethnic community consisting of a vast majority of Uygur jade traders and their families, where the local government provides equal public services to residents and positive relationships and mutual recognition are created between Uygurs and locals through increased interaction and exchanges. Part 5 presents the difference between such structurally inter-embedded multi-ethnic communities centering on the market and the ethnic communities with spatial segregation of residence in the past; the inter-embedded multi-ethnic community is distinct as it involves comprehensive interaction in livelihoods, lifestyles and spiritual culture.Jade culture has a long history in China. In ancient China, jade culture served as a system of representation for the traditional political structure, and jade was endowed with great symbolic value. For this reason, the elite favored jade and thus substantially increased demand for it. While the jade used in the early stages was mainly produced on the Central Plains of China, jade materials from surrounding areas began to be discovered, transported and used after the dissemination of jade culture. Hetian jade soon gained the recognition of the governing class as it was transported to the Central Plains, which was the result of its embeddedness in ancient Chinese jade culture.The city of Nanyang in Henan Province, located in the core area  of ancient Chinese culture, has a thriving jade culture. It is famous for producing Dushan jade, one of the four most famous types of jade in China. Jade mining, processing and trading form the backbone of the local industrial chain. Zhenping County, under its jurisdiction, has emerged as a national hub for jade processing and trading that has taken advantage of geographical location and jade culture traditions since the beginning of the reform and opening up policy, and is known as China’s “hometown of jade carving". The Stone Town of Zhenping County is the core area of the jade industry, and has a total area of 148 square kilometers, which is mainly inhabited by Han Chinese, with a residential population of 72,000, nearly 80% of whom are engaged in jade or jade carving-related industries. Meanwhile, it is home to a large number of migrants from all over China, with a migrant population of 50,000. Since 2016, 10 large specialized jade markets have been formed, covering all links of the jade industry.Xinjiang has a profound history of mining, processing and selling jade, which is represented by Hetian jade. Since the Yin/Shang dynasties, Hetian jade has flowed into the inland areas in large quantities in various forms, such as tributes, nongovernmental trade and official collection, forming a “jade road" connecting the Western Regions of China and the Central Plains. In the late 1970s, when the reform and opening up policy began in China, the jade and jade utensil markets became active. Some people from Zhenping County began to go to Xinjiang to purchase jade, and some of them established cooperative relations with local ethnic minorities, mainly Uygurs. Around the year 2000, a small number of Uygurs traveled to Zhenping County to sell Hetian Jade produced in Xinjiang. Since then, Xinjiang’s Hetian jade has risen in the national jade market, and attracted a large number of inland merchants to participate in Hetian jade trading. However, it difficult for inland merchants to travel to Xinjiang to purchase jade, and they faced procurement difficulties due to differences in language, culture and trading traditions. As an increasing number of Uygur traders realized the potential of the inland market, they started moving to the inland areas to trade Hetian jade. Once the Uygur traders became familiar with the inland market, they began to trade large quantities of Hetian jade to the Stone Town, and to Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong. They hereby formed a Hetian jade trading network led by Uygur traders crossing the eastern, central and western regions of China.With the improvement of the business environment and living facilities in the Stone Town, some Uygur traders settled down here and have successively brought their families to live together from their hometown. They live in the Stone Town for business, and sometimes travel to coastal cities for trading. Thus, the Uygur population in the Stone Town has grown rapidly, and their businesses have extended from jade trade to catering, accommodation, transportation and other services. In 2007, the Hetian jade market saw a new wave of transactions since Hetian jade was chosen as the raw material for gold medals in the Olympic Games. In addition to being a high-grade decorative item, Hetian jade is considered an investment item, as many people are optimistic about its further appreciation, and this has inflated its price. The number of Uygur jade traders in the Stone Town has once again grown, with a peak of over 3,000 Uygur residents in the Stone Town around 2008 and more than ten thousand Uygurs operating on a short-term basis. However, since 2013, the number of Uygur jade traders in the area has fallen again as the overall jade market has cooled down. By the end of 2021, the Xinjiang resident population in Nanyang was around 1,000, with around 90% of these residents coming from various prefectures in southern Xinjiang, mainly Hetian, and a small number from Ili and Urumqi. 5The jade market in the Stone Town is divided into two main categories: indoor markets and roadside markets. Indoor markets include large and medium-sized jade malls and individual stores, which usually sell different grades of finished jadeware and jade ornaments. Road markets, on the other hand, are located on different sections of the road, depending on the types of jade and jade material being sold, with stalls selling raw stones, trimmings and relatively low-end finished jade pieces.In the early days in the Stone Town, Uygur jade traders gathered in road markets around Zhaohe, Yufo Bridge and Yubo Road. Like local traders in the road markets, every day after the markerts opened, they would place the stones neatly on a four-sided cloth over the roadside, while waiting by their stalls for customers to come and ask for quotations, and making deals on the spot. The road markets were usually open for half a day, and when they closed, the traders would put the stones back into their sacks or customized iron cases and transport them back home in a trolley trailer or tricycle, waiting for the market to open the next day. As the Uygur traders would not return to Xinjiang for procurement until the stones were almost sold out, they would travel between the two locations at least two or three times, or up to seven or eight times per year. At the beginning, the jade market was rapidly rising, and market management was adapting to it. Market management was still immature, which was evident in the more mobile road markets. As newcomers to the market, Uygur traders inevitably encountered many difficulties in integrating into the local market, and an organizational mechanism was spontaneously developed to help them cope with and adapt to the local market. With strengthened management from the government on all jade markets in the Stone Town, the Hetian jade market dominated by Uygurs was re-planned and re-arranged, and significant changes have occurred in the residence and organization of the Uygur trader community.In the early days, Uygur traders mainly sold Hetian jade. In addition to some jade collectors and investors, the majority of their customers were jade processors. These processors purchased raw jade, then made use of local jade processing techniques to create delicate finished jade pieces, which were then sold to other places. Uygur traders and local jade processors were situated in different links of the industry, relying on one another to complete the entire production and sales process.Unlike ordinary commodities, jade has no standard market price. Although both sides of the transaction set prices based on their judgment of the jade quality, their judgement criteria and preferences may differ, so their expectations for prices may vary greatly. This makes bargaining one of the most important parts of the jade trading process. Bargaining requires face-to-face verbal communication between the two sides, with verbal communication being the most common channel. However, for most Uygur traders, communicating in Mandarin with locals who have Henan accents is often difficult, and many conflicts that occur in the trading process result from miscommunication. Therefore, many important transactions have to be carried out by Uygur middlemen who are familiar with local customs and have good language