Kyrgyzstan: Jiujitsu, Part 2

Wednesday, June 30, 2021- 

Evening.

I rented a bike from the hostel and cycled to the Kyrgyzstan Top Team headquarters with my cell phone in one hand to check Google maps. The route took me down patched up streets full of pot holes, or else streets under construction with the asphalt completely torn up. I bumped my way down dirt roads, weaving in and out of backhoes with Chinese characters on them and around construction workers digging ditches. 

My view while biking through Bishkek

I passed a police station with a van out front. Several men sat in the back behind caged bars. I crossed streets the way I learned how to do in China: playing Frogger across the street by dodging incoming traffic as horns honked. 

I got to the gym around 6:45 pm. 

When I went inside, the 5 pm class was still training. The mat was filled with blue belts and purple belts rolling on the mats; 5 pm must be the advanced class. I looked for A, but I didn’t see her. I texted her to let her know I was here. I was already dressed for class, so I took out my gi and put it on. 

A came in then. 

“What are you doing?” she said in perfect English. 

“Oh, I just got ready for class, I was looking for you,” I said. 

“Come, you should put your stuff in the locker room,” she said.

“That’s okay, I can just keep it out here, I don’t need to go in there,” I said. Since I’ve started presenting masculine, I have been approached by women in bathrooms and locker rooms on multiple occasions, informing me that I am in the wrong locker room, or else turning to their friends to ask, “why is there a boy in the bathroom?” Since it started happening on more frequent occasions and I am identifying as trans, I had switched to using the men’s room much to my recent relief since men do not have a need to police bathroom spaces the way women apparently do. I didn’t really want to go into the locker room here either. 

“No, this place is for training, the locker room is for changing,” she said with a slight scold in her voice. I had made a faux-paus. In this gym, clearly etiquette dictated that one got ready in the locker room.

“That’s okay, I came already dressed, I don’t need to go in there,” I said again. 

“The professor isn’t going to like that,” she insisted. I reluctantly agreed, and followed her into a small room in the back. I put my backpack in the women’s locker room. 

When we returned to the mat, she turned to me. 

“So, males and females do not train together here,” she explained. I nodded, my heart sinking in disappointment but also not surprised since it was like that when I visited Osh six years ago. “They have a special class for women on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she continued. “But it is all white belts, total beginner stuff. My friend who trains and coaches the women here, Aizhan, is a blue belt, so they let her come to the white belt men’s class and I come so that she can have a partner. I’m a white belt but have experience training a lot in Prague. Aizhan said since you’re a purple belt, you would be totally bored in the women’s class. So we wanted to invite you to this class.” 

Aizhan approached us then and introduced herself, of shorter stature but broad shouldered and thick. She carried herself with ease and confidence, and was clearly very athletic with tomboy vibes. 

“Are the rules about males and females not training together there because they are Muslim?” I asked. 

“Yes, it is partially because of Islam,” A said. 

“Well, what about the guys who aren’t Muslim, can they still train with us?” I asked. 

“No, it’s a pretty strict rule. There are two reasons for the rule. They used to have co-ed classes here, actually, but we got a new coach who is from Dagastan and he is Muslim, so that is one reason they don’t allow training with women. The second reason is because when they did have mixed classes there was a lot of talking and socializing, and not enough discipline, so they decided to separate the classes for that reason as well. Now women have their own class.” 

So that’s why the person behind the WhatsApp, who had said “hey man” to me earlier that day, told me to come at 5 pm. That’s the time I would have trained if I was male. 

We chatted a bit and it was clear that A was accustomed to Western Culture, so I spoke to her casually about my masculine identity and appearance. I told her I was disappointed and explained that I would go to Golden Eagle BJJ tomorrow and not tell them that I’m Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB). We joked that I looked like a teenage boy. 

Eventually the 7 pm class started. The coach was really friendly and welcoming to me and spoke a little bit of English, and explicitly explained to me that I would drill with A and Aizhan. We went through lots of drills: triangle, armbar, underhook to escape from side control, armbar from mount, with A, Aizhan, and me taking turns. 

Then we had sparring time. I went with Aizhan first, who was very strong and very good. I went about 80% of my maximum capacity and was only just barely able to hold her down and prevent her from submitting me. Then I went with A, who is also tall and thick, and again had to use all my strength to fend her off and eventually submitted her with an armbar. 

During that roll, I saw Aizhan training with one of the men, and asked if it was her boyfriend, curious why she was allowed to train with a guy but nobody else could.

“No, that’s my brother,” she said. 

OH. 

For the next round, I sat out because Aizhan and A wanted to train together. While I was sitting out, one of the guys was talking to me about where I was from and telling me he had relatives in Chicago. Another guy came up to me in no-gi gear and asked if I wanted to roll. I was confused because I thought that was against the rules. I thought, “maybe he thinks I’m a boy.” The other guy said something to him in Russian and he looked at me and walked away. Then he came back and asked me again if I wanted to roll. 

“Is it okay?” I said to him and to the other guy. They both nodded, so I rolled for just a few minutes with this guy in no-gi, almost getting a knee bar and a toe-hold on him, and he attempted several darsc chokes which I got out of. Afterwards, the coach and some of the other guys were laughing at him. I couldn’t understand anything that was going on because they were speaking in Russian. I asked Aizhan what was going on, she said, “It’s our Muslim culture, which dictates that no man can touch a woman.” During a later conversation, A confirmed that the guy who had asked me to roll thought I was a boy and was admonished for touching me since I was female.   

