When I leave my house at 7 am, I am greeted with bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 3-lane road outside my house. Traffic is backed up at an almost stand-still as far as the eye can see, three lanes across filled with busses crawling forward with jerky starts and stops. The busses are packed so full of people pressed up against one another and swaying as the bus flinches sporadically and halts dramatically that I briefly wonder if they have any room to breathe. The road is filled with taxis, cars, and even the occasional tiny pickup truck, one with two girls sitting in the tiny truck bed with pink woven hats with puff balls at the top, puffs of smoke coming out of their mouths, their father in the front blasting Uyghur radio so loud you can hear it a block away.
Around noon one day in June, I ascend the street’s slightly upward sloping trajectory. I walk on a 9-foot wide sidewalk with shops and apartments on my right and a fenced-off strip of grass and trees to my left. I pass numerous family-owned business on my right that are located on the first floor of apartment buildings. In the 20-meter strip of businesses stretched out ahead of me is a real estate office, a barbershop, a dry-cleaners, a convenience store with alcohol, cigarettes, snacks, and basic toiletries, a bank, a seamstress, a bakery and a specialty import shop featuring both local Uyghur brands, drinks from Turkey and Korea, and butter from Kazakhstan. I say hi to my neighbor who is playing with his 3-year old grandson. He is kicking a soccer ball in his grandson’s direction, as the grandson squeals with delight and turns to chase after it, revealing a stylish Mohawk-like haircut that narrows to a point at the base of his neck. Two 5-year old girls are walking arm in arm, wearing identical school uniforms—blue track pants, blue polo shirts, and red scarves around their necks—one with a swollen growth on her ear, while the other tells her companion about how someone had stolen her notebook. A group of 5 boys about the same age in identical school uniforms walks by, one carrying a case of milk on his head. Two 8-year old boys in street clothes are arguing loudly in front of the bank’s ATM machine, and one of the boys threatens the other several times by forcing his hand on the other’s throat, threatening to strangle him, but the other boy successfully fights him off.
Two women in headscarves sit on the bench outside the import market deeply engrossed in conversation. Outside the import market, a large—at least 4 feet high—white container of fresh milk sits out front with a red funnel, plastic bags, and a half kilo scooper. I catch the eye of one of my neighbors—the wife of the grandfather who was playing with the soccer ball about 10 meters back—and I stop to greet her. She uses the sen (informal you) form with me, which makes me feel super happy, as this form is only reserved for the closest friends. No doubt she is also using it with me because she is about 20 years older than me, but it still makes me smile with the intimate connection it suggests. “Eqidige ders otmemsen? Nege barisen? Neme ish qiliwatsen?” (Aren’t you going to teach Eqide English sometime soon? Where are you going? What are you doing?) Such seemingly invasive questions are used in normal, everyday greetings, and I respond with the usual pleasantries. I tell her about the boys who were fighting and she gets up to scream at them, “Soqushmanglar!” (Don’t fight!) Hey did you hear what I said? Don’t fight!” and they turn and walk away from us. “I’m waiting here for my seamstress but apparently she’s at the shequ (neighborhood police office) dealing with some stuff and she hasn’t come back yet.” After chatting more about when am I ever going to graduate and get married, I excuse myself and continue walking.
I walk past the entrance to another apartment complex, and past a tiny breakfast café advertising pulled beef sandwiches and Turkish style ice cream. I briefly wonder to myself how long it’s going to be until this one, another cute but impractical Uyghur business idea, is going to go bankrupt. I consider patronizing this charming shop, but have to wonder how delicious, fresh, and expensive their food actually is. I pass two fruit and vegetable shops with the identical large containers of fresh milk out front, a spicy rice noodle restaurant with a tiny “qingzhen” (Chinese word for “halal”) symbol in the top right corner (was that there before? I briefly wonder) with a huge sign in the front and center saying “Rice Noodles of Our Own Xinjiang People” and a sign on the door saying in Chinese, “We’re hiring female waitresses and cooks.” I pass a police station, the police officers inside sleeping and playing on their phones. I walk past a copy shop, another fruit and vegetable shop, a Han Chinese restaurant, public toilets, another apartment complex, and another police station, past the Hui restaurant with boiling and steaming malachuan (spicy vegetable and sausage kabobs), with high school students in blue and white track suit school uniforms filling the tables, 2 more dry cleaners, a China mobile service station that is also advertising selling cigarettes, the Paris Cofee [sic] bar, which has its doors locked, another Hui restaurant, and a hair salon (with a sign reading “bendian zhuanrang” [this store is up for rent] on it). I reach the open area where sidewalk exercise equipment is located and a flood of Uyghur students suddenly surrounds me—the younger students in dark blue track suits and the older ones in white and blue track suits, seemingly on lunch break from school. I pass another police station, a tiny fruit stand, and the basement “Nashta Qiling” (Have Breakfast) place is blasting Uyghur radio on its amplifier. A few Uyghur restaurants are locked and shuttered, as well as a Uyghur hardware store. I can only wonder if they’re closed for Ramadan, or if they’re closed for good because they went bankrupt, or because they’re being forced by the shequ to close down and go back to their hometowns. Probably a combination of these.