communication skills.Although the quality of Hetian jade sold by Uygur traders varies, there are some high-quality jade pieces quoted with hundreds of thousands and even millions of RMB. In the period when the market was not sound in terms of technical conditions and lacked a modern market surveillance system, jade theft often took place. According to some jade traders interviewed, the market at that time was so crowded that it was difficult to obtain evidence and trace the theft cases. Usually, the investigation was not settled and Uygur traders often suffered losses as a result. Due to lessons learned after multiple thefts, they found that thieves were usually working in gangs. Once they were caught, their gang members would step in and interfere, which could easily turn into a group conflict. In 2006, local market regulators increased security patrols, installed surveillance cameras and further improved the regulation system, so that the theft of jade has been effectively curbed.Although controversial incidents arising from market operations over transactions have occurred from time to time, the market itself has developed in an organized and orderly manner, which is not only reflected in the further standardization of market management by relevant government departments, but also in the integration and organization within the Uygur Community. These Uygur traders, most of whom do not know each other, come from all over Xinjiang and gather in the Stone Town for business. Although they are of the same ethnic group, mutual discrimination and exclusion occurs due to geographical and urban/rural factors. As a result, the Uygur community faces difficulties in terms of getting along with the locals and handling internal relations.As mentioned previously, most Uygur traders came to the Stone Town as individual vendors in the early days of the jade business. Although they shared the same market, their lives were not connected. This situation began to change with the emergence of some “leaders". Ike, from Ili, was one of themFor Ike, being a market “manager" not only meant having more social resources, but also being paid for helping others complete their transactions. As the market expanded, the number and frequency of Uygur jade traders travelling between Xinjiang and the Stone Town increased dramatically, and they began to travel to Suzhou and Yiwu to conduct business. As they had to carry large quantities of jade, it was important that they had easy access to transportation. As this was a business opportunity for Ike, he contracted several buses to provide dedicated shuttle services for traders who travelled weekly between different markets. With the convenience of road transportation, the Uygur jade trade has far exceeded the fixed jade market in the Stone Town, and evolved into a mobile jade trading network. Because the Stone Town has the largest jade trading base in China and its living cost is far lower than that in the southeast coast, people still choose to use the Stone Town as a transit station. Uygur traders like Ike saw this opportunity and began to explore services that could meet everyone’s daily needs.As the main source of Hetian jade, the locals of Hetian in Xinjiang enjoyed unique advantages, and the number of Uygur traders of jade in the Stone Town was increasing. Hei Li  was one of them. Having lived in the inland areas since the 1990s, he arrived in the Stone Town in 2009, demonstrating great ability in market management and communication. He called together a number of young Uygurs who had moved to the inland cities in previous years to help him, contracted the Longmao market next to the original Yubo Road market, and set up a new Uygur jade market exclusively for traders from Hetian. Meanwhile, he started a transportation business. Thus, the Yubo Road and Longmao markets, and the transport industry derived from them, began to be managed by Ike and Hei Li.Although the government market authorities were clearly involved in the management of the Uygur market, the actual practice was to delegate the management to “middlemen’ from the Uygur trader community. As they were allowed to manage the market directly, they could dominate the market operation and the internal organization of the community. However, the change of the strength structure within the group would actually lead to the competition for the “power of management" in the market. Hei Li’s involvement was just the beginning, as jade traders Yimin and Mehmet, also from Hetian, showed their enthusiasm for market management. The two had also been recognized for their work for the locals. At the same time, Ike, the original market “manager", became involved in gambling and other bad habits, and his business and prestige fell. Seeing an opportunity, Yimin and Mehmet offered RMB 68,000 for Ike to transfer the “management" of the market. Ike took the money and left the Stone Town, never to be heard from again.The Yubo Road area was part of the early market in the Stone Town, and the roads were narrow. With the development of the jade market on the road, especially after Uygur traders participated in the trading, the narrow market became even more congested. The crowd could only move slowly with the help of traffic police during the midday rush hour, which impacted the local traffic order and people’s normal lives. In April 2013, the local government re-arranged the jade market in the Stone Town, and moved the Uygur jade traders from the road market on Yubo Road and Longmao to the “World Jade Source Market" at the southern end of the International Jade City, solving the problem once and for all. The “World Jade Source Market" is divided into two halls, north and south, and each stall has been fitted with professional lighting equipment, making the market clean, spacious and bright, and greatly improving the business environment. Meanwhile, all stalls in the market are numbered in order to strengthen its standardized management, and each trader is assigned a fixed stall and operates with an authorized certificate. The hall is equipped with a comprehensive monitoring system, and professional security guards and Uygur joint defense guards for public security are employed to patrol the market, which has completely solved persistent problems such as jade theft, robbery and forced buying and selling. Adi and his wife operate two stalls in the North Hall, and in their 13 years of selling jade at Shifo Temple, they have witnessed huge changes in the area. “In the early days when we had stalls on the roadside, jade pieces were often covered by dust whenever a car passed by. There was no security guarantee or manager, but a lot of theft. In 2014, when we had just moved into this new market, there was a large surveillance system, and few people stole. In 2017, the government took back management of the market, and in 2018, cameras were installed at each stall. We seldom see any theft now, and even if there is a thief, they will get caught as the police arrive in 3 minutes”. In addition to the 478 Uygur jade traders in the new market, there are also dozens of Han Chinese merchants selling similar jade materials, forming an “inter-embedded" market in which people of various ethnic groups work together in jade trading. In the early days of the “World Jade Source Market", the “managers" of the market during the road market period secured the lease for the entire market from the developer, and then sublet each stall to jade traders, thus maintaining their control over the market. Later, however, the government of the Stone Town agreed with the developer that a corresponding agency would be set up to lease and directly manage the jade market, and employed Uygur jade traders such as Yimin and Mehmet to assist with market management. While these middlemen continue to perform their communication and coordination functions, the nature of their role in the market is completely different. The Uygur jade market has thus completed its transformation from a loose road market to a regulated indoor market, and has entered a new phase of development.The market was the place where Uygur traders had the most contact with other groups, and market exchange relations were the first relationships formed between them and the basis for the expansion of their relationships with one another. Most of the disorder encountered by Uygur jade traders in their early days in the Stone Town was related to market disruption. The management of the jade market was loosely managed, and neither side of the trade was effectively protected, resulting in a spontaneous “middleman" management mechanism in the community. However, as the market’s hardware and facilities improved, the