Aizhan and I rolled again after that and this time I got her in an ommo platta, swept her and almost submitted her with a mono platta, but she escaped just in time. I also got her in a knee bar, but she escaped again. We stood up and she took me down easily. 

“Did I mention I’m a black belt in judo?” she said. That explained her aggression (judo players are known for being very aggressive because judo matches are very short so you need to have fast movements to end the match quickly). That also explained the way she kept giving up her back to me as well (in judo flipping onto your belly re-sets the match, but in jiujitsu this gives up your back to your opponent). She was strong and athletic. 

Finally, class was over, so we stood up and I shook hands with everyone in class like we normally would. After I shook everyone’s hand, I noticed that Aizhan and A didn’t even shake anyone else’s hands: that’s how strict they were taking the “no touch” rule. Which I know is normal in Muslim culture that women don’t shake hands with men, but I was pretty blown away by that since it is customary to shake hands after jiujitsu class. Nobody said anything about me shaking their hands, but I was embarrassed about this potential second faux paus.  

I went into the bathroom to get some water for my water bottle. The girls in the bathroom were looking at me and giggling. I got nervous, so I left immediately before I could even find the sink. 

“Where do I get water?” I asked A.  

“In the bathroom.” 

“Where in the bathroom? I couldn’t find the sink,” I said.  

“The sinks are to the right.”

“I’m nervous, because of the girls in there…” I said. 

She seemed to get exactly what I was saying, and she said, “No, don’t worry it’s okay.” She accompanied me into the bathroom, and as I walked in, the other girls said something to her in Russian and she responded, looking down at the floor. I went and refilled my water bottle. We went back outside.   

“Don’t worry, everyone knows you’re a female now. People weren’t sure at first, but they know you now, you won’t have problems after this,” she tried to assure me.  

But I wasn’t so sure. Part of me sure was glad that I don’t speak Russian so that I didn’t have to know or hear what they were actually saying. I could just pick up context clues. I brushed it off. This has happened so many times before that I’m used to it. 

I went back outside to the mats and stretched. I talked with Aizhan, who told me that she used to train judo for 6 hours a day but had to retire at age 26 after the most recent Asian Judo Games because it was so hard on her body. (Bodies can only take so much slamming into the ground.) Now she just does jiujitsu, which does not involve high impact. She was a competitive judo player for many years; no wonder she was so hard for me to submit. She explained that they don’t have any female purple belts or above in the whole country of KGZ. They have five female blue belts in the whole country.

“Are you going to come back?” she asked. 

“Maybe, but I’m going to try out Golden Eagle BJJ tomorrow.” She nodded with understanding, clearly seeing that today wasn’t the best day for me. 

I was not sure I wanted to ever go back to KGZ Top Team. I really didn’t like the way I was treated and I didn’t like the way I was treated as inferior or not worthy—needing to train only with women in the white belt class did not feel good. 

Of course, the other hard part of this was being misgendered the entire time. I kept wishing I would have been seen as a boy. I kept thinking that if I hadn’t known A, I could have gone into class presenting male at 5 pm and no one would have known. I decided to try that at Golden Eagle BJJ the next day to see what would happen. I knew if I had a bad experience, then I would know that I just can’t come back to KGZ--jiujitsu is fundamental to my mental health and if I can't train, I can't live.

It was also a good motivator for me to reach out to the queer community in KGZ and see what I could find out. It is such a privilege to be where I’m from and I imagined the queer community here must have it pretty rough. I was curious to find out more. 

Reflections

This is a good reminder of my privilege. I have the opportunity to change genders. I also have the opportunity to train with whoever I want. I also have the resources to travel to interesting places and learn about other cultures. These are privileges that other people don't always have. 

This is a good reminder to always be grateful to what you do have.

It’s also a tangible reminder of how the community who is doing the discrimination suffers just as much as the community who is discriminated against. The jiujitsu community is smaller and less developed in KGZ partially because they exclude 50% of the population. They could grow their club so much by including women more. This is why it’s so important that gyms all over the world continue to push and promote more inclusive policies not just for women, but ALL genders (including trans and non-binary), races and sexualities. The less people you include, that means less training partners and less opportunities to improve your own game and grow the jiujitsu community. 

Kyrgyzstan Top Team missed the opportunity to train with a bad ass purple belt with almost 10 years of experience on the mats tonight. Sadly, it was their loss tonight. A and Aizhan gave me great rolls, it was the guys who not only missed the opportunity tonight, but who will continue to miss opportunities to improve their jiujitsu with different bodies and people as long as they refuse to train with women. 

Who are you excluding from you community who could help you grow? Remember to think about who you are leaving out of the picture.

It's also important to remember that when people are colonized, as the KGZ people have been by the Soviets and Russians, religion can be a force of resistance and survival. The men have also been victims of violence here through war and colonization. What happened at Top Team must include an understanding of the whole picture: exploitation leads to exploitation. This is a cycle of discrimination and abuse, not a one-sided story but a complex picture. This is just a snapshot of what happens when humanity is disregarded and abused.

Kyrgyzstan: Jiujitsu, Part 1

 Wednesday, June 30, 2021- afternoon

I’m nervous about going to jiujitsu. 

It’s always a bit stressful going to a new gym. First, finding the gym online and reaching out. Second, getting the address and finding the location. Third, getting there and meeting all the new people. Fourth, sparring—do I go hard or light? What is the right amount of aggression I can bring so as not to get walked all over, but not to act like an asshole? To show what I’m made of (beautiful jiujitsu), but also not be too egotistical?

