This week’s post is different from the others. It’s me reflecting on my own experience in Xinjiang, a province of China that now has mass internments of the indigenous Uyghur (or Uighur) population. Why did these internments happen and what are the second-order effects?
I’ve been thinking about the situation in Xinjiang and reflecting on the experience I had there years ago.
Xinjiang is unusual in China since it is a province that historically had a majority population that was non-Han Chinese. The most populous ethnicity in Xinjiang was Uyghur, though the scales have tipped as more Han Chinese have moved into the province. Uyghurs are Turkic in ethnicity and language, look very different from Han Chinese, and are typically Muslim. Uyghurs and other non-Han Chinese historically living in China are colloquially referred to as “minority peoples” in Mandarin.
I had been to China maybe 50 times but only went to Xinjiang once and just for a one month trip. This was in 2001, a few months before 9-11, and before anything like the mass internments of today. I hope that this post serves as a bit of background into what it was like and why the situation was unstable.
I went to Xinjiang without much of a plan, which was typical for me. No travel guides and certainly no phone. (I spoke Mandarin.) That’s the way you maximize serendipity. I flew into Urumqi (the provincial capital), found a hotel by talking to people on the plane, and set out to explore.
Urumqi was a pretty modern city, but gritty with lots of concrete. I didn’t stay long, but for some side trips it was where I returned to set out again. I visited the museum where a mummy was displayed (with a cloth covering the midriff out of modesty) and identified as having “red hair” (also a slang term for foreign).
There was also a display showing the three main races of the world with sculpted heads for each. The Asian and European heads looked normal but the head representing the African race was an awful caricature — in the museum. The concern with race and, more often, ethnicity were stronger in Xinjiang than elsewhere I’d been in China. The common question in other parts of China: “what country are you from?” was in Xinjiang spoken as “what’s your ethnicity?”
I happened to meet some people who worked as recruiters for rural migrants looking for laborer jobs in the city. They recommended visiting the nearby city Turpan and gave me the business card of a friend of theirs who was a famous singer in the 1980s.
To get to Turpan I did something unusual for me. Instead of riding there myself I joined a Chinese domestic tour group headed there. I’d see some sights with them and then stay behind rather than return to Urumqi. The rest of the tour group was from different parts of China and tried to guess where I was from, not asking me, and assuming I wouldn’t understand them. First guess: British.
Others on the van said no, British are tall and he’s not tall enough. Second guess: Australian. Others on the van said no because Australians have blond hair. There was some back and forth over whether my hair was blond or not. (It’s not.) The number of times that people have said I have blond hair in China always interested me because it shows that much of perception is cultural. My hair is dark brown. And the Chinese word for blond is literally “gold hair.”
Guess #3 was American. That one was thrown out right away because Americans are fat. I laughed and finally spoke with them (guess #3 was right). We were on our way.
I had a talk with another traveler about Bill Clinton’s affair and the national loss of face it caused (he brought it up) and whether Jiang Zemin had a mistress (conclusion: probably). When the van was about to return to Urumqi I negotiated for the driver to drop me off at a cheap hotel and started to say goodbyes.
“What? You’re staying in Turpan? It’s too dangerous! The ‘minority peoples’ will rob you!” “But we’ve been here all day and it wasn’t dangerous,” I reasoned. “No, it’s dangerous and dirty. The minority peoples will gang up on you.” “I’ll be careful,” I explained. “No, you can’t stay here. You have to come back to Urumqi with us.” “I really just want to see more of Turpan,” I said. “Oh, foreigners always like to go to dirty and dangerous places like this. They think it’s interesting. Hey, American! Find a Uyghur girl. Be like Clinton! Hahaha!” They finally drove off. As I reflected afterward, they acted out of concern and even though they came from different parts of China had the same feeling about the danger of the “minority peoples” they had probably never before encountered.
I went to the night market (historically a big part of eating and socializing in Xinjiang), bought lamb skewers, and sat at a shared table. A family sat next to me. “Are you a foreigner?” asked the mother. “Yes.” “Oh, I thought you were a minority person. But you speak such good Chinese — like Da Shan!” said their son. Some Uyghurs walked by speaking to each other. “Wow, minority people languages are really like a foreign language!” said the son. “Do you live here in Turpan?” I asked, thinking they must also be visiting. “Yes, we live here.” “Do you speak any of the Uyghur language?” “No, we’re Han Chinese. But you know, their language is very simple to learn. They only have a few letters. Fewer than European languages. Not thousands of characters like us.” This was just one of many times that I saw that Xinjiang had two groups, living in the same place, who didn’t talk to each other, in many cases couldn’t talk to each other, and where views on the other side could be unformed.