market management system was clarified and supervision was strengthened. Jade can be traded safely and smoothly, and conflicts have been significantly reduced. This shows that a well-regulated and orderly market is an important basis for good relations between different ethnic groups.Large-scale population concentration along with the development of the jade market must catalyze various new social service demands, some of which can be met through the reciprocity of co-ethnics while more demands must be fulfilled by new community organizations and public service authorities in the city. On the one hand, the continual community of jade merchants and consumers has stimulated the burgeoning service industries of all types around the market. On the other hand, it has also prompted the government’s public service investment for this group and hereby promoted the formation of a multi-ethnic community dominated by Uygur families engaged in the jade business.When more Uygurs began to gather in Stone Town, their demands for different life services also gradually increased, drawing forth relevant service facilities. In the early stage, most Uygur merchants were engaged in a short-term mobile business model and mainly chose short stays in hotels around the county or market. However, their demand for accommodation rose when they brought their families to Stone Town. Many chose to rent local houses around Yubo Road and the jade market square where Uygurs ran businesses. While some lived in the same buildings as their landlords (but on different floors), more Uygurs rented entire residential buildings and sublet the the vacant rooms outside their own use to other Uygur businessmen. Due to dietary habits that differed from those of the locals, most Uygurs prepared dry food for themselves or went to the only Uygur restaurant in the county in the beginning. Soon, the restaurant opened a branch in Stone Town and offered accommodation. Several halal restaurants, Uygur naan bread bakeries, halal butcher shops and stores were subsequently opened around Yubo Road Market, turning the site into a center of Uygur life in the local area. This concentration on the market brought forth more social needs, the satisfaction of which in turn further facilitated assembly and integration of the community. Aini’s experience is a convincing example of this.Born in Yili, Xinjiang in 1973, Aini has a childhood friend who is originally from Nanyang. This friend later followed his parents back to his hometown, but kept in touch with Aini. In 1994, Aini went to Nanyang at the invitation of his friend and happened to meet a family from Xinjiang who wanted to sell their restaurant. As Aini had worked as a helper in a relative’s restaurant for several years before, after a short investigation, Aini made a bold decision to acquire the restaurant with his friend and an employee of the restaurant, thence starting his business in Nanyang. At that time, his was the only Xinjiang restaurant in the county. Business flourished and passers-by from Xinjiang would occasionally visit his restaurant due to its reputation. As the jade market began to bloom, more and more Xinjiang natives came to Stone Town. At that time, the price of Hetian jade was still low. Some jade vendors would mortgage the jade at Aini’s restaurant at a relatively low price when they left and others would simply use the jade to cover the bill. Aini knew nothing about the quality or value of Hetian jade, but was so concerned about his “face"  that he often accepted the jade unselectively. Some time later, too many batches of Hetian jade piled up, affecting the circulation of the restaurant’s operating capital.To turn the stock into cash flow for reinvestment, Aini attempted to sell the jade in Stone Town. Although sales were unsatisfactory due to the low quality of most of the jade, he saw huge market demand for Hetian jade as well as business opportunities here. Despite not being a good jade vendor, he was able to attract professionals from Xinjiang to sell Hetian jade here. The more people came, the better his business would be. Therefore, despite the opposition of his family, he went back to Urumqi and Hetian in 2003 to inspect the local jade market and spread the news that “it’s easy to make money in Stone Town” widely. When he returned to Nanyang, seven or eight jade vendors accompanied him to investigate the market. The first trip to Stone Town did not disappoint, and more and more Uygurs subsequently joined the jade vendors and conducted business in Stone Town. Aini’s news accelerated the connection between markets in Xinjiang and Stone Town, and many Xinjiang natives came to Stone Town due to his introduction. Later, he rented several houses on Yubo Road and opened restaurants and hotels in Stone Town, and many merchants would stay in his hotels and eat in his restaurants on business trips. Aini became a de facto key figure in guiding the ethnic group to take root in the local area at the early stage, as he provided everyone with a detailed profile of the local market and information about various social needs. His prestige gradually grew in the ethnic group. Aike, the interviewee mentioned previously, had benefited from Aini’s influence to some extent in becoming the “manager" of the market due to his role as Aini’s cousin.As one part of Stone Town’s overall jade industry and market planning, the World Jade Source Market is positioned as the exclusive market for the raw stone of Hetian jade  with the aim of further standardizing and regulating the local jade industry. As most of the seed materials was operated by Uygur merchants, the majority in the World Jade Source Market are Uygurs who were previously scattered in all corners of the market due to its relative fragmentation. The building of the World Jade Source Market provided more possibilities for them to contact co-ethnic members, thus establishing more social ties and further strengthening internal integration.The relocation of the jade business to the World Jade Source Market was inconvenient for Uygur merchants who lived around Yubo Road, 1.5 kilometers away from the Market. They had to drag iron boxes loaded with jade back and forth through the entire international jade mall every day, which was time-consuming and laborious. In response to the needs of all parties, following the standardization of the market, Zhenping County invested 41 million yuan to build the “World Jade Source" community in 2016, mainly provided public rental houses to non-local jade merchants including Uygurs. The community, which included a total of eight buildings with 408 sets of public rental houses, was equipped with community activity rooms, a supermarket, library, clinic, and other public facilities. In 2017, all Uygur families in the jade business who had been renting houses scatteredly happily moved to this new community, and their sense of happiness was greatly improved by the low rent and a livable community environment. Xiaoni, whose family was among the first batch to move into the new community, he said that “in the past, some could rent better dwellings while the others could only rent houses in poor condition. After the government built this community, everyone could live in an affordable place close to the market that had natural gas and a jade warehouse. It is so convenient for all of us.” It is notable that the originally dispersed residential pattern has been transformed into a centralized pattern during the standardization of the jade market, and that the economic subject relationship built on loose market relations had been transformed into a community member relationship.The production and living needs of Uygur jade merchants were fully considered in the planning and construction of the World Jade Source community due to clear goals. First of all, given the business setting of the jade stall, the community was less than 200 meters from World Jade Source Market, only a five minute walk away, offering a convenient commute. Regarding vendors’ cutting and polishing needs, a processing area was specially placed at the back of the community. As it would be strenuous to carry large stones upstairs, a warehouse was placed downstairs in which everyone could store materials. Electric tricycles are crucial vehicles for all to deliver jade, so tricycle charging piles and parking lots were set up inside the community to facilitate residents. Secondly, given the significant characteristics of high mobility and various household types, the community housing was comprised of one-room flats, one-bedroom flat, and two-bedroom flats with accessible water, electricity, and gas. These layouts can meet the essential needs of everyone