A barber next door is also blasting a different Uyghur radio station on its amplifier, as men sit inside getting their faces shaved, and the sounds combine in a cacophony din. I pass a young man of about 12-years old bending over a tonur oven and pulling out pieces of fresh naan, the smell of roasted garlic making my mouth water. I then pass a butcher and the smell of sheep fills my nostrils. Every 10-40 meters is the entrance to a back alley leading to more housing that has been blocked off with a large cement wall and barbed wire with messages painted on them in red Chinese characters (with the Uyghur translation also written in red, in smaller Arabic letters, on top of the Chinese characters) reading, “和谐稳定是福，分裂破坏是祸！” (Stable Harmony is Fortune, Divisive Destruction is Disaster!). There are also signs attributed to the local shequ with pictures of Uyghurs and Han people smiling together and Han people helping Uyghurs saying, “讲团结 学典型争当民族团结楷模” (Speak of Solidarity, Study the Archetype of Being a Model of Ethnic Solidarity) and “加强民族团结共建和谐家园” (Strengthen the Shared Construction of a Family Garden of Ethnic Solidarity and Harmony).
I pass a Uyghur hotel that is advertising 40 kuai a room, and in front a woman around 60 sits with a purple flowered headscarf covering her hair and nude color tights under her skirt with black high heels. Another woman is squatting in front of the hotel in the middle of a huge pile of stuff, a rice cooker, water thermos, plastic bags, a plastic red tub for washing clothes, and 4 suitcases, her hair covered, her face white with a layer of foundation, her lashes thick with mascara and her lips red with lipstick.
I pass a national lottery ticket shop where men are sitting and watching the numbers with discarded ticket receipts scattered on the floor around them. I also pass the "Xiuxian Ba" (Relaxation Bar) with music blasting where inside are private rooms with doors and curtains so you can go in and do what you want without anyone seeing you. Finally, I come across the first tekshurush (check) station at the first open alleyway into a residential area, which is a gate blocking cars from going in and out, and a sign by the turnstiles instructing people to swipe their ID to get in. A group of about 5 middle-aged men are sitting on plastic chairs in a circle in the shade of the station chatting. About 20 meters ahead I pass the second tekshurush station on the block, the two Han police officers on duty inside eating their lunch, the doors open and a friend stops by for a chat. I can see the buildings inside the alley are houses in a traditional Uyghur style.
In the late afternoon, I head back down the hill towards my house. Teenagers in their blue and white track suit school uniforms again fill the street, spending their pocket change on snacks and candy at the convenience store and littering the packaging in the grass and bushes around the store. Some girls and boys walk together, the girls smiling coyly as their ponytails swing back and forth behind them. Some girls walk three or four abreast with their arms linked, with their Nike high tops and colorful fake Converse shoes and backpacks, their long hair pulled into high pony tails tracing down their backs, some with backwards snapback caps stylishly propped too high on their heads. Boys swear loudly and laugh, swaggering with confidence, their hands in their pockets, yelling out to their friends, and dodging playful punches. Sometimes they duck into Paris Cofee bar or the Relaxation Bar, emerging with shy smiles or cocky “I don’t care” attitudes, pretending like they don’t see anyone around them, or they stop at the milk tea shop or Cold Noodle Shop to get a treat before returning home.
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