The next day I called up the singer and he told me to meet him at the night market. Was there a certain place to meet him? How would I recognize him? “Just ask around. You’ll find me.”
He was right. Everybody knew him. He was talking to everyone, exchanging gossip, finding a job for someone over here, commenting on the market stalls over there, negotiating a deal, seeing an old friend.
I walked around with him for a while and we sat with some of his friends, all Han Chinese, at a table. We ordered food and beer. We talked for a while but when the others at the table learned I was American, the spy plane incident came up in the same style it did almost every other time I met a group of Han Chinese people. I’m referring here to the then recent collision between the US’ regular spy plane flight just outside of Chinese airspace and a Chinese fighter jet. The US plane actually landed on China’s Hainan Island, without permission.
“American? American! The Chinese people are very upset! You crashed into our plane!” “You know,” I said, having reports from both sides, “a lot of people think that because the American plane flew slowly (it was a prop plane) and the Chinese plane was a fighter jet, that it was the Chinese plane that crashed into the American plane.”
That never impacted the conversation, which had to run its course, and was highly predictable in what people would say. It was great to be able to discuss it openly, though. That incident was different from other previous ones that were drummed up more, such as the American (accidental and stupid) bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. That became a crisis put to good use since it came just weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen June 4th massacre and reduced the likely memory or intent to illicitly commemorate the day. Instead, students in Beijing were provided with rocks to throw at the American embassy. People gathered to protest in numbers that would never have been permitted otherwise.
The reaction to the spy plane incident was kept smaller. Over my entire time in Xinjiang I heard that same speech on the spy plane whenever I first met a group of Han Chinese, but never Uyghurs (it also never came up with anyone individually, but only in groups). The only Han Chinese I met who took my opposing view on that trip was a retired air force pilot. But still, after the exchange was made we would move on in a friendly way and it would never come up again. People around the world usually want to like each other, though their governments may have other needs.
The next day I stayed with my new singer friend, his half-brother, and his son at their home. They cooked dinner and had some neighbors over. The singer sang his old repertoire and asked that I sing some English songs. The requests were 老人河 or “Ol’ Man River.” That one was kind of bizarre in that context. Next request: “Oh, Susanna!”
Various US and international topics came up. Among them, Taiwanese independence. All but one of the group thought that the US supported it but that independence was logically impossible due to shared Chinese blood. Only one of the group actually reasoned that argument itself was illogical, which as odd as it was then, I can’t imagine anyone doing so today. I believe that this was the only time I heard someone take that opposing view in a group setting in China.
Then we were on the topic of marriage for my host’s half-brother. My singer host (Han) wanted his half-brother (half Han / half Uyghur) to marry a Han girl. His half-brother preferred a Uyghur girl. Everyone thought the brother was foolish for that. Singer finally said enough’s enough — you’re marrying a Han girl! Han are better! Your baby is going to be Han, not Uyghur!
When half-brother and I stepped out later to buy more beer and tripe he said “My brother doesn’t know anything. He just bosses me around. I’m going to marry a Uyghur girl.” I never asked if there was someone he had in mind. We returned, sang more songs, argued about whether the beer was too warm, and called it a night. I also brought up the question about how many Han Chinese speak the Uyghur language. He said almost none. “The Uyghur language has more letters than English, by the way,” he said.
After Turpan I made what I thought was a brief stop at a mid-sized city on the way to Kashgar. I ended up meeting more Uyghurs and stayed almost a week. We spoke to each other in Mandarin, a second-language for us all. We spent the days riding motorcycles, eating rice pilaf and lamb, and drinking beer. Always beer.
These Uyghurs were well-off financially by local standards. They all had motorcycles, mobile phones, and dressed well. One of them had made some real estate investments. Another was a police officer.
Apart from the constant drinking, most of them also chain smoked. In those two respects they weren’t that different from their Han Chinese counterparts. It was the food that was different. No pork, but roast lamb, dumplings of many types, pilaf, and nang (a hard bagel-shaped bread) were common.
I hung out with the group for days. They always insisted on treating me to food and drinks, something that became a bit embarrassing for me. One of them was a skilled dutar player (a two-stringed Uyghur instrument) and improvised songs that had everyone laughing uproariously. (Song requested of me: “Hotel California.”)
The other difference was cultural distance. While American/European to Chinese cultural distance is pretty wide (misunderstandings are common and each side often doesn’t know why) with the Uyghurs, they were much closer to Western-style communication. They seemed like they could have dropped into an American environment easily without more than some language classes.