from a single businessman to a small family. Applications for moving in and out of the flat can be completed in the service center at the entrance of the community. Such arrangements can satisfy mobile vendors’ particular needs for short-term residence to the greatest possible extent. Thirdly, full consideration to security was given in its design, as the community is enclosed by walls and the gate is fitted with a monitoring device. Security guards are on duty 24 hours a day and visitors must register before entering the community. Such community regulation can guarantee safety of life and property for all residents.In addition to hardware facilities, the local government also presided over the organization and construction of the community to ensure orderly administration. Since major residents of the community are Uygurs from Xinjiang, the community implements a “dual management system" under an effective exchange mechanism between governments of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Henan Province. In general, the community work is led and coordinated by the Deputy Party Secretary of Stone Town and the heads of relevant local authorities concurrently serve as community leaders; on the other hand, cadres from Hetian, Xinjiang are dispatched to the workstation in Henan to assist with community management. Responsible for coordinating and handling various matters involving Uygur households in the community, the workstation staff have become an important force in community administration, relying on their language and cultural advantages. The workstation is generally managed by the head of station. This “dual management system" has effectively solved many flaws and misunderstandings in past migrant management and better guaranteed lives of migrant Uygur merchants here, thus posing great significance in promoting mutual exchanges. The community typically adopts a “Building Chief responsibility system", whereby each building chief is uniformly appointed by the workstation according to the actual situation. The Building Cief manages affairs of the entire building via activists on each floor and reports to the workstation.Most residents used to live in rental houses separately and lacked communication in everyday life. They were not familiar with each other despite living in the same community. In order to promote mutual exchanges and enrich community life, the workstation made use of holidays and Uygur customs and organized a series of activities such as publicity of laws and regulations, singing competitions, and the Eid al-Adha. The second floor of the south hall of the market was arranged as the temporary venue of worship where Imam in charge of religious work was assigned by the Hetian government. It became more convenient for ethnic minorities to participate in religious activities in both the community and the market.Several Xinjiang restaurants and supermarkets appeared in the surrounding area after the World Jade Source Market was put into operation, and the square in the middle of the two markets was also planned as the site for temporary stalls to open shops selling featured snack food. Shops along the street in the community were rented out to Uygur residents to sell fruits, vegetables and other goods. Some of these shops were relocated from Yubo Road while others flowed into the area later. New service facilities developed around the jade market and a multi-ethnic community gradually took shape around the market.Equalizing public services catalyzed by the governmentAlthough the building of the World Jade Source community has essentially solved the long-standing problem of inconvenient accommodation for all ethnic groups engaged in the jade industry, including the Uygurs, living is only one aspect of the community function. To enable ethnic minority groups to live in peace and work happily in a new environment, based on equitable public services to both Uygur jade merchants and their families and indigenous residents, the local government has actively promoted the exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups by improving an equal public service system and carrying out ethnic unity activities. The main aspects concerning the construction and development of an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community include:Preliminary interactions between Uygur jade merchants and the natives were quite limited as their ties were mainly built on market relations. When jade vendors shifted their business mode from solo mobile trade to family-based migrant operations, their demand for public services increased. Finding solutions to solve difficulties from their co-ethnics constrained their social scope and was not conducive to exchanges with other ethnic groups. To tackle this stalemate, the local government began with tackling the needs of Uygur families engaged in the jade industry and endeavored to provide available public services equal to those of indigenous residents to bolster the social integration of the migrant groups.Access to equitable education for the school-age groups of the migrant population is not only a requirement by the law for citizens’ basic right to education, but also a crucial condition for propelling social relation restructuring and integration into the local society for the migrant population. Statistics from 2013 show that approximately 30% of the Uygur migrant population stationed in Stone Town were juveniles, of which dropout students took up a high proportion. The main reasons for the high dropout rate included language barrier as some migrant children could not speak the language, children being over the age of school enrollment, inability to provide household registration and school registration certificates, parents’ weak educational awareness and lack of educational competency, unstable residence, and other factors. To solve these problems, the local government formulated comprehensive measures to advance the school enrollment of migrant students. Clarifying working principles of “nearby schooling" and “centralized management", the government all Uygur school-age children to be “directly enrolled in the nearest school". Meanwhile, staff also visited and mobilized parents to support their children’s schooling; bilingual teachers were introduced and language training courses were held; “Nine Ones”Everyday life services should be perfected to relieve people’s worries. Healthcare, transportation, and religious beliefs are important guarantees for Uygur families to integrate into local life. To make medical care more convenient for the Uygur people, hospitals at the county and town levels set up bilingual signs in Uyghur and Chinese. The township-level healthcare center has established a “green channel" for Uygurs and implemented a “one-to-one" barrier-free medical treatment model for Uygurs. The community health station was set up by the Community Party Service Center of the World Jade Source community in 2016 to provide services in the neighborhood. To make business travel more convenient for Uygurs, the county government invested 220 million yuan to build the only township-level bus station in Henan Province. The station is equipped with bilingual signs in Uyghur and Chinese and has become a hub linking Hetian, Zhenping, Suzhou and other places on the “Road of Jade". To protect the legitimate religious activities of the Uygurs in accordance with the law, a temporary religious site covering 500 square meters was set up on the second floor of the south hall of the World Jade Source Market in Stone Town in 2014, where patriotic Imams from the Hetian area of Xinjiang were designated for preaching and scripture interpretation to meet the standard religious needs of ethnic minorities.Juridical support is in place to keep transactions safe and resolve disputes. To create a safe social environment for people of all ethnic groups, Stone Town has organized a PAP squadron and one public security bureau and deployed security personnel, physical security, and technological security facilities with the aim of building a comprehensive public security prevention and control system. People’s sense of security has been remarkably enhanced via science and technology in the whole market. Community workstation staff popularize legal knowledge at irregular intervals and Uygur businesspeople are encouraged to settle conflicts in everyday life and transactions through legal tools; a special team of over 40 fluent Mandarin speakers who are respected and reliable members of Xinjiang ethnic minorities has been established; a joint defense team for public security composed of 10 Han individuals and 10 Uygurs has been set up. These two teams