To Fly

"There is freedom waiting for you,

On the breezes of the sky,

And you ask 

What if I fall? 

Oh but my darling, 

What if you fly?" -Erin Hanson  

Worried about being late, I was pedaling quickly down a dark street. A van abruptly pulled out from behind a parked car. He crossed my lane as he made a left turn. I saw him coming, and felt his headlights on me. I swerved.

This happens to me frequently. The driver usually sees me and brakes, and I swerve out of the way just in time.

This time he didn't see me. The van collided with my body. I soared through the air, propelled forward by the inertia of my forward pedaling interrupted by the collision with the van. I didn't scream. I had only this thought:

I want to live. I have so much more that I still want to say.

***

You know when you've been working hard on the computer all day, the way your eyes glaze the page, but you're not taking in any information? You try to work on something, but your brain feels like it's shutting down for the day? That moment when you say to yourself, "I'm no longer being productive, I should probably go home"? So, then you go to happy hour and have a beer, or perhaps a puff of a joint, and you feel a little dizzy and confused and not quite in control of your emotions?

That was my brain. All the time.

My thinking was slow as if wading through a thick fog. The room wobbled as I walked. My brain felt as though it had been switched out for a slow and clunky old computer. In a cruel twist of fate, the one thing that I needed the most-sleep-was almost impossible to get. I laid in a bed that was floating. The room was spinning. My ears were ringing. My head was pounding. My stomach twisted with nausea.

***

Eventually I went back to my hometown, Pittsburgh, to recover. One day shortly after I arrived, I was home alone. I set to work checking off a long list of tasks. My rehab therapists were helping me get me back into reading again. They had instructed me to jump my eyes back and forth between various letters randomly displayed on a page. "The exercises are supposed to trigger your vertigo and nausea, that's how you know it's working," one of the rehab therapists had cheerfully quipped. I hated doing the exercises, but the to-do list…it lay there on the table on a bright pink Post-It note, mocking me. I couldn't leave it unattended. It needed me.

At one point in the afternoon, I briefly considered taking a walk through a nearby park treasured from my childhood. Despite the frigid temperatures outside, the sky was bright blue and the sun was shining. However, the to-do list loomed large in the back of my mind. Laid out in front of me remained a long list of assignments.

As I focused on the list, the day passed quickly and soon the sun was setting. It was too late to go to the park now. I still had one more item on the list: exercise. "Exercise is one of the most crucial parts of your post-concussion rehab and recovery, because controlled and monitored cardio can actually help speed up healing," the doctor had informed me, his chubby face too big for his small glasses. "You can use an exercise bike to start off with, since it won't involve the up and down motions of running, and side to side motions of swimming, which can cause dizziness," he had suggested.

I had tried this. Two weeks later, I had sat in his office burning with shame as tears streamed down my face. "I'm trying so hard to do what you are telling me, but I'm not making the progress I had hoped for," I had said, my voice garbled and shaky.

"Concussion recovery is definitely a 'two-steps forward, one-step back' process. You'll get there. You've made great progress already," he had insisted as he glanced over my chart one more time and left the room exactly 15 minutes after he had entered it. I didn't care if I had made progress. I wanted to be 100% again.

In Pittsburgh, I was determined. I found an old exercise bike in the house. I set off doing exactly what the rehab therapists had told me: intervals of five-minute sprints for five reps with five-minute rests in between each repetition. I pushed as fast and as hard as I could on the bike, going faster and faster each interval, sprinting as quickly as I could.

With my heart pumping, blood flowing, and legs burning, my mind went blank. I plowed ahead as vigorously as I could. The pedals on my feet, the air filling my lungs, and the pulsing of adrenaline felt so good. My rehab therapist was going to be so proud, I thought to myself.

I drank some water and started getting ready for bed. I was sitting on the edge of the bed when it started to hit me. Dizziness. Splitting headache. Throbbing like my head was going to explode. Nausea. Unfocused vision. I gripped the sides of the mattress. My concussion symptoms were coming back. What happened? I had followed the instructions exactly as my rehab therapist had recommended.

