Guljennet and Muqeddes

This is one of the stories that didn't make it into my book. I still want to share it because it paints a picture of Uyghur life in the city. But it wasn't relevant enough to my main argument to include in the final draft of the book. 

June 2017. 

Muqeddes’s sister passed away in her late forties from liver cancer, leaving behind six children. After hearing the news over the phone, I went to visit the family. When I walked in their house, Guljennet and Muqeddes weren’t there. Guljennet’s sister-in-law was preparing lunch in a black headscarf, an important mourning practice. The room was full of the school age kids of the family—Guljennet’s nieces, nephews, and cousins—who couldn’t miss school to attend the funeral. Guljennet’s sister-in-law told me:

On Sunday, we got the call saying that our mother had gotten really weak, and had stopped speaking. We were planning on buying plane tickets when we got the phone call that she had passed. We cried and cried and cried together, then they got tickets and arrived in [our hometown] that very evening. I’m staying behind to care for the kids, but Guljennet and Muqeddes went back for the funeral.

The family put out the tablecloth and naan on the carpet in preparation for lunch. I put the peaches and the fried chicken I had brought on the tablecloth. They hadn’t noticed until that point that I had brought some gifts. When the sister-in-law saw what was in the bag, she exclaimed after opening it, “Oh! It’s meat!” which everyone instantly dug into happily. After everyone had some, there was only enough for everyone to have a few pieces. 

“Are you fasting?” I asked, because the sister-in-law hadn’t eaten anything. But she said no because she’s nursing right now. She was letting the kids eat first. 

I played with the kids, one of them telling me a creative story using Guljennet’s daughter’s Chinese literature textbook. I played with the infant until I smelled shit and put him back on the diaper cloth, where he pooped all over. 

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I left, and walked back home. In the market that I traversed on my way home, I saw a pair of young boys selling melons, and other young kids selling underwear. I stopped on my way home under the single light bulb of the lady who I had bought apricots from—she recognized me. I bought a piece of watermelon. While I ate the Uyghur woman next to me was saying that they were going to kick her out of Urumqi for not having proper urban registration. 

In most parts of the city of Ürümchi, you would never even know that we were in the middle of Ramadan. But in the Uyghur ghetto, it was clear that most people were fasting. And everyone was struggling just to get by. As I walked away out of the Uyghur ghetto, the huge plant display in front of the vocational school was finally finished. It’s huge Chinese characters screamed at me, reminding me that I was in China after all: “Long Live the Chinese Communist Party! Long Live Ethnic Solidarity!” it read.

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Later that week, Muqeddes returned from their hometown and I went to visit the family again. She explained to me the latest developments to the neighborhood: “They are going to demolish our house. Because we are renters, not owners, that means no compensation and no place to live. They’re doing this for the purpose of sending us back to our hometown.”

She then offered to bring me water, but I said, “Let’s eat and drink together at the time to open our mouths,” which is how people talk about breaking their fast. She giggled and said okay. 

“So they’re demolishing your house, but are they demolishing your fabric shop?” I asked.

“No, they’re just demolishing the house, not the shop,” she replied. 

Without thinking, I blurted out, “Are you happy about that?” I was thinking she would be happy or grateful or something that her shop was not being shut down and she would continue to do business here, which would allow her to make money and allow her daughter to go to school here in the city. 

“What? No, of course I’m not happy, why would I be happy about that?" I blushed sheepishly, ashamed at my lack of forward thinking. "They’re going to demolish my home but not my shop? You know what that means, right? They want me, and all of us, to go back to our hometowns. That’s what this is about. They are taking away any place we have to live, we have no place to live, then we have to go back to our hometowns. How am I supposed to continue to do business if I don’t have a place to live? Also, if they demolish our home but not our shop, they’re not responsible to give us any compensation since we’re renters. I don’t know what to do. Life is so hard. I seriously hate life right now. I honestly don’t want to live anymore.” I just nodded in understanding, but I didn't know what else to say. 

A little girl, less than five years old, from the neighboring apartment came in the living room at that moment. She asked me, “Are you a foreigner?” 

“No, she’s not a foreigner, what kind of crazy talk are you screaming about, she’s a Uyghur!” Muqeddes screamed back. Many Uyghurs have European features, so it was easy to convince her. After she left, Muqeddes explained to me that the girl’s mother works for the police, so she had to make sure it didn’t get back to her mother that there was a foreigner hanging out at her house. 

Later, we broke fast, each with a large bowl of homemade yogurt around the tablecloth, a bowl of nectarines, huge, round naan, meat bread, and pieces of melon. Muqeddes indicated to me to bring my hands up in prayer, and we wiped our faces back together, her taking a sip of yogurt and a bite of melon.

“I’m so thirsty,” Muqeddes said over and over again as she devoured the melons. She yelled at me several times to eat more meat bread (gosh naan), saying, “I’m going to happy if you eat it and angry if you don’t!” I did eat the meat bread, and even then she kept offering to make me noodles, which I had to keep insisting that she not go to the trouble. Uyghurs show hospitality through giving lots of food.

After we had our share of yogurt, meat bread, and melons, I got up to go home. Right when I was about to open the door, we saw shadows coming down the stairs. Muqeddes grabbed my arm and pulled me back and shut the door, indicating with her index finger on her lips that I should be silent. We waited for the people to pass and then she opened the door and said it was clear for me to go now. She didn’t want people to know that she was hanging out with a foreigner.