Ussul Oynaylimu?

After jiujitsu, I change into clean clothes and hop in the back of a cab. I tell the cab the name of the restaurant and the address, which he repeats out loud to himself several times before plugging it into his GPS. I apply foundation and bright red lipstick using the mirror from my compact as we speed down an 8-lane road through downtown. I think that the cab driver must have gotten lost because he drops me off in front of a glimmering hotel with gold adornments. Fancy, I think to myself, praying this is the right place. As I walk up the steps to the second floor, I hear raucous laughter. I tell the host my friend’s name and he directs me to the room where the laughter is coming from.

A group of 12 of my friend’s friends are seated around a massive lazy susan with dishes lined around the edges—the males on one side and the females on the other. I know a couple of the people there, and my female friends and I embrace warmly and excitedly since we haven’t seen each other since last October. I greet the other women in turn, and we press our cheeks against the other’s, right then left, in greeting. I press my hand against my heart and bow slightly to the men, greeting them with “essalam eleykum.” My friend introduces me to the ones I haven’t met. Everyone else has already finished eating, but they encourage me to eat anyway and I awkwardly shove food into my mouth to abate my growling and starving stomach.

Everyone—and I do mean everyone--stares at their phones, busily typing messages, scrolling WeChat news feeds, and liking Nice (read: Instagram) photos—their phones mere inches from their face, their noses buried in their online life, the light from their phones reflecting off their eyes and foreheads. I slurp the tofu tomato soup and munch on the mushroom salad and devour the fried eggplant and sip the black tea, trying to make small talk with the girl next to me who doesn’t put down her phone the entire time I’m there.

A few people exit for home, and one of the dinner party members takes out a dutar and plays us a song while singing a folk song. Another one of the guests dances with the 3-year old daughter of one of the other guests, as the 3-year old dances and sings along beautifully turning her wrists and moving her arms and neck in time to the music. We clap and sing along while marveling at her cuteness.

At one point, the other guests pressure her to ask me to dance with her. When she asks me, “ussul oynaylimu?”, I can’t say no. So I get up and do my best imitation of Uyghur dance that I can while everyone cheers and claps along. At the end of the song, we bow to each other in thanks.

The rest of the evening commences in taking an endless stream of selfies with each other, not without a “beautification” software that removes the bags under my eyes and makes me look skinnier and whiter.

At 10 pm, we head out and exchange numerous goodbye pleasantries with each other until one of the ladies complains that can’t we just go home already. I just follow the crowd.

I chat with my friend as I walk her home, happy to use the “sen” (informal form for “you” reserved for close friends and family) rather than the “siz” (formal form for “you”) form of the verbs. It feels good to talk to someone like that. It feels like you’re talking to a sister.