Packing for this trip, I wasn't sure if I should bring my jiujitsu stuff. Normally, when I travel to a new place, I always make it a point to train at least once, even when I'm at academic conferences or on business. I was hesitant about KGZ, though. 

Last time I tried to train jiujitsu in KGZ was in 2015. I went to Osh, which is a much smaller city close to Uzbekistan. That time I couldn’t train because I was a woman and KGZ is a Muslim country, so they said they were “uncomfortable” with it. That being said, the jiujitsu head coach hosted me at his home (I stayed there for a few nights) and his wife Gulu, who spoke English, cooked for me the whole time. But I couldn’t train with them. So I didn't have high hopes about Bishkek.

But I knew that Bishkek was a bigger more liberal city than Osh. One of my purple belt training partners in Prague is a Kazakh girl who trained in Almaty, a city not far away. So I had hope. Still, I was intimidated, and my brain always wants to go for the easy way out and almost convinced me not to not even try. 

I specifically had put “pack jiujitsu stuff” on my “getting ready for Central Asia" list because I knew I might just not bother with bringing the gi and then regretting it later. I made it a point to force myself to do the thing that is uncomfortable. 

Before I left Prague, I had sent an email to let my jiujitsu coach there know I would be out for a while because I had a work trip to KGZ. The gym manager responded with, “I took the liberty of reaching out to my friend in KGZ, A, so you can train with her.”

I was kind of annoyed because I was like, "Fuck, I wanted to go by Sam while I’m here, and now they will think of me as Saar because Fernando’s wife already introduced us." My switch to Sam and he/they pronouns happened right before I left for KGZ and I hadn't told the jiujitsu gym in Prague yet. 

Because of all of this, I am procrastinating on the whole jiujitsu thing. I just have this feeling of dread and nervousness around the whole situation, mostly about gender and names, but also just feeling lazy and fearful. 

But finally, today, I looked up the names of two jiujitsu gyms here in Bishkek: Kyrgyzstan Top Team and Golden Eagle BJJ. I messaged both of them on WhatsApp and scoured their websites. Golden Eagle responded with voice messages, welcoming me to come train with them tomorrow, sending me the address and training time and ending with “no entrance fee at all, just please come train with us.” Since Sam is an androgynous name they don’t know my gender and part of me is worried about it. The other part of me wants to try to pass, even though I know this might be impossible with my anatomy. The other part of me wants to ask, "Are there women there / is it a mixed gender group?" The other part of me just wants to show up and see what happens. That is probably what I will end up doing. 

Kyrgyzstan Top Team responded with “Hi Man” and gave me the training times: "5 pm today," they said. They had a female coach on their website named “Aizhan” and I messaged her as well. I also messaged A. It turns out that A trains with Top Team. Aizhan and A invited me to come train tonight at 7 pm. I was confused because they had said 5 pm before. 

I’m definitely nervous, but Top Team is not far from my hostel (about 1.4 miles). I will rent a bike from the hostel and bike there. I’m nervous about training with new people. And about the whole gender thing.

Questions are running through my mind: Will they smash me like they do in Prague? Will they be too nice to me? If I fight back, will they joke about how strong and crazy I am? Will they read me as a boy or will they group me in with the ladies? What will the bathroom and locker room situation be like? Will they want to be friends or will they ignore me? Will they think I’m weird because I’m queer? Will it be awkward with the name thing? Will the girls automatically try to befriend me just because I’m female? 

I'm nervous, but I’m grateful to have this opportunity and I’m excited to go move my body around and play with other spirits. That’s what I want it to be like tonight. Just an androgynous genderqueer person going to train, not going to prove myself or my masculinity or my jiujitsu, just going to have a fun time, move my body around and play. 

To be continued...

Kyrgyzstan: Arriving

 Tuesday, June 29, 2021- morning

When I got to KGZ, customs was a breeze. I had to show my COVID test to a woman who was on the phone and barely paying attention. I went through "passport control" and had my passport inspected by an official looking woman in a uniform who stamped my passport. Besides these two stops, I went right through. As soon as I got through customs, I was walking down the hall toward baggage claim and I was reminded of something else in the Global South which I had seen in China but forgotten about: people selling stuff to you with a vigor and desperation not seen in the Czech Republic. 

In the Czech Republic, people joke about how bad the customer service is. Business owners and servers act annoyed if you ask them for anything. There is a joke that someone in the Czech Republic finally realized their dream of opening a pub and all was good. Then people came to the pub and the owner was mad. “I wanted to open a pub, not actually have to serve or interact with people there.” 

I get it from the Czech servers' point of view. I think for them, they feel as though: “I’m not your servant. It is my job to give you food and ring you up, but it is not my job to be nice to you.” But it is an ongoing joke about how hostile customer service people are in the Czech Republic like you are bothering or annoying them with your business. 

Not so in the countries in the Global South I’ve visited. For them, it's more like “Please come buy the thing I’m selling!” In the airport, there were multiple vendors selling SIM cards. 

One of the guys approached me with such vigor, eagerly telling me all the benefits, that I have to say he got me. I don’t know if he ripped me off, but he sold me a SIM card with unlimited Data for one month for $6 USD. I was like, "let’s do it." He put the SIM card in my phone right then and there. I tried to pay with a card but he only took cash, so we had to walk to the ATM down the hall together while I got KGZ som out of the machine. 