Suddenly, a thought crept into my brain. I remembered something he had said about the sprints. I should start out in walking speed, he had said. I should slowly work my way up to jogging speed, he had said. It was only after jogging speed in five-minute intervals that I should work up to actual sprinting. A pit formed in my stomach and my breathing started to quicken. 

Blame it on the memory loss. Blame it on the way I was distracting myself by focusing only on the item to check off on my list, rather than how my body was feeling and the common sense that I was pushing myself way too hard. I had majorly messed up. With a sinking horror of disbelief and shame, I lay down on the bed. Disappointment filled my chest as I felt my muscles contracting. I realized had taken five steps back in the recovery process. My jaw clenched in anger and hatred towards myself for failing.

Then hysterics overtook my body: tears flowed down my cheeks, and my sobs turned into rapid, gasping breaths. I was swallowing air like I was drowning in my own fear. My face got hot and my head throbbed as the blood flow quickened with each panicked breath, my adrenaline racing out of control as fear told the mind and body that great danger was present. For the next 72 hours, my body reeled with the consequences: headaches, nausea, and disorientation.

Never before had I suffered such damaging consequences from pushing myself too hard. I had always been rewarded for my hard work. Ever since childhood. With every acknowledgement of an accomplishment, my face burned and I looked down at the floor, but pride swelled like a balloon inside me.

No one had ever told me to slow down. Or maybe…maybe they had tried. My dad telling me to go to bed when he found me still up at two am studying. My high school teacher telling me, "you should probably take up yoga or something to deal with your anxiety." My friend lovingly telling me that I reminded her of a robot. The bags under my eyes that only grew bigger as each year passed. The curve in my spine that grew more hunched each year as I spent more and more time at my computer. The void of loneliness in my chest that only grew bigger each year. The kind of unshakable loneliness that forces you to hug yourself at night while tears squeeze through your shut eyes.

Now with the concussion I had no choice. The only thing I could do was wait and trust that my body would heal itself. Trust myself…Was it possible?

In the days that followed the exercise bike extravaganza, with nothing to do but lay on my back in bed and stare at the ceiling, I thought of my grandpa who had passed away six months earlier. He was a collegiate-level football player, and later a university professor of chemical engineering. He was also a workaholic--or so my mom tells me of the way he would regularly come home from work at three am.

He had suffered from severe memory loss for 13 years before he died. He undoubtedly had experienced concussions as a football player--even if they went undiagnosed at the time. In the last 13 years of his life, he had lived with my family and me while suffering from memory loss and confusion not so unlike what I was now experiencing.

I felt his presence with me as I laid on my back and the room spun. I remembered something I had heard recently: "Maybe the dead are meant to help the living find their path." Was he helping me find my path by showing me, through the only way I would listen, that I needed to slow down? Was an anxious, workaholic lifestyle of fleeting success in academia the course that I wanted for myself?

***

When I returned to Pittsburgh over Thanksgiving break almost a year later, I went to that treasured park from my childhood and walked down the heavily wooded and winding dirt trails. I felt the fallen leaves and gravel crunch under my feet as I walked.

The sleepy maple trees were brown and mostly bare in self-protection from the winter freezes. But it was early enough in the season that some held onto their bright red leaves with yellow veins, branches and leaves clinging to each other.

"Some stories are meant to end," I thought to myself, eyeing the dying leaves.

But even in death, there is so much beauty there. Beauty in the red and brown leaves that still cling to the trees, beauty in the green grass that sprouts even in the chill of autumn. I had missed it all the year before in my desperation to please the pink Post-It note calling my name for attention.

I reached a fork in the path.

"I should turn back," I thought to myself. "I should just turn around and walk back to the car." But something pulled me forward, and I thought, "Let me just walk a little farther to see what's down this trail."

I was a little nervous. I couldn't remember exactly where I was going. I felt like I was going farther and farther away from the car. What if it got dark? What if I couldn't find my way back? But I just kept walking.

Then, I recognized some landmarks that brought me back to the days when my sister and I ran this trail together. The yellow iron gate to keep cars out, the curve in the trail by the big tree stump, the thin muddy trail through the patch of grass, the slope at the top of the hill, the sharp curve to the right around the massive oak. I knew this trail well.