The other obvious difference between the Uyghurs and Han Chinese was the way they looked. Some of the Uyghurs looked European, some Turkic or Arabic. I was constantly assumed to be Uyghur while in Xinjiang.
In the town I also met a Han Chinese university law school student. One day I went to meet her at her dorm but she was out and so I left a message with her roommates. Later I heard that they had said that a “minority person” had come looking for her.
A couple days later I coincidentally brought both the Han university student and the Uyghurs together. It was clearly something that would have only happened because I was in the middle.
“Your friend is Han?” said one of the Uyghurs to me as we all sat down. “Yes, um, I hope that’s ok.” “Oh, yes. No problem.”
“Your friends are ‘minority peoples?'” whispered the Han student. “Yes, um, I hope that’s ok.”
Lunch turned into a hike. The hike turned into more drinks. The drinks turned into dinner. The dinner turned into more drinks. At the end, something that the Han student said to the group always stuck with me.
“You know, my friends and family always said, ‘avoid the minority peoples, they’ll beat you up and rob you,’ but you are all so nice.” General nods all around but no one mentioned the comment again or discussed it more deeply. It was clear that neither “side” had sat down with the other before. The same problem exists around the world where you have two distinct groups in the same space.
These days I wonder if that student finished her law degree, what she does with it, and if she reflects back on that rare experience.
On my last full day in Xinjiang I traveled back to Urumqi. One of my Uyghur friends was in Urumqi for work and I stayed with him and his friends at their apartment. They met me at the bus station and brought me out for another evening of way too much food and beer. Late into the night we went to a disco in the same hotel I had stayed in when I was earlier in Urumqi.
The DJ catered to a Han and Uyghur crowd. At first the Uyghurs were on the floor. We danced to Uyghur rock music, arms held out to the sides, spinning in circles. After 10 minutes, the Uyghurs cleared the floor, Han Chinese came on and 10 minutes of Chinese dance music started. Then there was 10 minutes when both sides came to the floor — Western dance music. The cycle repeated many times throughout the night.
Skipping ahead to the inevitable
There were a lot of other people and events during that trip, but I’ll skip them here as not relevant. Instead, fast forward a bit. Back home, I mail pictures that I took along the way. I connect with one of the Uyghurs by phone. All seems well.
Then 9-11 happens. I’m traveling. I don’t hear from them for years but also don’t call. Instead, I do hear from the law student. I try calling the Uyghurs but don’t get through. After another year I try again but now the phone numbers all belong to other people. It’s strange that they all disappeared.
During this time whenever I’d speak Mandarin and a native speaker would be surprised, I’d say that I was Uyghur. Some of the time they believe me and some of the time they get the joke, after which I say that I just really liked traveling in Xinjiang. Then the joke falls flat one day in 2009 and I see a shocked reaction. I read about the early troubles in Xinjiang and don’t make the joke again.
When I learned about the last couple years of mass internments of hundreds of thousands or even a million people in Xinjiang, the question that I come back to is “was this outcome inevitable”? Or was there inevitably going to be a big problem for Uighurs in China?
I think so.
The difference between the two groups made this a more likely conflict. The mass internments are not reeducation camps for Han Chinese nationals (as happened at other times), but rather for non-Han Chinese, of a different religion, culture, and language.
The purpose is clear. The local terrorism of the early 2000s forced the hand of a hard-line government. There was violence on both the part of Uyghurs and Han Chinese. Something was going to happen to counteract that.
The remoteness of the area is key. It is difficult to investigate first-hand. It takes a while for the story to travel outside of the area. Even Chinese in the rest of China are not aware how big of a population is affected in Xinjiang.
The lack of awareness of who the Uyghurs are. The Uyghurs have no one of international renown even though their population is at least double that of the Tibetans, who are seen to be represented by the celebrity Dalai Lama (to mixed results).
The technology is there. Surveillance tech helps monitor and control the population at scale.
Possible second-order effects
- A large number of people are interned and return changed from the experience and want to leave Xinjiang and China (though they don’t have that option).
- A generation grows up in Xinjiang where parents and children don’t trust each other, neighbors are suspicious of each other, and people stop the ways they formerly engaged in commerce.
- Less trust and therefore lower economic benefits of trust, fewer friendships, less sociability.
- While the international reaction to the situation in Xinjiang was muted because of fear of China’s counter-reaction, how will things change if China becomes weaker? What rationales does silence force on the part of individuals or nations that do not at least inquire for more information?
- The system created in Xinjiang is complex and bound to go wrong at some point, making it unstable long-term. What other chaos will be unleashed when that happens?
My old friends in Xinjiang, both Uyghur and Han, who showed me such kindness, I hope you are well.