When I got out of the airport, a huge crowd of taxi drivers were swarming the entrance. One guy was almost harassing me, following me around saying, “taxi cheap price, taxi cheap price.” I kept shaking my head no because I had pre-arranged a car from the hostel to come get me, but he was getting in my face saying “taxi taxi taxi.” I told him no and walked outside, and it was like I was a celebrity walking through a crowd of paparazzi. They swarmed on me like flies on a pie at a picnic, to the point where I had to use my elbows to push through the crowd. Luckily I was used to this from China, but it reminded me again of the inequalities. These people were desperate for money, for some kind of business. The airport in Prague is literally silent because there is no one there. 

My driver was there with a sign with my name on it and I approached him. He smiled and directed me to the car. 

He looked Chinese but a lot of KGZ people look Chinese and I didn’t want to offend him by asking if he was Chinese. But I heard him say “ai oh” as he reached behind him for something in the seat, which is a very distinctly Chinese thing to say (which means, "oh my" or "oh god."). I waited a few moments. I was nervous and shy, but I wanted to talk to him, already curious for research purposes about the Chinese populations in KGZ. 

So I asked him in English, "Are you Kyrgyz?" 

He said, “No, I’m Dungan.” Which is the word people use in Central Asia for Chinese immigrants, usually of Muslim faith, that moved to Central Asia a long time ago (at least two generations ago). 

I asked him in Mandarin, "Do you speak Chinese?"

He said back in Mandarin, “Oh, hey, yes, yes I do.” 

I could tell he wasn’t fluent in Mandarin—maybe he spoke a dialect with his parents, and he also answered the phone in Russian at a few different points, so maybe he was more fluent having gone to Russian school growing up—but he spoke Mandarin fluently enough for us to have a conversation. 

He was born in KGZ. He said that his mom had moved here when she was two and his dad moved when he was eleven. They were Hui (Chinese Muslim ethnicity) from Xinjiang and had fled to KGZ during the 1950s when there was a famine in China and not enough to eat. He had lived most of his life in KGZ, though he had lived in Russia for two years. He said KGZ is great because it’s very beautiful with the mountains and the farmland and open space, but that the government doesn’t do anything to help the people and that it’s very hard to make money. He said he didn’t speak Kyrgyz, which makes me think he went to Russian school then and spoke Chinese at home. He was really nice and excited that I spoke Chinese, and otherwise very pleasant, not asking me lots of intrusive questions about myself and just having a nice drive through Bishkek. 

We got to the hostel around 9 am on Tuesday morning and I checked in at the front desk. 

To be continued...

Kyrgyzstan: Istanbul Airport

Monday, June 28, 2021- evening

When I got off the plane in Istanbul, I was embarrassed to find myself being a gawking tourist over the “exotic” people around me. It was diverse in ways that made Prague feel like white bread. 

I was out of the Czech bubble. The Istanbul airport was a mosaic of people from the spectrum of humanity: Black, Brown, white; East Asian, Arab, Persian, Turkic, Indian. It was beautiful to hear all of the different languages floating by me and to see the different fashions. The Muslim women who covered the spectrum from completely covered to mostly covered adorned themselves in various patterns and colors. I appreciated all the different cultures, skin colors, and backgrounds mixing right there in the airport. 

Large signs pointed towards the mosque everywhere you went. The board for gate announcements of connecting flights were in English as well as the script of the destination: Hebrew, Arabic, and Cyrillic alphabet scripts scrolled across the screen. A large TV announced that the Prime Ministers of Israel and Egypt were set to meet this week.  

When I washed my hands in the bathroom, I read the large warning signs on the mirror: “Do not drink the tap water! It is unsafe to drink!” I had been planning on refilling my water bottle at the sink—I had just emptied it to go through security—and I was disappointed. Then I remembered an old lesson that I had learned in China: drinking out of the tap is privilege, and most of the world does not have such a privilege. The other sign reading, “Do not use this area for ablution, use the mosque for washing before prayer,” reminded me that I was in a Muslim majority country. 

There is something about going from a homogenous place (whether it be Boulder, mainland China, or Prague) that is mostly made up of one race or ethnicity, and stepping off the plane into another city that is absolutely not homogenous. Going from Prague to Istanbul reminded me of the full array of humanity, which provided a little jolt of needed discomfort. The switch was a little jarring, reminding this white person (me) of their minority status in the world: white people, despite our ethnocentric views sometimes, are not actually the center of the world. Imagine that (said ironically). Having these experiences remind me that the life I often live is one of bubbled privilege and comfort, a life that is distant from other parts of the world where diversity reigns. 

There is also something uncomfortable about going from a relatively wealthy or privileged place to a country that is not. 

Going from a country that participated / participates in and benefited / benefits from colonization to a country that was exploited during colonization is always a bit of a wake-up call. Some might call this discomfort with experiencing and living firsthand the inequalities of the world “culture shock.”

***Of course CZ has been on the receiving end of colonization as well (as it was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Nazis, Soviets, and other Communist puppets as well. But CZ has also benefitted by being a historically colonial power in other ways as well (e.g., colonizing Bohemia and Morovia as well as parts of Germany and has benefitted from its European Union privilege.)***

The corridor from the plane to the airport had the announcement: “Welcome to Istanbul: Some cities are just too much for one continent,” referencing the fact that Istanbul spans the Bosphorus Strait and is considered to be located in both Europe and Asia. The rest of the airport was covered in large advertisements on billboards and TVs of the archeological and tourist destinations in Turkey.

