Letter to Jiujitsu: Part 1

Last week I was foam rolling, and I asked my body: “What hurts?”

“My heart,” it replied.

“Why does my heart hurt?” I asked.

“My heart is grieving the loss of jiujitsu,” it answered.

“What do you need? What can I do to heal this pain?” I inquired.

“Write a letter. Express your grief over this loss,” came the answer.

So I present to you my letter to jiujitsu as one way to heal my hurting heart.

I intentionally wrote the letter in the past tense as a way to express my grieving. I know that in the future we will be able to start training again, but for now I write in the past tense to illustrate the loss.

This is dedicated to the people I used to see at training every single day that I don’t get to see anymore. 

Dear Jiujitsu,

I miss you so much. You were my sanctuary, my church, my home, my breath of fresh air. You were my life blood, my muse, my source of inspiration, my anti-drug, my anti-depressant, my energy, my reason for getting up in the morning.

One thing I’m glad we shared is… 

Smiles and hugs. Handshakes and pats on the back. Ass-kicking. Being the nail one day and the hammer the next. Chatter. Shared fears and common struggles. Stepping onto your mat, I never knew what other people might be going through. They could have just had the worst day of their life. But they showed up. And as long we kept the electricity that courses between us alive, then we had a reason to keep going.

The electricity that buzzed between me and my teammates: Whether rolling with my face pressed against their sweaty gi, or talking and laughing on the mat, or greeting someone with a smile when they came in, a current of energy pulsed within and between us. A touch, a giggle, an inside joke, an eyebrow wiggle, a wink. We shared sweat and blood and tears and pain. Those people and that place was my home and refuge. Why? Because it fostered community and connection, which we are all starved for.

Who else can say they have the closeness of gifting your sweat in their eyeball? 

Now our world has changed. Sharing sweat is no longer okay. Now sharing skin contact is dangerous and forbidden.

Demolition and Eviction: Part 4

The next day, I approached Aygul’s shop. I saw Aygul’s husband outside the shop with their son, and they were piling household goods—a water boiler, a fan, a lamp, blankets—into the back of a tricycle mo-ped. I chose not to stop and say hello, too nervous about being seen and not wanting to draw attention to her husband or the situation or me. By the end of the first week of May, the entire neighborhood was completely demolished.  

This is the where those shops with the green shutters from the previous post used to stand. Source: Photo by author, May 2017.

Later, in mid-May 2017, I met up with Aygul and she told me:

“I tried delaying going back to Kashgar as long as I could. But the situation is just out of control,” she explained, shaking her head. They are cracking down like never before. I have to leave. I have to go back to Kashgar now, or else I’ll get arrested. They might arrest me or send me to ‘re-education’ training school.” She shook her head and raised her eyebrows while pursing her lips.

That was the last time I saw or heard from her.

This story illustrates the way that poor, rural migrants were evicted from the city through a slow escalation and tightening of rules. The evictions were carried out as targeted neighborhood policing action that profiled rural Uyghurs and used demolition, for the purpose of re-development, as a pretext to force Uyghurs economically and politically from the city and into internment camps.

Aygul’s experience was a common one I observed during the spring of 2017. 

At the time, nobody knew what was going on. The rules kept changing and escalating. It was confusing and scary. We didn’t realize it at the time, but the purpose of demolishing Uyghur homes and shops, and eventually forcefully evicting Uyghur migrants from the city, was to force poor Uyghurs to go back to the countryside where they would be met with forced internment, held without trial or criminal conviction, never to return.

After Aygul, many of my friends started disappearing. The confusion and fear was palpable in the whispers and looks exchanged when people made eye contact and just shook their heads. Words did not need to be exchanged to know that a relative or friend had been sent to internment for “re-education.”

Now, a year later, we have satellite images of large internment camps and analysis of government documents that tell us the Chinese government holds more than 1 million Uyghurs without trial.

The end.

Demolition and Eviction: Part 3

This is a continuation of Part 1 and Part 2.

The next day, as continued from Part 2: 

“Beep boop!”

My phone alerted me to the arrival of a new text message. It was from 10639585, one of several each day sent to all the phones with the city’s area code. This one informed me:

“The Process of ‘Old City District Renewal’: The capital government has started the renewal of old city districts to improve living space. The process will include the surrounding Tengritagh District and Sayabagh District, covering the space of 173 square kilometers and 1,600,000 people from every ethnicity. Old city renewal is for the preservation and improvement of all the people’s lives and is part of public service for the benefit of the people.”

