Nearly 10,000 Chinese Muslims travel to Mecca by charter flight from Wednesday for the traditional annual pilgrimage. The number of pilgrims going to the city in Saudi Arabia this year is more than any other time in the country's history. CRI's Yao Yongmei has more.
 Ma Zhongyi, who's already over 60 years old, is a Chinese Muslim living in the northwest province of Gansu. He is one among the 300 people who are taking the charter flight to Mecca departing from Lanzhou.
"I can't describe my happiness. Every time I talk about the trip to Mecca, I become so excited that I burst into tears. As a Muslim, I won't be able to finish all my tasks in life until I go there. I'll be so pleased."
At the moment, there are around 20 million Muslim people living in China. To them, making a pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the most important things to do in life. It is considered one of the objectives a religious Muslim must complete during their life. Together with Ma zhongyi, there are some 300 people traveling on the plane. Meanwhile, another 4,900 Chinese Muslims are about to depart from Lanzhou, Urumqi, Kunming and Beijing in the same direction in the following couple of weeks.
Ding Guoyang is an imam of a mosque in Beijing. He'll be joining the group soon to leave from Beijing. He says making the pilgrimage has been his lifelong dream.
"We Muslims think about it all the time and always wish to be able to finish this task in life. Since China opened itself up, the number of Chinese Muslim people able to go to Mecca for the pilgrimage has been dramatically increased, from four, five hundred per year in the past to now almost 10 thousand."
The Islamic Association of China is the organizer of the charter flights. Its vice chairman, Hong Changyou, says since 1978 more than 120 thousand Chinese Muslim people have made the trip to Mecca. This year the number will be the most in history. He talks about the things they've been doing to ensure the pilgrimage is both successful and secure.
"The direct planes starting this year reduce the whole journey by more than 10 hours and make it less tiring. In the meantime, the pilgrims have received instruction at home and will be accompanied by doctors and assistants during the journey to offer help and support of all kinds."
According to Hong, a work group that arrived beforehand has also guaranteed that adequate communication has taken place with local people in Saudi Arabia to properly arrange their activities.
The Chinese Muslim pilgrims will return from the pilgrimage by charter flight in January 2007.
Yao Yongmei, CRI News.
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