I walked out to the main terminal. It was crowded and bustling. I was suddenly out of the European bubble where people have the resources to only wear N95 masks—I had gotten used to only seeing those masks since everybody only wears those in CZ—and back into the world where people don’t have that privilege, and people were wearing all kinds of cloth masks, if they were wearing a mask at all. There were lots of signs around saying “keep your social distance” as well as hand sanitizing stations and even workers in light blue vests that said “hygiene team” on them, but otherwise nobody seemed to care about coronavirus. I sat down at a café and got a vitamin water to quench my thirst.

The airport was huge and gaudy, clearly a project of the authoritarian Turkish government that reminded me of China. Large development projects often provide huge kickbacks to corrupt government officials. The government also has an incentive to put off an image into the international community that they are successful. These days, authoritarian governments like Turkey strive for a “low violence but not no violence” and “good image to the outside world” regime. 

Big airports symbolizing “successful” economies are one way to project success to the outside world. Some political scientists call this an “information autocracy” to explain that controlling information, rather than causing violence (which gives them a bad name/face in the international community), is the focus of contemporary authoritarian regimes. Big, fancy airports are one part of this information autocracy regime. From what I’ve heard of Erdogan’s growing authoritarianism, I think this is accurate for Turkey. Regardless of the reason, the airport was definitely one of the nicest and largest airports I’ve ever been in. It felt like I had to walk miles to get to my gate. 

I passed a very fake “Old Turkish Bazaar” with gothic arches and “traditional” foods like dried fruits and nuts, all very overpriced and appealing to the tourist as most airports do. 

Signs announced not to worry about COVID because “we disinfect your luggage” and “constantly recirculate the air.” 

I had been nervous about customs because I didn’t know if they’d let me into KGZ for tourism. I had to show my COVID test about 4 or 5 different times throughout the journey—to get on the plane and to get through security and customs—but otherwise I had no issues with customs or security and eventually arrived in the Bishkek airport safe and sound.

To be continued... 

Kyrgyzstan: On My Way

Monday, June 28, 2021

Prague -> Istanbul

I love flying. 

On an airplane, I mean. 

I love the feeling of being obligated to just sit still and be for a while. Nobody to talk to, nobody talking to me. Just me myself and I. It’s a little Sabbath Day right there in the sky. A chance to just sleep, read, or think. Or, just sit there and do nothing. My mind can go blank and, for some brief moments, is free of worries: nothing to do, nowhere to be.  

I enjoy being suspended in the air between two cities. In that moment on the airplane, I am leaving the life and responsibilities of the departing city for a moment, while the unknown and exciting possibilities of the arrival city hang in the air. I can almost taste the expectations and wishes for the destination and its opportunities that lie waiting for me there. 

There is a meditation I learned for airplanes. You connect with your breath and close your eyes. Every time you have a thought about the past, you tag the thought with the name of the departing city: Prague. Every time you have a thought about the future, you tag the thought with the name of the arrival city: Istanbul. It’s a fun game to bring awareness to your thoughts about the past and future, with the two cities standing in your mind as symbols of what has passed and what is yet to come. 

I am always delighted when I board an international flight and the announcements are in multiple languages. The announcements are usually in the language of the departing city, the destination city, and English (**cough** legacy of imperialism and colonialism **cough**). For me this time, it was Czech, Turkish, and English. 

I was surprised by how much of the Turkish I could understand. Of course, Uyghur is a Turkic language, but I didn't realize how similar the two languages were. Uyghurs were always telling me how similar the languages were. 

But like a lot of things that Uyghurs told me, I had my doubts about their validity (people had all kinds of stories about how the Uyghurs invented pizza and bagels--that one might be true but I'm not sure--and other claims about Uyghurs role in culture and history.) Uyghur and other Turkic people had told me different things—from “the Turkish and Uyghur languages are almost identical” to “the languages are 10% similar” to “the languages are very different but just with similar grammar structures.” 

Honestly, I’d never really spent that much time listening to Turkish while I was in China, so I didn't really know (and, being that I'm not a linguist, I still really don't know how similar the languages actually are). Uyghurs watch lots of Turkish soap operas and listen to Turkish music, but I was always so focused on learning Uyghur that I never really paid attention to those things. And I’d never been to Turkey. 

But sitting on the airplane and listening to the announcements, I could pick out words and the grammar structures—the suffixes were similar, and many of the verbs, numbers, conjugations, and vocabulary was the same. Since I knew Uyghur, it didn't feel so foreign to me. However, I was going from white washed Prague to Istanbul, and I was in for a bit of a culture shock going from the colonizer's land to the colonized.

The first thing that happened on this white person’s journey from the Global North to the Global South was that they didn’t have a vegetarian meal on hand. Ok, I know I’m spoiled. Previously, I had always requested vegetarian meals, but in the last five years or so, there was always a vegetarian option already on the main menu of international flights, so I had forgotten to request it when I bought the tickets this time. 

This time, there was only one option: chicken. I asked the flight attendant if there was a vegetarian option and he paused for a moment, processing my request. 

“No,” he said after a moment's hesitation. 

I stared back for a moment, processing his answer. I think he saw my pleading and desperate eyes. 

“I can go check for you, though,” he said. 

I thanked him and he came back 10 minutes later with some pasta. 

“I found you a meal,” he announced. 

He had “borrowed” it from the first-class section. The meal set was all fancy with porcelain dishes instead of plastic.