actively deal with different contradictions and disputes between the Uygurs and the Han. Promptly eliminating hidden dangers, the success rate of mediation has reached 95%. Many conflicts and disputes are terminated at an early stage to avoid incidents that could jeopardize ethnic relations.2.Inter-ethnic friendship cultivated in community lifeEmphasis is placed on public spiritual and cultural life. With “National Unity Month" as a vehicle, the community organizes a community talk every month to understand residents’ ideas, needs and difficulties. Meanwhile, public welfare lectures for which legal professionals are invited to explain various ethnic policies and spread legal knowledge are given. To enable Uygurs to better understand the development and changes in their hometown, the second set of Xinjiang Satellite TV programs (Uygur channel) was introduced in Zhenping County due to the efforts and coordination of multiple parties. The community also holds regular flag-raising ceremonies and launches a selection of “model families and model residents"; public art performances participated in by all ethnic groups are held. In accordance with the needs of ethnic minorities, national common language and diverse vocational training such as making pastry, sewing, and online live streaming are provided free of charge to advance Uygurs’ capacity for self-development while enriching their spiritual and cultural lives.Exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups are embodied in a concrete inter-personal relationship, in which the common business and living circles serve as foundations for establishing close relationships between Uygurs and native residents. Although economic relation is the main form of relationship between the Uygurs and their neighbors, this initial interaction naturally evolves into more complex interactions as participants are members of the society. Going beyond economic ties, diverse relationships have developed through the market, some of which have negative aspects such as labeling and stigmatization; other experiences are positive, such as friendships gradually cultivated from initial business partnerships. Estrangement originally caused by incomprehension gradually disappears after more interactions. The government’s active intervention and guidance based on spontaneous interaction at the individual level could further accelerate mutual understanding, acceptance, and tolerance among all ethnic groups. More ways and wisdom of living together were explored while admitting the objective differences. This should be the meaning of realizing ethnic integration.Uygur jade merchants encountered many difficulties in business and life in the early days. Some people described their feelings at that time: “I have no alternative but to sell stones here, but I don’t like living here. The locals are hard to get along with.” Correspondingly, some locals thought these Xinjiang people were generally “rude" and “difficult to communicate with". However, the survey indicates that although this situation did exist in early contact, the facts were exaggerated. In fact, Uygur merchants and the locals were not mutually exclusive from the beginning. On the contrary, many of them developed good relationships and affection in long-term contact. The oft-cited tensions are mainly derived from individual competition and conflicts in the period of non-standard market, which are somehow inappropriately labeled as ethnic-relations problems. With constant conceptual improvement in the local market management and perpetual advancement of technical methods, the jade market has become standardized and mature. Conflicts between groups in the market have become a thing of the past and various economic disputes can be effectively resolved through mediation or legal means under primary-level governance. Although memories of previous conflicts still influence different groups’ impressions of each other and communication to some extent, there are more cases of mutual acceptance and identification in everyday interactions.The story of the jade merchant Abdu and Wang Peng vividly illustrates the emergence and continuation of cross-ethnic friendship through everyday interactions. The the locals in Stone Town are engaged in electric tricycle transportation, which is a very important transportation mode for Uygur jade merchants, because they often rely on these tricycles to transport tens or even thousands of kilograms of jade. In 2008, Abdu came to Stone Town alone, dragging hundreds of kilograms of jade. After getting off the shuttle bus, he happened to meet Wang Peng who was waiting for business. Abdu accepted his ride and their first contact on the small tricycles left Abdu with a good impression of Wang Peng. From then on, Abdu would hire Wang Peng when he needed to deliver the stones. He always respectfully called Wang “elder brother". An honest and trustworthy man, Wang would come to pick him up as long as he promised Abdu no matter it was windy, rainy, hot or cold, and he never charged him any extra. Later, they became stable business partners. In the beginning, business was difficult. Once, Abdu needed turnover capital so desperately that he seeked help from his elder brother to borrow money. Though Wang was not rich, he did not hesitate to lend thousands of yuan to help Abdu through this hard time. When Abdu was hospitalized due to an acute disease, Wang took care of him until he recovered. As a stranger on this land, Abdu was deeply moved by Wang’s trust and friendship witnessed by trials and tribulations. Later, Abdu’s business began to take off and he opened a jade shop. In 2016, Wang suffered a stroke and was suddenly in a plight. His child was still in elementary school and his wife left him. Abdu donated 45,000 yuan to his elder brother for treatment and often visited Wang in the hospital. After leaving the hospital, Wang could no longer work in freight transport due to his physical condition, so his source of livelihood was cut off. Abdu then hired him to help look after the shop and paid him 2,000 yuan per month. Abdu’s support reignited Wang’s hope. From mutual recognition and support in business to mutual assistance in life, two strangers from different regions and nationalities interpreted the exchange, communication, as well as integration in ordinary people’s everyday lives with their genuine friendship.In addition to the close relationships established through the jade business, landlord-tenant relationships are a common form of relations between the Uygurs and the natives. Han Bin and the jade vendor Nyaz gradually evolved from landlord and tenant to close friends. Han Bin is representative of many local landlords. Running farmland and engaged in the jade business, he is also a landlord with four apartments in the town, one that he lives in himself and the others that he rents to Uygur merchants all year round. The Nyaz family had been living in his house for seven years before moving into the new community. The jade business was a risky one with many frauds. When confronted with a scam, vendors would be on the verge of bankruptcy. Nyaz was once a victim of a deception and could’t afford the rent for several months as a result. Instead of embarrassing Nyaz, Han told him that everyone encountered difficulties and that he could make up for it when things were better. Nyaz was very grateful for his trust and paid off the rent he owed as soon as possible. Since then, whenever there was a traditional Uygur festival, Nyaz would invite Han to his home and Han would gladly accept. Nyaz would also visit Han to drink and chat on holidays. In addition to selling jade, Nyaz raised pigeons and chickens to support the family when the jade business was not going well. Sometimes he would give Han livestock, and he maintained a good relationship with the neighbors. Han thought that “some locals are prejudiced against the Uygurs, but there are very few bad guys. In fact, the crux of the problem is lack of communication. I feel they are very genuine and not narrow-minded. If you respect them, they will in turn show more respect for you.”The story of Xiao Ha, a young jade merchant, is a convincing one that reflects emotional integration among ethnic groups. Xiao Ha came to Stone Town for the first time in 2007. At this time, he was an 18-year-old teenager who yearned to change his destiny and family. It was a most unforgettable experience in his life, and he recalled: “My family was very poor when I was a child. I came here because relatives told me that it was easy to earn money here. It was difficult to find a place to live as I didn’t even have a cent. I met an old couple and asked them to rent to me a house at 5,000 yuan a year, telling them I had no money now but would give it back in the future. I didn’t expect them to say yes. Unexpectedly, they told me that ‘you can pay the rent if you have money, and there is no need to pay if you don’t. As a stranger, it's not easy to earn money here.’ I was so touched that I could never forget it for the rest of my life. Business has been going well in the past few years and I have earned some money here. This place is like my hometown and I want to devote myself to making it better.” A bond of deep friendship was forged between Xiao Ha and his landlord’s family. Xiao Ha also shows his love and warmth to this land by sponsoring local poor students.The examples above profoundly demonstrate the earnest friendship between Uygur jade merchants and indigenous residents formed in a shared life owing to the development of jade business. While such emotions are usually hidden by the busy rhythm of work, they echo strongly during special events. During the national poverty alleviation campaign, some Uygur jade merchants learned that there were still poor farmers living in some mountainous areas of Nanyang. They spontaneously decided to donate money and necessities to these households to solve some difficulties of the poor. Later, the campaign was further promoted by the Xinjiang work team and attracted more competent Uygur jade merchants. Over 150 Uygur merchants generously donated more than 450,000 yuan to fund local Han people in need. They said that they had lived here for a long time and were quite willing to contribute to the local area in this way. The shift from individual mutual assistance to spontaneous group donation reflects the sublimation of emotional integration.Nanyang, the city in which Stone Town is situated, sits in the Central Plains, the heart of Chinese culture from prehistoric period to Shang dynasty and the cradle of Hua-xia civilization, or Chinese civilization. The surrounding ethnic groups had continued to interact with residents of the Central Plains for a long time throughout history, with some of them organizing regimes after settling in the Central Plains. The history of exchanges and integration has generated a distinctive culture of integration, inclusiveness, and diversity in the Central Plains. Having passed through dynasties, this tradition continues to develop and shape cultural advantages attracting multi-ethnic groups in modern times. Historically, interactions between the Central Plains and different places of the Western Regions of China are explicitly reflected in the development and prosperity of the Jade Road and the Silk Road, and the interactions among ethnic groups in the Western Regions and the Central Plains set an important foundation for the rich connotations of Chinese culture. Therefore, the Uygurs, despite their seemingly significant cultural and conventional differences from the native residents, are able to live and work in Stone Town within a short period of time and develop deep friendships with other residents of ethnic groups in everyday life and business. On the one hand, this can be attributed to the inclusive nature of the traditional Central Plains culture; on the other hand, it is a natural extension of longstanding inter-ethnic exchanges among the Central Plains and different ethnic groups of the Western Regions throughout history.From the above analysis, it is clear that the aggregation and development of the Uygur ethnic group in Stone Town is directly related to the jade market. Nanyang is renowned for producing Dushan jade and possesses a long tradition of mining, processing, and selling jade. Since the 1980s, in addition to the collective operation mode of jade processing enterprises, self-employed households based on family workshops developed rapidly. Nanyang has gradually become one of the largest comprehensive jade processing bases and trading centers in China as the reputations of its local jade processing and trading market have grown nationwide. Due to the varied characteristics of jade, processing technology, sales objects, and trading channels differ for various types of jade. Therefore, a relatively independent secondary market network has been formulated based on varying jade types inside Stone Town’s large jade market. These secondary markets have unique characteristics and complement one another, satisfying all kinds of customer needs and jointly contributing to market prosperity. Hetian jade, one of the four famous types of jade, is an indispensable part of the market. The local industrial chain of Hetian jade came into being after the 1990s. Uygur merchants were transport and sales agents for raw Hetian jade stones. Their strengths in region, language and culture enabled them to act as irreplaceable market participants. On the other hand, their advantages could not be exerted without this special market structure, let alone their aggregation and development in the local area.The concentration of Uygur merchants changed along with the gradual development of the jade market in Stone Town. All market subjects were flexible in the road market period, there was no standardized market regulation and most Uygur merchants opted to temporarily rent around the market for convenient business-running purposes. A loose dwelling area around the jade market was hence established. With gradual standardization of the jade market, most stalls on the road market were moved indoors, the large jade market was planned and arranged to high standards and the market for Hetian jade seed material was uniformly integrated into the new World Jade Source Market. In order to facilitate the business operation and life of Uygur merchants, the government planned and built a public rental housing community for Uygur merchants near the new market. Tenants of public rental housing are only entitled to temporary use of their houses, which is a more rational option as the Uygur merchant group is highly mobile under the market influence. Therefore, although centralized public rental housing is a community program led by the local government targeting management of the migrant population, “building a community around the market” still constitutes the deep logic that affects overall planning. At the same time, according to actual difficulties of ethnic minority groups, the local government actively intervenes and utilizes equal public services as a starting point. Such actions are highly significant in breaking down spatial barriers between different ethnic groups and greatly improving the working and living status of ethnic minority groups in the local area, creating the conditions for their exchanges, communication, and integration with indigenous residents. This community-building experience is in fact important aspect in the construction of an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community.Therefore, although a highly-condensed Uygur community may seem to be an ethnic spatial aggregation, it is different in essence. Although the Uygurs live in the same community, their businesses are embedded in the overall jade market and they maintain close ties with all other stages of the local jade industry. Such embedded livelihood relationships form the basis for Uygur merchants to communicate and exchange with other ethnic groups in their local areas, and the community as a living space is the social extension of the market. The community mode of “living around the market" is an inter-woven community structure that differs from the aforementioned spatially-segregated ethnic community. It emphasizes all-around interactions by means of livelihood, lifestyles and spiritual cultures rather than maintenance of a relatively isolated community pattern.At present, the influx of ethnic minorities from China’s border area to other parts of China is expanding, the migration scope is constantly enlarging and ethnic minorities’ interaction with local society is increasing. The formation of urban multi-ethnic communities in various forms is bound to become a trend. However, the logic behind the formation of different forms of multi-ethnic communities may vary widely and therefore requires specific study.From the experience of the Uygur community in Stone Town, the formation and development of this community is deeply embedded in the national jade market structure. It would be impossible to construct a migrant Uygur community without such a market structure. Conversely, a jade market with national influence could not be shaped in Stone Town without such an inter-embedded structure. It is precisely due to the joint involvement of many differentiated groups such as Uygur jade merchants that this embedded