Mosque in China

I have seen a lot of mosques till now, from the outside.
Ironically, the catholic school I went to in India was in a Muslim locality.
For me, the images I have in mind for a mosque and a Muslim person are this:

Google images says these are representative pictures of a mosque and a Muslim man

So you can imagine my surprise, when the great mosque we visited in Xi'an looked like this:

The Great Mosque in Xi'an

And obviously everyone there was Chinese. I could not get a zoomed in picture of a Chinese guy with a taqiyah (muslim hat) on. And I really doubt if Chinese guys can grow a beard that normally one associates with Muslim men. So it was a little weird for me to see this non-stereotypical Muslim man.

And the Quran, the holy Islamic book originally written in Arabic, was in Chinese. The entire Quran was translated into Mandarin and engraved into the walls/pillars/moldings of the mosque in traditional characters. It is impressive, that they not only translated the entire 600 or so pages in Mandarin but engraved them into the walls, characters and all.

Not only was the architecture, the Quran and the crowd authentically Chinese, the food was a whole another story. To put things in perspective, I grew up in Bahrain (in the Middle-East) till my 2nd grade. I don't remember a lot but I do remember Ramadan and people breaking their fast with delicious shawarma, biryani and sevaiyyan to end it. In India, the rickshaw driver who took us kids to school was a Muslim and on Eid, he would get us those delicious home made sevaiyyan with cashews, almonds, saffron and other worldly delicacies.

It was the month of Ramadan when we went to the mosque in Xi'an. We got there after sunset so people were breaking their fast. And no, there was no shawarma, biryani or sevaiyyan. They were eating noodles/rice with chopsticks from a their respective bowls. All my memories of Ramadan and Eid were rattled in that moment.

And then I reminded myself, even if people are reading the namaaz in the background and the chants of allah-hu-akbar are familiar, I am still in China.