I thanked him profusely, reminded of my privilege that I get to be picky with what I eat, whereas other people are grateful for whatever they can get. Many consider meat a delicacy and a luxury that you would be crazy to turn down. 

In my privilege, I get to “save the Earth” by reducing my meat intake. For me, it’s about claiming sovereignty over my body and it’s empowering to know that I get to choose what goes in it. For me, the ethical, moral, and environmental implications of eating meat is something that my body can’t sit with anymore. I have the privilege to have access to enough calories and protein through other means, and so I can refuse it. But for others, a vegetarian diet may be a privilege that they may not have access to. For others, I am being picky. 

To be continued...

Why Kyrgyzstan?

Why Kyrgyzstan? 

I’ve been traveling in and around Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, for the past 14 days (!!!). I’ve been getting this question a lot. Many people I talk to have never heard of Kyrgyzstan or Bishkek. If they have, they often could not tell you where these places are located on a map. 

(By the way, for the purposes of simplicity, I’m going to abbreviate Kyrgyzstan as KGZ for the rest of this blog series.) 

Map of Kyrgyzstan. The capital, Bishkek, is located in the central north of the country. 

So, why KGZ? I was immediately enchanted by KGZ from the first time I crossed into its territory while hitchhiking on a semi-truck in 2015. (I wrote about that trip across the China-Kyrgyz border).

The views on the Torugart Pass, the mountain pass between China and KGZ, were like nothing I had ever seen before; they made Colorado’s mountains seem small in comparison. While I rode next to the trucker, I stared out the window in awe. We crossed the mountain pass from China into KGZ, driving up and down mountains and through valleys, with snow-capped mountains with glaciers in the background and rolling grassy hills in the foreground. 

In 2015, I was in KGZ to explore. I was on a summer trip doing research on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and scoping out the ethnic minority conflicts and border issues in this dynamic and diverse region along the ancient Silk Road. I visited Osh, KGZ’s second largest city, and was hosted by the family of a contact I had made through jiujitsu. They never let me train, since I was female, but the wife spoke some English and hosted me at their home and cooked me meals my entire stay in Osh. During the trip, I was pleased to be able to communicate with the locals in Uyghur. I was also fascinated by the recently independent country’s nationalism and ethnic diversity. From that moment on, I knew that even if KGZ was outside of my current scope of dissertation research, I would return at some point to do research in this fascinating and beautiful place. 

Fast forward to 2018 with the ongoing Uyghur humanitarian crisis unfolding. I knew I couldn’t stay silent and knew I would be writing controversial articles about the atrocities. I knew I could not go back to China as long as the current regime under Xi Jinping was in power for fear of being arrested due to my research and publications. I couldn’t go back unless some major political and liberalizing changes took place in China. It was time to re-think my research agenda and plan an alternative field site. Meanwhile, I was applying for postdoctoral fellowships at a number of universities--Princeton, Yale, Harvard--and they all wanted a research proposal. 

Here is what I wrote:

“Chinese development projects along the “New Silk Road” carry implications for the escalation of the Chinese political-economic model of authoritarian-capitalism outside of China. Chinese-funded roads and oil pipelines involve negotiations of territorial sovereignty in post-Soviet space. While Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have relatively strong authoritarian governments, in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan local governments are comparatively weaker. I hypothesize that the threat of Chinese authority undermining local governments will be more prevalent where the central state government appears weaker. 

Using these preliminary results, I will examine the human and political impacts of Chinese New Silk Road economic development on local attitudes of xenophobia in Central Asia, especially in Kyrgyzstan. Growing hostility towards Chinese migrant workers may reflect a global trend toward xenophobia. Investigating this phenomenon will measure the feelings of locals toward Chinese development projects as a potential threat to their territorial sovereignty.

I will use my Uyghur language skills, and employ a local interpreter when necessary, to conduct field research in Central Asia to investigate how local communities view and respond to Chinese development projects along the New Silk Road.” 

I never did get offered those prestigious postdocs (and thank god I didn’t). But I did use a similar proposal to apply for the Research Fellow position at the Czech Academy of Sciences two years later, and my proposal was accepted in October 2020. Part of my job right now is to conduct field research in Central Asia and they are paying me to do so. 

And so, here I am. 

KGZ is a popular place for US graduate students and other researchers of Central Asia to conduct ethnographic research because the government is relatively weaker and poorer than the other Central Asian countries. KGZ’s state security and surveillance is not as developed, and freedom of speech is somewhat tolerated. Conducting research in the other Central Asian countries could be risky--I could get arrested if found out that I was “stealing state secrets.” But KGZ does not have this kind of totalitarian government, nor the capacity to monitor random esoteric social science research. KGZ is also relatively more open and liberal, considered the most “democratic” of the Central Asian countries. KGZ has relatively free and fair elections and a large presence of Western-funded and independent NGOs and organizations, such as USAID and the UN. 

Being that KGZ borders the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, there is also a large Uyghur population--both those Uyghurs who were born in KGZ (Uyghurs are a recognized ethnicity minority in KGZ), as well as Uyghur refugees from China. I had also done some preliminary research on the queer scene in KGZ (see Bagdasarova 2018; Suyarkulova 2019), and knew it was a potential site for more research on that front as well. 

In short, I’m here to look at Chinese economic development, Chinese migration (and hostility towards it), Uyghur diaspora, and LGBT issues. 

