在那遥远的地方 (In that far away place...)

Urumqi （乌鲁木齐） skyline, Summer 2008. Taken atop a mountain in Hongshan Park （红山公园）.



My grandmother and I at the People's Square in downtown Urumqi, 2008.

As a child, I lived in a largely Han community in Urumqi as a descendant of ethnically Han migrants. My grandparents moved to Xinjiang in the 1950s so my grandfather could work as a water resource engineer for the government. Even though I'm the third generation to be born in Urumqi, it's still common for people to ask, "where is your hometown?" (你们老家在哪里？） Which leads me to question, when does a place become home? Is it only based on length of residence, the permanency of residence, or something more than that? (In traditional Chinese culture, it was rare for people to leave their extended family, and home was the place you and your ancestors were born and buried.)

Last July, a series of violent riots between the Han Chinese and Uyghur ethnic minority erupted in my hometown Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province in Northwestern China. According to official reports, the riots resulted in at least 197 deaths with many more injured.

The details of the riots are hazy. On the first day of the riots, around 1000 young Uyghurs (some from the university? ) assembled to protest discrimination connected with a factory incident in Shaoguan that turned violent. But it is unclear how the protest escalated into chaos, violent attacks on mostly Han Chinese bystanders, buildings, and street vehicles. The violence had torn apart the city and irrevocably impacted communities in Urumqi. Some who are not tied to the land, who want to leave and have the resources to do so (like my aunt and uncle who left for the US) have already left. But others, like my grandmother, who have lived in the same community for more than 50 years with the same people, call Urumqi home and are reluctant to leave. And still others don't have the economic resources or connections to leave.

In the aftermath of the riots, the initial government response was to deploy national police forces to maintain order in Urumqi. Now, information flow to and from Xinjiang is strictly controlled. International calling is limited, and internet access remains largely restricted to a few websites. As a result, only government sanctioned news websites are able to report updates of government action and policies. According to Chinese news sources, further state action in Urumqi is now comprised of increased security forces (Patrol vehicles, surveillance cameras) monitoring communities, particularly migrant communities comprised of poor Uyghur migrant workers. The government blames unrest on Uyghur separatists, terrorists, and extremists, as well as foreign influences -- namely a Uyghur leader in exile Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress based in Washington D.C. However, this analysis of the problem only glosses over the root, social and economic causes of the conflict.

Recently, the international community has been both enthralled and intimidated by China's economic progress. Particularly after the spectacle of the 2008 Olympics, which captured China's desire to awe the West, and the Western world's ambivalence about China's success. The economic boom in China has not only transformed the face of a nation, but also widened the wealth gap and accelerated ethnic tensions between the Han majority and the diverse minority groups. As China transitions from a command economy to a market economy, independent corporations flourish, creating a wealthy business class. However, the conditions of life for the majority of Chinese citizens have remained the same or worsened. In large cities such as Urumqi, the landscape is being revolutionized. Skyscrapers are constantly being constructed. Downtown, high end department stores replace clothing stores with more reasonable prices and discount food shops. When I was in China in 2008, the prices in designer stores were pretty much equal to US department store prices converted, which is high for us as privileged American residents and ridiculous for the average Chinese person. But as Urumqi rapidly modernizes on the outside, we don't see the invisible people who are swept away with the old, unwanted structures and customs.

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Politics.
you'd say, is an unworthy name
for what we're after.
What we're after
is not that clear to me, if politics
is an unworthy name.

-Adrienne Rich, Rift