Fasting

I learned about the Muslim rite of fasting when I first visited northwest China in July 2014, as my trip partially coincided with the annual 30-day Ramadan observance. Although I had read about Ramadan fasting, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, during world history classes in high school, my initial trip in 2014 was the first time I had personally witnessed it.

An American acquaintance—a friend of a friend of a friend who was living in the area at the time and had connected with me a few months prior on WeChat—briefly introduced me to the concept when we met up in person one morning: “You don’t eat or drink when the sun is out—which is from 2 am until 8 pm in Urumqi—for 30 days. I’m thinking about trying it out,” she told me. I was confused. Why would anyone want to try that? Sounded like some sort of cruel form of torture to me. I had done such things—not eating or drinking for about 24 hours—a few times before when cutting weight before jiujitsu tournaments, but I was bewildered why anyone would do that for 30 straight days without such a good reason as trying to make one’s weight bracket.  

The next year, in summer of 2015, I was in Kashgar for the start of Ramadan. One evening on my way back to the hostel, a young boy was standing on a cart in the middle of the sidewalk, handing out bags of cold noodles soaked in vinegar to a huge crowd that was buying them faster than he could give them out, while screaming out, “5 koy, 5 koy, 5 koy!” My trip around Kashgar commenced the next day, and I remembered my friend's advice—don’t carry around water bottles or drink in front of people during the day during Ramadan. It’s rude, she informed me. So I followed her advice, and my mouth was parched during many a bus ride.

I felt left out. In the evenings, the whole community would go down to the bazaar, breaking their fast with watermelon and cold noodles. It was like a huge party every night and I wasn’t invited. I couldn’t celebrate with the glee and sugar highs and celebrations that come after gorging oneself after a day of fasting. I was always on the outside looking in, and I wanted to party too. I didn’t want to be like the other tourists who took pictures and videos of the breaking of the fast with laughter and smiles like they were witnessing a barbaric event, objectifying their culture and their religion by trying to capture it on camera to make someone else’s life into a story to tell their friends. I wanted to live the experience like a “true” ethnographer. 

I tried fasting a few times on that solo trip, but I would always cave in the middle of the day. Why couldn’t I do it? I’d always been able to do it before jiujitsu tournaments. But without the fear of God or fear of surpassing my competition’s bracket weight limits in my mind, and fasting all alone with no accountability, it was hard to engage the necessary self-control. I would still go to the bazaar at breaking fast time, and eat along with everyone else, but it wasn’t the same. I felt like a cheater and a fraud, eating along with everyone else without the fasting part beforehand.

The next year, in 2016, I was determined to try fasting at least once. I had at some points entertained lofty visions of myself fasting the entire 30 days as two American friends I knew had done in previous years, but always caved when I realized that meant I wouldn’t be able to exercise. 

I also was worried that I wouldn’t have the energy to do my research work as normal (note that although Muslims do continue to work normally during Ramadan, one of the points of fasting is to spend time with family and community while resting and praying—it’s an opportunity to rest. My Western-centric mind couldn't see this though, and all I could think about was all the work I wouldn’t be getting done). 

And again, that year I felt terribly left out. Every evening, families and communities, neighborhoods and friends, would gather together on tables or picnic blankets outside, and eating watermelon and naan and soup, would break fast together. It was a happy, communal time, where shops and restaurants gave out free watermelon, water, and naan on their front stoops all over my neighborhood. At breaking fast time, you could see people huddled around the tables set up outside the shops, praying and biting into their first piece of naan and taking a sip of water like it was the best thing they’d ever tasted in their lives, and it probably was. I wanted so badly to join in, but I knew that watermelon was not put out there for me, it was put out there for those who were breaking fast. 

P had told me a story about a restaurant that was giving out free meals to people who were fasting, and some Han people tried to take some for free too, saying, “But I want free food too! This is discrimination!” (and everyone collectively rolls eyes at majority oppressor claiming their hardships). I didn’t want to be THAT guy.

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But I fasted for the last day of Ramadan that year, and it was a good experience. There were two main impressions about it that stuck with me for a long time: 

1) This is how huge numbers of people around the world who are starving feel every single day—whether from lack of food or lack of access to clean water, or both. This is a hardship that I chose to engage in, but lots of people around the world don’t have that choice. The hunger that resounds in your stomach and the dryness on your tongue leaves a desperate and urgent call to your brain that when you have no choice but to ignore, leaves you weak, fatigued, and a little crazy (e.g., when I saw people on the street drinking water or eating ice cream, I had to fight the urge to grab it out of their hands mid-bite. It’s not such a mystery why people are led to steal when they are brought to the physical desperation of hunger). I think it’s important for all of us to understand that feeling to better control food waste, recognize our privilege in having more than enough to eat every day, and empathize with the poor who are driven to desperation due to starvation. 

2) It was a lesson in the old adage “This Too Shall Pass.” Fasting is a lesson in self-discipline and patience that few other exercises can replicate. When that feeling of desperation and “I want to give up because this is so miserable” overcomes us, that little phrase, “this too shall pass,” carries a lot of power, both in comfort and in learning how to allow the uncomfortable in our lives and accept that which we cannot change. So often we push discomfort away—by overeating, drinking alcohol, or binging on Netflix. But when we can sit with our discomfort and allow it, maybe we can also more easily allow the happy times (or at least that’s what I hear from my guided meditation tracks--I haven't mastered this myself yet!). 

The lesson of “This Too Shall Pass” is thus equally as important for the breaking fast time: the high that follows the breaking fast--the happiness, the lightness, the fullness, the foggy headspace--will end too: we are reminded again and again that this too shall pass as we will fast again tomorrow.