market structure can be maintained. Operating conditions and market demand are important factors in determining whether people will convene locally. The generally sluggish jade market in recent years has in fact forced some Uygur merchants to leave Stone Town to seek opportunities in other cities. Therefore, the degree of population aggregation is volatile in the context of market-induced mobility. Such multi-ethnic communities on the move are fundamentally different from ethnically segregated communities where residents live stably in tradition.The core of this type of inter-embedded multi-ethnic community is not just the embedded living spaces, but the substantive embedding of the livelihood relationships behind them. The key to creating an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community is to explore these inter-embedded livelihood relationships and set them as the basic guarantee for the exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups. In the case of Stone Town, the relatively independent living space is a result of local government planning and can essentially better adapt to embedded livelihood relationships rather than the other way around.In addition, the limited interaction originating in the market among different ethnic groups will gradually develop into comprehensive interactive relationships with deepening mutual contact in more fields. The government’s active intervention and efforts to create conditions for this group to enjoy equal public services are critical manifestations of the construction of an inter-embedded multi-ethnic community. This is of great significance in promoting the exchange, communication, and integration of all ethnic groups. As ethnic minority groups possess particularities in terms of social and cultural life, if there is no governmental guidance or coordination in a highly heterogeneous society in the early stage, the migrant groups will encounter difficulties in finding reasonable solutions to various demands. They can only seek temporary help inside the group and cannot solve the problem at its core, which will inevitably aggravate alienation and estrangement between migrant groups and local society in the long run. Therefore, it is clear that by providing ethnic minority groups with more channels through which to deal with matters in life and improving their capabilities, encouraging the locals to actively participate in this course, and offering equal public services for this group, active intervention by the government can be an effective method of enhancing the exchanges and interactions among different ethnic groups.Steady improvement of the common living environment and rich experience of getting along with each other is conducive to the sublimation of benign exchanges between individuals of different ethnic groups into extensive and in-depth exchange, communication, and integration among all ethnic groups. Interaction between ethnic groups is often presented through the individual relationship in concrete social life, and the relationship at the individual level in turn affects cognition and interaction between different groups. In the process of common pursuit of a better life, members of different nationalities will gradually transform estrangement and misunderstanding into mutual tolerance, understanding and inclusiveness. Benign individual relationships with rich connotations will be established with growing opportunities for mutual contact and accumulating experience of living together. Tacit understanding based on common values will be gradually cultivated and then be sublimated into extensive and in-depth exchange, communication, and integration among all ethnic groups.Cross-regional population migration is a process of population redistribution based on the improvement of productive forces and the adjustment of production relations. It is an important manifestation of Chinese society at a period of important change, during which all social relations, including ethnic relations, will be naturally reshaped. The formation of an urban multi-ethnic community is an important form of ethnic minorities’ influx into the city, and is bound to be a critical link that will affect the evolution of ethnic relations in China in the future. The community form of “living around the market" is worthy of attention. However, more in-depth research should be conducted on how this form affects the reshaping of ethnic relations.


The mortality rate of patients affected with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has been stable in recent decades due to several factors, especially diagnostic delay, which is often associated with a late stage diagnosis and poor prognosis. The aims of this paper were to: analyze diagnostic delay in OSCC and to discuss the various psychological factors of patients with OSCC, with particular attention to the patient’s fear of receiving news regarding their health; and the professional dynamics related to the decision-making processes in cases of suspected OSCC. A preliminary review of literature focusing on OSCC diagnostic delay was performed. Seven articles were included with the diagnostic delay ranging from 45  days to approximately 6  months. Patients’ fears and, to a lesser degree, the concerns of dentists, were found to be still poorly investigated. On the basis of the authors’ professional experience, the development of oral lesions of unknown origin may generate different behaviors in the decision-making processes by patients and clinicians, and fear may play a key role in the distinct steps of this process. It is crucial to increase awareness and inform patients about the onset of OSCC, and contemporaneously encourage experimental studies on patients’ fear and professional behaviors with respect to communication regarding OSCC. Oral cancer is one of the most common malignancies in the world, with global estimates indicating that there are approximately 354,864 new cases per year. Of these, approximately 90% of cases are OSCC . AccordiSurvival data is strongly influenced by the timing of diagnosis: more than 50% of patients with OSCC are diagnosed at an advanced stage, and the 5-year survival rate of these patients is less than 50%, a fact which is mainly due to diagnostic delay . Indeed,diagnostic delay generally refers to the time elapsing between the moment when the patient recognizes the first sign or symptoms of illness and the time when a definitive diagnosis is made, following a specialist examination , whilst professional delay is attributed to the health professional. The appraisal interval refers to the period of time from the moment the patient becomes aware of the signs and/or symptoms of illness until the moment they decide to consult a doctor. The help-seeking interval refers to the period of time from the moment of perception of the need for further diagnostic investigation to the initial consultation . This initial search revealed 177 publications in the 2011–2021 period, and 7 studies in English, from which pertinent information was obtained, were included in the review. Where available, these studies were used as the main source of information. This revision revealed a lack of robust clinical trials and specific information, making it problematic to develop concepts and recommendations, which were based solely on scientific evidence.in vitro studies; (IV) systematic and narrative reviews, expert opinions; and (V) studies written in languages other than English. Research results not satisfying the inclusion criteria were excluded during data collection.The inclusion criteria in this review were: (I) patients affected by OSCC; (II) a minimum number of at least 25 patients in the study; (III) data defining the mean of patient delay and/or professional delay or a total diagnostic delay (in days or months); and (IV) studies which had been published in the previous 10 years. The exclusion criteria were: (I) studies including patients with other types of cancer; (II) studies including less than 25 patients affected by OSCC; (III) research involving animals and Studies were identified by an electronic search of scientific articles from different biomedical databases  and by scanning reference lists of articles; the choice of language was unlimited. This literature review included scientific articles for the 1 November 2011 to 1 November 2021 period.The following search terms were used separately and in combination: oral squamous cell carcinoma, OSCC, oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma; squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth, delayed diagnosis, fear, using medical subject headings and free text.The eligibility assessment was performed