New Tennis Shoes

Around 5:30 pm, I make my way down the street and walk past the tonur oven that usually churns out bagels (girde), but sits quiet and empty today. Next to it rest five middle-aged women in a half circle facing the street. Some are sitting on the concrete steps that lead to the mini-strip of convenience stores, butchers, and restaurants. Some are standing and leaning against the walls of the shop next door. Next to them rest two plastic bags on the raised concrete sidewalk, one full of mangoes and one full of samsa. I wonder if they are waiting to break their fast.

I keep walking, seeing a man yell at another for blocking the sidewalk with his motorbike. Two boys around eight-years-old pass me in soccer cleats, counterfeit Adidas pants, and soccer jerseys arm-in-arm eating popsicles. Two boys about 14-years-old, their heads shaved except for a flop of hair on top brushed to the side that reminds me a little too much of my own haircut, wearing Adidas shoes, skinny black pants, and small striped polo shirts, share a cigarette while they wait at the bus stop, flop their bangs to one side, and look at the large screens of their smart phones.

At one of the blocked entrance/exits of the alley ways branching off from the main drag, one boy about seven-years-old slips through the small space in the door that has been left by the too-loose chain that has been locked and is keeping the gates closed.

I pass a stairwell which has colorful Nike and Adidas (rip-offs) tied to the stairwell banister. I pass, thinking about how important shoes are for students in uniforms and for young boys in proving their dignity and place in fitting in to the world, when I stop. I need new tennis shoes. When I think, “Meh, I’ll buy them later, I don’t want to carry them around with me all day,” another thought crosses my mind: “Who knows how long this shop is going to be around—it could be shut down, or go bankrupt, or the owner could be kicked out of Urumqi tomorrow.” So I turn around and go into the shop.

I try on a couple pairs of shoes, finally deciding on a pair of rip-off Nikes that the woman sitting next to me is also trying on and describing as, “ugly comfortable!” (using the word ugly to mean "super," which is common slang).

The girl accompanying her mom says, “Is that akash over there a foreigner?” Akash means older brother.

“That’s not an akash, my child, that’s an achash.” Achash means older sister.

“Akash!” the little girl insisted.

“No, it’s achash. You see, she’s wearing earrings.”

I laughed.

I asked how much the shoes were. A boy about 10-years-old was sitting behind the front desk doing his math homework in a Chinese textbook.

“80 kuai.”

I was expecting them to be 100 kuai each because that’s what the girl sitting next to me had said, so I tried to disguise my surprise at them being so cheap, knowing that 80 kuai was not petty change for most here.

“Ok, I see on the sign over there that it says that the prices given are reasonable, and don’t bargain, so I won’t bargain with you over this.”

“This is a really cheap price. If you go to the Chinese markets or those kinds of stores, they’ll sell this same shoe to you for 120 kuai. But here we want to establish a loyal customer base and hope that you will come back here next time when you want to buy shoes, knowing that you’ll always find the cheapest shoes here."

I tell her I will come back.

"So I guess you can read Uyghur, huh?” (The sign about no bargaining that I had read was only in Uyghur)

“Yes.”

"Are you American?"

"I am."

“My son [points to the boy doing his homework behind the desk] says he wants to go to America.”

The boy hides his face in shyness.

I try to swallow the pit in my stomach that’s starting to form as a rush of thoughts flood my mind—in a system where Chinese is valued above English, in a system where he is fighting the wind blowing him in the wrong direction, in a system where the yuan is 6.5 times less than the dollar, does he even have any hope of obtaining a passport let alone acceptance in an American university let alone being able to afford the tuition? Do I want to perpetuate the idea that if you work hard, anything is possible?

“Oh, that’s nice,” I manage to sputter.

“Yes, he wants to work and study hard so he can go to America.”

He continues to hide his face, but peaks out from behind the sign he is hiding behind to catch a look at me.

“If you work hard, you will have more opportunities," I finally manage. "Your summer vacation is coming up soon, right? Work hard on your exams, and you’ll be able to rest starting in July,” I try to encourage him, thinking of the radio program I was listening to last night about how we should all sincerely work hard. They had talked to some young students (6-8 years old) who were getting ready for their final exams.