Finally, I have recently realized that KGZ is not even on the map for most people. People’s mental maps of the world have a big blank space in this region--some people have heard of Kazakhstan (maybe from Borat?), but not Kyrgyzstan. In this sense, for a lot of Westerners, KGZ does not even exist. An entire country, an entire people, and a long, rich history--from the Silk Road to the Mongol Empire to Soviet occupation--that people don’t even see. That area of the world is a blank spot in most people’s minds. People know of China, they know of Turkey, they know of Europe, but the space in-between is basically a blank spot. 

And that blank spot in-between China and Turkey are the post-Soviet countries--the countries, including Afghanistan, that were ravaged by years of colonization and war. These countries are some of the strongest authoritarian (some say totalitarian, some say kleptocracy) countries in the world now with shocking and atrocious human rights abuses that rival China’s (e.g., killing, arrests, and disappearances of activists and political opponents).

Western countries are complicit in these human rights abuses because a lot of the money--money mostly from oil, gas and mining--from resource extraction by these governments is held in German, Dutch, and Swiss banks. While the people are starving and lack water, the governments are funneling large amounts of money abroad.

But how can people in other parts of the world care about what is happening in this region if they don’t even know that these countries exist? And if they don’t know that these countries exist, then they don’t know that the people and cultures in them exist. And if they don’t know that the people in them exist, how can they care? How can advocates move forward an agenda of freedom in these countries among so much ignorance? 

The first step toward healing the world--from climate change to poverty--is about understanding that WE ARE ALL CONNECTED. This theory is something that I like to call “integral geography,” inspired by Ken Wilbur’s “integral theory.” 

Integral geography is about understanding how everything is connected--the oil and gas of Central Asia fuel climate change, while European banks benefits from the cash flows. We are all connected, whether we realize it or not. But we cannot start to heal the major and most pressing problems of our world based on these inter-connections unless we are aware of where those connections flow from and to. If the Earth is like an interconnected and interdependent organism, KGZ is one of the many sprained ankles. How can we heal a sprained ankle if we don’t even know that the ankle exists? First, we must become aware of the ankle. Second, we must feel and understand the pain that is emanating from the injury. Third, we can start to send resources to heal the ankle. 

I am feeling inspired to spread awareness about this place, putting this place onto people’s mental maps as a first step toward creating a more integral geography. In my utopian vision, we as world citizens will be aware of all the countries and people of the world so we can slowly start healing together. 

So, in conclusion, I was captivated by the beauty and culture of KGZ. It was the perfect research site, since the Kyrgyz language is similar to Uyghur and borders China with lots of Chinese and Uyghur migrants, refugees and immigrants. It is also a field site with possibilities to investigate the relationship between authoritarianism, colonialism, Islam and LGBT rights.

In an effort to contribute to integral geography, KGZ is one step along a longer journey to address human rights abuses around the world and heal together as an interconnected world, not separated by nations and ethnicities but united in our shared humanity. 

My Second Tattoo: Burning and Flying

The story of my second tattoo (pictured here) is just that: a story. Each part doesn’t just symbolize one static thing, but rather it symbolizes an evolution.

I got the tattoo in Xinjiang in September 2017, just a few weeks before I was scheduled to leave China for the last time. The political situation was tightening everyday--my Uyghur friends were disappearing, Hong Kong was heating up, and foreigners were getting kicked out--and I knew I wouldn’t be back for a long time, if ever. I wanted to get the tattoo as a symbolic marker of my time—and struggles—in Xinjiang as a life changing experience that was now coming to an end. 

Xinjiang was life changing for me in that it was a time (2014-2017) of coming to learn firsthand about authoritarian oppression and Indigenous suffering at the hands of settler colonialism; living in two cultures simultaneously (Han and Uyghur) so different from each other and so different from my own; being so far from my home and family; and finally, coming out and into my own sexuality and independence as a bi person and geography scholar. 

I also wanted to get the tattoo in memory of my late grandmother who had recently passed away. Finally, the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 was when I suffered from the concussion, and I intended the tattoo as a “scar” of this time to serve as a reminder of the pain of my concussion and the liberation I experienced after I healed from it. 

The original idea for the design

My friend from jiujitsu recommended a Han Chinese tattoo artist (Uyghurs don’t tattoo as this is against Muslim faith) and I made an appointment to see him at his studio in late August 2017. I went to his studio with the intention to tell him my story--my time in XJ, my grandmother, and my concussion--and my reasons for getting the tattoo, and ask him to design something from there. 

I told the tattoo artist that I wanted something to symbolize two phrases. 

First, the phrase “this too shall pass.” This phrase symbolized the suffering of my concussion and the passing of my grandmother (as every life must come to an end). I told him that I felt very strongly connected to the image of birds flying away as a symbol of this philosophy and mindset that everything is temporary

Second, the Chinese proverb that goes, 野火烧不尽，春风吹又生 (yehuo shao bu jin, chunfeng chui you sheng), which translated literally means, “A wildfire does not burn it all completely, there is life again when the spring winds blow.” Another more literary translation, which I got from the dictionary, says: “Even a prairie fire cannot destroy the grass, it grows again when the spring breeze comes.” 

The beautiful thing about proverbs is that you can interpret them differently according to your own life experiences and apply them to how you see it fit your own life. For me, the proverb symbolizes this sentiment: Like a phoenix burned to death and rising from the ashes, it is only through hardship, suffering and even death that can provide the space and room for growth and re-birth. Even extreme suffering does not kill your spirit or your soul, you can find a second coming or a second wind, a re-birth and new growth with the spring breeze--the breath of life--that can only happen on the fields where the fire had occurred.