independently by two reviewers (M.B. and R.M.) and any discrepancies between reviewers were resolved by consensus. The studies were initially selected by applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study and abstract titles. Duplicate papers were deleted, after which there followed further scrutiny in order to assess their eligibility.Searching through the various databases yielded 177 articles whilst an additional record search identified 2 articles. Having applied the eligibility assessment, 16 full-text studies were included. Of the selected manuscripts, an additional 9 were excluded during the full-text analysis, thereby leaving a total 7 of articles included in this review . The evaSeveral studies in the past decade have evaluated the diagnostic delay in OSCC patients by analysing patient and/or professional delay . Of the Based on the available information of the tumour site on 879 patients , the tongue was affected by OSCC on 209 patients and the mouth by 516 lesions . KerdponNone of the studies analyzed in detail the differences between the appraisal interval and/or help-seeking interval, thus merely providing data relating to the sum of these two latter items . The lowest intervention reaction time between signs/symptoms and definitive diagnosis were demonstrated by Seoane-Romero et al.: the authors demonstrated that the median for the interval between the first sign/symptom and pathological diagnosis was 45 days. In addition, most patients (54.5%) suffered no delayed diagnosis. This, therefore, led to the diagnosis of many cases of OSCC in its early stages I–II; .Joshi et al. evaluated diagnostic delay in India, demonstrating a patient-related delay of 2.75 months, associated with a professional delay of 3.34 months  in a cohort of 201 OSCC patients. A second study by Baishya et al. evaluated only patient delay, it revealed a delay of 90 days in patients with OSCC only of the tongue and 60 days in patients with OSCC in the other mucosa sites in the mouth. Another study originating in South-East Asia discussed similar delay periods, with an average patient delay of 100 days and a professional delay of 67.7 . In a stDue to the paucity of information in the studies reviewed in this paper, it can be stated that there is a wide range in the total delay in OSCC patients of between 45 days and approximately 6 months. Regarding sex, the prevalence of males in the sample (67%) supports the data from the World Health Organization (WHO) . The ageOf interest, duration and an end – are the sum total of a human life. Thus, when faced with a life-threatening situation, a series of reactions can be activated, which serve to protect life from danger, and this includes an extremely stressful situation such as a diagnosis of cancer  suggests that fear seems to be the main reason why patients decline to participate in cancer screening programmes and periodic check-up appointments. Notwithstanding the numerous studies on this topic, the evidence is still limited . It is wf cancer . And it appraisal interval, that is the moment of the perception of initial signs and symptoms, and a help-seeking interval, or the moment of perception of the need for further diagnostic investigation  but also to more psychological factors . In spitcancer is to inflict psychological pain. Many dentists could fear irreparably damaging their relationship with the patient by communicating such potentially poor results, which could inevitably change the patient’s life. Indeed, the dentist may also fear illness and death, although many would consider it inappropriate to identify with the patient , thereby activating defence mechanisms. Thus, the dentist may feel professionally unprepared to deal with the challenges of expressing and managing emotions  and professional delay.The results of this review are not absolute, due to the absence of robust clinical trial and specific information on the topic. Such a deficit has led to the construction of the notion of fear being based on the expert opinion of the authors of this study, as garnered in public oral oncology centers in recent decades, who believe that future research is necessary and should be based on a strong and competent interdisciplinary approach to the psychological sciences. However, to best of these authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper which has analyzed the role of fear in the diagnostic delay of OSCC.To date there have been limited studies regarding diagnostic delay in the literature, with little or no analysis of the individual moments of dentist-patient interaction. Indeed, the few authors who have undertaken these studies have limited their investigation to describing patient and/or professional delay. Given the difficulty in acquiring precise data and the considerable psychological component of these processes, it is no easy matter to distinguish the appraisal interval from the help-seeking interval by patient. However, there are numerous health campaigns whose aims are to raise awareness and inform patients and dentists about the risk factors of OSCC, self-diagnosis and early diagnosis, thereby encouraging a reduction in patient-related diagnostic delay. Contemporaneously, it is evidently challenging, if not impossible, to overcome the patient’s fear of an examination for a suspected oral lesion .A dramatic change in patient access to medical facilities and clinical practice is ongoing, in part due to the recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Predictably, patients often develop not only the fear of being affected by malignant lesions but also of exposing themselves to the risk of infection by attending hospitals or doctors’ surgeries. Moreover, the revised day-to-day management of patients and the risk of infection by SARS-CoV-2 requires that fewer patients are seen by medical staff .In order to reduce any diagnostic delay, therefore, attention must be paid not only to the clinical-diagnostic skills of professionals but also to their conception of time in the field of medicine, a variable which is often not taken into account in dental practice . Time isWith regard to the interval between a patient perceiving the symptoms of OSCC and the commencing of diagnostic procedures, the standardization of diagnostic procedures relating to potentially malignant or cancerous lesions is fundamental. Such procedures should expeditiously facilitate the referral of patients from private practices to treatment centers specializing, which are dedicated to OSCC care. Contemporaneously, there is increasing evidence emanating from treatment centers that the development of multidisciplinary teams can facilitate a rapid diagnosis and the prompt treatment of OSCC, thereby improving patient survival and quality of life . The preThe multidisciplinary team could also encourage the creation of patient support groups, including frail patients who could support each other with an exchange of information during shared activities. These patients could, therefore, engage in group and/or recreational activities, the aim of which is to reflect on their health conditions . FinallyDespite advances in the prevention, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques of OSCC, it remains a disease with a high incidence rate in the population with very low 5-year survival rates, in part due to the fact of diagnostic delay. The patient’s ability to seek help as soon as possible at the initial appearance of signs or symptoms often remains a factor beyond the dentist’s control. There has been in recent years a major change in health care in which there is increasing emphasis directed at the humanization of patient care and the need to devote more time to this end. The authors of this study aspire to encourage their colleagues not to underestimate a central psychological component of delayed care in patients with potentially malignant lesions or oral carcinoma, that is: fear. Moreover, based on a solid and competent interdisciplinary approach with the phycological sciences, further research is required in order to improve our understanding of the role of fear on diagnostic delay and to evaluate different strategies to reduce this delay and improve patient prognosis.RM, MB, VP, and GC: conceptualization. RM: methodology. GC: validation and supervision and project administration. RM, MC, and PT: formal analysis. RM, MB, and MC: investigation and data curation. MB and VP: writing—original draft preparation. RM and GC: writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.RM was supported by Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) – PON-AIM Line 1 (Id. AIM1892002).The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.