The end of every text message told us in parentheses which government department the text came from. This one read at the end: “From the City Council’s Propaganda Bureau.” My chest tightened and my breathing quickened. I lived in Tengritagh District. We had known this was coming. Rumors had been circulating for weeks and Aygul had told me about this particular decision yesterday.

Walking home that day at 9:00 pm, I noticed the authorities had put up red banners with white Chinese characters across a few of the evicted shops on my street. It was late and nobody was around, so I quickly snapped a few pictures in the dark. 

“Demolition and eviction is bitter for a moment, but having a new residence means fortune for life.” For those of you that read Chinese: 搬迁过渡艰苦一时，搬迁新居幸福一生. In Uyghur (with the modified Arabic alphabet written above the Chinese characters), it reads: Kochkende bir mehel japa tartsaqmu, yengi dewalghuga kochup bir omur bextlik otimiz.

“Dependable advancement to carry forward demolition and find a place to settle down will ensure that Tengritagh District’s old city transformation will be implemented smoothly.” Or, in Chinese: 稳妥推进拆迁安置，确保天山区老成改造顺利实施. (The Uyghur was too faded out to read in the photo and I didn't have the Uyghur translation in my field notes for this picture.)

Then, I saw a family leaving their home behind the shuttered shops pictured here. They piled into the back bed of a pick-up truck that was filled with furniture and a television set. None of them were carrying bags. The older ones were carrying infants, and the younger kids were holding hands with each other with tiny backpacks on, leaving their home for good. There were about ten kids in the bed of the pick-up truck.

The next day, the rest of the shops were shuttered and locked with big white X’s to prevent anyone from getting back in. I saw through the window of Aygul's shop that there were still some abandoned blankets inside. But she and her family were nowhere to be found. The white X’s read the name of the neighborhood community center office.

The notification of demolition by the local government. Both of the pieces of paper say the same thing: Victory Road Management Committee Nanliang Neighborhood Committee Letter: May 2017. The words "Committee" here signal that this was a government operation. Source: Photo by author, May 2017.

I noticed a big white X taped firmly across the front doors of the noodle restaurant next door as well. I walked up to the window and looked inside. The display case for cakes was still illuminated, with half a watermelon sitting inside. Tables and chairs were stacked inside, with a metal basin filled with white porcelain cups. A container of spicy chili peppers and a basin of vinegar on the table sat closest to the window. It was as if they hadn’t even been informed of the demolition with enough time to clean out the inside of the shop.

“It’s closed!” a police officer yelled at me loudly. I ignored him, turned and walked away. Next to the noodle shop was a recently built a police station, which also had a huge Chinese character reading “demolish” in red and a number spray-painted on it. Its doors were locked shut with a chain around the front. The neighborhood was going to be flattened, even the police stations.

This all happened within 24 hours of receiving that first text message that notified the residents of the demolition. 

The Chinese character for demolition (拆) marks a Uyghur restaurant in Ürümchi. Source: Photo by author, May 2017.

Demolition and Eviction: Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1.

One day in spring 2017, I stopped at Aygul’s shop in the evening as I often did on my way home. 
Aygul kissed each of my cheeks in greeting. Guzelnur screamed out, “Hello! How are you! Good!” in English. 
“We’ve been studying your recordings together,” Aygul explained. I had recorded some simple English phrases on her cell phone for her to study.
Aygul was sitting on the carpet in the front room playing on her phone. Her eyelids drooped with sleep.

“How are things?” I inquired.

“Well…They are kicking everyone [the Uyghurs] out of Ürümchi. I can’t go back to rural Kashgar… The politics, the economic situation—it’s so much worse than here. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said with a wavering voice, tears pooling in her eyes.

It was then that I realized that the entrance to their back room was boarded up. A pipe had been installed and poked through the board to allow them to get water from the spigot inside.

 “What happened with the door?” I asked.

“Oh, the government made us do that. They said we can’t live here. We can open the shop but we can’t live in the back, they said. They didn’t give a reason. So much that they are doing right now is without logic. The real reason is that they want us [Uyghurs] to leave the city. The purpose is to make us leave. But they don’t say that. They just say, ‘you can’t live in the shop.’

“So we boarded up the living space, and I’m living with my parents nearby. I mean, I sleep there at night. I didn’t tell the government about Guzelnur,” she said, pointing her chin towards her daughter and looking at my concerned face and laughing.