For me, these two proverbs spoke to the experience of temporality of life and the rebirth and freedom I experienced after a year of hardship, trauma, and loss, namely struggling with my PhD comprehensive exams while living in Xinjiang, a bad concussion, and the death of my grandmother. 

I explained all of the above to the tattoo artist and he nodded, saying he would design a tattoo for me. 

Before I left the office, he asked me if there were any plants that were special to me growing up in my hometown. I told him about the maple trees in Frick Park and Schenley Park where I spent so much time growing up.

When I was younger, my sister and I often went to Frick Park with my dad, a huge park in the middle of urban Pittsburgh with steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick as its benefactor and namesake. We often went to the portion of Frick Park that we called “The Hallow,” its key distinguishing feature a large grassy field situated in the valley of two forested hills. We would often go running there on Saturday mornings, or take our greyhound-lab mix Wyatt to play fetch in the creek. Our cross-country courses, as well as the Run Around the Square 5K course, went through that part of the park, and we (my Dad, sister, and I) would often run those courses and try to improve on our times. Dad and Wyatt would tag along and we would throw the tennis ball for Wyatt in the grassy fields. I have very fond memories of that park. In addition to running there, I often went biking and spent time with my high school sweetheart there (we did a whole cutesy photo shoot with my digital camera there on our own before selfies were even a thing). It’s one of my favorite parts of Pittsburgh, and when the oak and maple leaves change in the fall, the park lights up in a symphony of color. 

The manifestation of my ideas into the artist's sketchpad:

When I came back a week later, he showed me the design on his sketchpad: 

The artist unconsciously brought to life something unexpected. The burning of the maple leaf, which he had designed based on the Chinese proverb about rising from the ashes, I realized in that moment also symbolizes for me a burning of my original image of myself and dreams for myself that I had as a child in Pittsburgh: as a straight woman who would be married and successful (maybe even famous), rich, and smart. 

The tattoo symbolizes the burning of old expectations of myself as rich and successful; the burning of old expectations of myself as perfect; the burning of old expectations of myself as straight. It’s about the burning and letting go of the plans, expectations and beliefs about myself.

Those dreams and images of myself are gone now, and as they burn and fly away, I realize that those expectations and societal norms that I put on myself are no longer something that I want. The rainbow color of the birds—something also unplanned—symbolizes my coming out as queer/bi that year. I like to think of the birds as me flying away into the wind as a bisexual and trans writer, which is what I really want for my life.

The details on the components of the dreamcatcher portion of the tattoo:

The dreamcatcher design on the bottom as a whole symbolizes both my commitment to Indigenous politics and writing about the injustices of settler colonialism and the nation-state system (in both Xinjiang and elsewhere), as well as a reminder and a symbol that Pittsburgh was built on top of the genocide, colonization, and displacement of Native Americans—that will always be a scar that we hold as a people and nation. 

The separate parts of the dream catcher symbolize more specific things:

• The design in the middle of the dream catcher is the Chinese character for “human” (人) to symbolize that all humans come across struggles in life, and in the end, can and will overcome them (i.e. the fire that cannot destroy the grass).
• The thorns on the rim of the dreamcatcher represent the suffering in life that we will encounter and must accept.
• The green buds growing from the thorns symbolize the re-birth that we experience after struggle, and the ways that even from thorns new life will spring.
• The feathers below the dream catcher symbolize my three main struggles this year: the death of my grandmother, my concussion, and living in Xinjiang during authoritarian oppression of Indigenous people. While at the time these three things seemed like huge burdens that could not be overcome, with time they floated away with the lightness of a single feather, and I now see each of them as a kind of scar, but also a gift, and not a burden (as they are as light as a feather now).  

I recognize that the dreamcatcher portion of my tattoo can be interpreted as an appropriation of Native American culture and for this I apologize if I have offended anyone. 

After the tattoo:

After I got the tattoo, I said goodbye to my friends and life in Xinjiang, and returned to the States in early October. That month, I had a dream:

I was riding on a hang-glider, enjoying the blue sky with the breeze on my face and wind in my ears, the sun on my face, and my heart beating in my chest. When I had landed, my mom and grandpa wanted to ride on the hang-glider too. “No!” I screamed. “We're late for our flight!” We rushed to the airport, but we missed our flight anyway. 

Reflecting on this dream, I wrote in my journal: 

“Remember that flight on the hang glider. Remember how you cut it short because of time; because of a deadline. Remember your pain and fear of the upcoming deadline. But remember how you missed the flight anyway? So what if you could recognize earlier that you were going to need more time? You could arrange to delay the flight one more day and spend the extra time enjoying the adventure, inviting others to come along with you on the hang glider, and they could share in your joyful presence. Then you would have time for self-care and relaxation and rest during most of that extra time. 

What if I could invite others to join me on the ride? Can I make room for them on my hang-glider? Can I share my joy with them? Can I go on journeys with them? Can I take them with me and let them take me with them? Can I accept their generosity without guilt? Can I share my laughter with them? 

How can we be mindful of what we are doing? Rather than using work and time and schedules as a strategy to avoid the pain and pleasure of life, how can we enjoy what we’re doing while inviting others into our life? 

It’s true that time is limited. So can we use our time in joyful presence rather than checklists and time cards and schedules?

Can you imagine a different world? Not one built around deadlines but built around flying free and present?” 

My tattoo is now a reminder to me of the dream I had and the way I would like to re-create that dream into a more beautiful and present life in companionship with others.