“Everything’s fine! It’s not a big deal. We just need to take it day by day. There’s nothing anyone can do about it. We’re helpless,” she shrugged and rolled her eyes.

The next night, the lights were on in Aygul’s shop, a curtain and a table pressed up against the window and everything boarded up. I suspected this was to prevent the police from seeing that anyone was still living inside. But I could see the light leaking out into the night from inside. Aygul and Guzelnur were still living there despite orders not to. 

A couple weeks later at the end of April 2017, I went to visit Aygul again. 

I went inside the shop where Guzelnur was lying on the carpet on a raised platform. There was a thick blanket on top of her and pillow behind her head. She was ready for bed. Her smile revealed her crooked baby teeth and her bright, brown eyes greeted me. I knelt down next to her and embraced her with hugs and kisses. She played a peek-a-boo game with me where she hid herself under the blanket. 

“Guzelnur nede?” I said. “Where’s Aishe?”  She then suddenly threw the blanket off, and I acted shocked, giving her a shower of kisses as she squealed and giggled.

Aygul sat down next to me on the carpet.

“Our family has run into another difficulty. We just got word today that all the shops on this street will be demolished in three days. So our shop will be gone soon. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Where are you moving to?” I asked.

“There is no place to move to!” she said, as though she was talking to an incompetent child. “They are evicting all migrant Uyghurs from the city. They [government agents] are all so evil, they are breaking up families and they don’t even care.”

I told Aygul I was sad to hear this, but my words sounded flat as my heart sat in my throat.

“All of us here have broken hearts here, eh? We can’t do anything here, they won’t rent to us [Uyghur people], they won’t let us buy a house, they won’t let us live here or work here, nothing. They just want to send us away. So they’re evil. There’s nothing to be done.”

Some people came to buy naan, so she abruptly got up. I felt like I just got slapped in the face, even though I am not the one with a serious threat to my family’s livelihood. And yet, I felt strangely numb to the situation, my head blank and my mouth dry, empty of words as I sat in helplessness. 

I gave two more kisses to Guzelnur as she shrieked and laughed. I buried my face in her pillow for a moment while I fought hard to hold back the tears welling up in my eyes. I didn't want her to see my crying. I reluctantly said goodbye and left.

As I approached home, I felt sick. My brain was too full with everything. I felt suffocated as if I needed to get out for a breath of fresh air even though I was already outside. 

As I walked toward my apartment, behind me a few pairs of men were speaking loudly in Uyghur, wobbling down the street with their arms around each other. As they walked passed me, I smelled the alcohol. I heard them promising to always be there for each other in slurred and loud voices.

Demolition and Eviction: Part 1

Here is the story of one Uyghur family and how they experienced demolition of their neighborhood and eviction from the city. The events told in this story are eye-witness accounts from the field during 2017, though identifiable demographic information has been changed to protect the participants.

Three-year-old Guzelnur was playing in the street with the neighborhood kids. Her face and hands were black with soot from the coal dust that coated every surface. She burst into a giggly smile with her arms outstretched for a hug when she saw me. I dropped my grocery bags and lifted her up into my arms as she squealed and gave me a kiss on each cheek.

With her legs wrapped around me, I carried Guzelnur to her mother’s shop. I greeted her mother, Aygul, by touching both of my cheeks to hers with light kisses. When I picked up some fruit, Aygul tried to refuse my money. I insisted, putting it into her fanny pack since she would not take it. She finally acquiesced and invited me to join her inside for a chat.

Aygul quickly swept the carpet with a hand broom, pulled out their guest mat with gold trim, folded it over double for me, and urged me to sit.

A picture of a typical Uyghur living room with carpet, decorated mat with gold trim, and a tablecloth for eating while a child sleeps in the corner. Fruit is commonly brought out for guests. Source: Photo by author.

Flustered, she apologized profusely for not having any tea on hand: “We just don’t have the conditions for luxuries like tea right now.” She then brought in naan bread, hot water, and tiny clementine oranges from the shop for us to share.

Pixar’s Ice Age dubbed in Uyghur played on a TV in the background. A sheet serving as a curtain covered the window, and ropes laced across the room held wet clothes hung to dry. The tiny room was heated by a coal stove in a corner that glowed red with burning embers. I tasted the coal in the air that made me cough and my throat tighten. The fumes made it difficult to breathe, but at least it was warm. She apologized for the mess and the mildew smell.

“I did laundry yesterday. I just don’t have the conditions where I can afford something like a washing machine,” she explained, shaking her head and shrugging.  

Guzelnur squatted and peed in a bucket on the floor. There was no toilet in their house, only a public one across the street that they have to pay one yuan each time to use.

Aygul then clapped her hands excitedly as she started to make noodles for lunch. I stood next to her as she cooked and refused my help. We chatted about our lives.

“I’m so tired and worn out. I’m a mother of two young kids, so there’s no such thing as rest for me,” she said, sighing.

Aygul had a round face that was almost always smiling, despite the fact that one of her favorite activities was complaining. She vented to me about her poor home conditions, her husband and kids, and the Chinese government. Aygul spoke fast, so fast that sometimes I couldn’t catch all the words as they jumbled together and piled on top of one another. But even when she was angry or upset, she usually still managed to slip in jokes, even if it was at the expense of her husband.

“He is so skinny and weak, ugly and poor, he was the worst of the lot that was pursuing me back in my younger days,” she told me laughing.

Her jolly chortles made her large belly shake and her chubby cheeks stick out. When she was tired—as she so often was—she put her head in her hands and her eyelids drooped, and she talked a bit slower, telling me about the pressures of trying to run the shop and raise two young children at the same time without the resources, such as a washing machine, that she envied and desired.

Her husband took a break from baking naan. He wore a white apron dirty with soot and dust, and his face shined with sweat. He sat cross-legged, leaning against the wall with a cigarette burning red between his fingers. When his cigarette was finished, he filled up a bucket of water from the spigot on the side of the room. When he returned to the tonur oven where he was making naan bread, he leaned over the cutting board, using his whole body to knead the dough. A fast Uyghur tune blasted its electronic harmony.

“He plays this song at least a hundred times a day,” Aygul explained. “It helps him get energy when he is bored or tired and he needs to get motivated to lean over the broiling tonur oven.”

Photo of a typical tonur oven with bread stuck to the sides as it bakes over coals. Source: https://allinnet.info/culture/the-armenian-tonir-oven/

Her husband then placed the moist, onioned and kneaded dough onto the sides of the fiery coal oven, sticking them on the sides with his hands and then pulling out the cooked ones with a metal pincher.

After lunch, I said my goodbyes and we continued our routine of talking every day when I stopped by to get fruit and naan. They renovated the naan shop in early spring of 2017 and life was good, they told me.  

China, COVID, and Authoritarianism

What the Coronavirus Tells Us about China’s Authoritarian State

During COVID-19, the world witnessed the efficiency—and despotism—of China’s authoritarian rule. Meanwhile, the widespread consequences of China’s censorship are evident. This is nothing new for China. The mass internment of the Uyghurs illustrates how China uses authoritarian rule and censorship to execute government policy with speed and force. 

Evidence is clear that over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are currently detained in mass internment camps. Some argue that the inmates are “sitting ducks” for an uncontrolled outbreak in the camps.

What happened in Xinjiang with mass internment of Uyghurs sheds light on what happened and is happening in the rest of China during the coronavirus crisis.

Amnesty International reported on the human rights abuses in China during the outbreak. While leaders from the World Health Organization (WHO) praised China for its handling of the crisis, and China’s remarkable recovery from a public health disaster remains a model for countries around the world, China’s violation of basic patient confidentiality, widespread discrimination against people from Wuhan, and people’s unlawful limitation to access to essential needs—like HIV medication—was rightfully questioned. The heavy-handed enclosure and lockdown rules in China, as well as the data cover-ups and news censorship, during the outbreak are merely another manifestation of the government’s dishonesty and ruthlessness.

What does the coronavirus and authoritarian governance in China mean for minorities and the most marginalized and vulnerable populations? China’s media insists that the “re-education” centers do not pose risks for an outbreak. Others disagree, saying that it’s only a matter of time, especially considering that 76 confirmed cases were reported there, but it’s hard to know the real numbers. On an ABC television special in Australia, a Chinese diplomat, Wang Xining insisted that the coronavirus was not an issue.    

Although I can’t speak to the situation on the ground right now, or whether or not the coronavirus is spreading in Xinjiang, the point is that China’s authoritarian governance, mass internment camps, and censorship are brutal realities we should all be concerned about. 

The Conversation Article

I was in China doing research when I saw my Uighur friends disappear

I had this article published in The Conversation, an independent and not-for-profit global network of newsrooms. I hope you enjoy!