Birds chirped and dogs barked in the distance. In the near silence, my breath echoed in my ears as my lungs expanded and released: coming and going, filling up and letting go. Blue sky and puffy, white clouds. Breeze on my face. The wind biting my nose. A dream. I had dreamed recently of breeze on my face like this.

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 had screamed. We're late for our flight! We rushed to the airport, but we missed our flight anyway. 

Can I imagine a different world? A world where I can share in the joy of the hang-glider with others, enjoying the ride instead of cutting it short because of the fear of an impending deadline?

Before I knew it, I had made a loop back to my car without even trying.

What are the possibilities that open up to you if you are willing to take the risk?

A picture of my second tattoo on my right shoulder, which I got in China in 2017. The tattoo was inspired by the concussion experience told above, as well as the Chinese proverb, 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.”  

My Neighborhood in the Nighttime

At 8:30 pm, I leave Street Coffee’s air-conditioned haven of relaxing jazz music, where signs in English over the toilet in the bathroom remind me, “My aim is to keep this bathroom clean and your aim will help.” I start walking down the street towards my home.

When night falls on my street, a smoky flavor from roadside kabob grills fills the air. After the alleys turn dark, men swagger with the relaxation of alcohol, holding on to each other, and ducking into the many convenience stores that line the street for another beer and cigarettes. As I walk down the sidewalk, I can hear the sizzling of the frying pans from inside the restaurant kitchens. The lamps attached to the sidewalk kabob grills glow brightly, and I stop at one street food stand for a cup of chickpeas with cumin and shredded carrots. I am careful to eat them while standing next to the stand, remembering that it is rude to walk while eating.

Store owners sit on tiny plastic stools on the sidewalk, their faces shiny with sweat from the day’s work, relaxing in the cool breeze of the summer night. They cool themselves with paper fans that the local gynecological hospital gives out for free, each side declaring 580 kuai painless sterilization surgery because “it takes care of the uterus, it doesn’t hurt, and of course one needs to love with worry” (baliyatquni asraydu, aghritmaydu, elwette soygu ghem-endishisiz bolush kerek). Radios blast Uyghur dance music, a playful and energetic tune of blasting trumpets and strumming dutar.

As I walk, I suddenly see four helmeted police officers frowning and facing me looking very serious indeed, standing in a row holding metal clubs at the edge of an alley. It startles me and puts me on edge because they are not usually standing there. I stare at them as I walk by and they stare back. There is one guy facing the opposite direction of the others, holding a walkie-talkie that is relaying some message. After I pass them, I turn around and take another glance. On the backs of their “knife-proof” (as opposed to bullet proof vests, as guns are strictly outlawed here) vests, it says “police” in English.

I keep walking and pass a tonur oven with piles upon piles of naan stuffed with mutton displayed on the counter, and inside the restaurant glows brightly and invitingly. A man with a huge pot belly talks with his friend on my left, while on my right, a man sitting and relaxing over a balcony railing smokes while looking at an iPad. I see a 10-year old boy riding on an electronic skateboards and a couple with their arms around each other. I pass a bakery full of cakes and cookies that tempts me.

As I walk past the fried chicken place called Ablek—the Uyghur branded Halal version of KFC—I pass a girl with a long over-sized black t-shirt that says “USA” and has the Puerto Rico flag on it. Two young Uyghur men walk past me, their arms draped around each other. When I get to the narrow part of the sidewalk I suddenly and unexpectedly come across another set of police officers, walking in the opposite direction from me, 12 of them in a single-file line, their leader holding a walkie-talkie. Because of their silence and their uniforms, they are ethnically ambiguous. One can often only tell Han and Uyghurs apart by their accents/language and clothing—yes, some Uyghurs have red hair and green eyes, but some look more East Asian. Uyghur, like all races—as biological and DNA research has proven time and time again—is a socially constructed, not biological, category. Another telling sign is if they have a mustache. Han men never grow mustaches. Uyghur men love mustaches. But police officers aren’t allowed to have facial hair of any kind, so it is hard to tell in this context.

As I walk, I see the red and blue lights of a black police van flashing across the street, and when I pass the police station, I see two shields and two helmets resting against the side of the wall, and a police officer talking and laughing with a Uyghur man. After I pass, I glance back and see a gun on the holster of the officer’s waist. I think about how if the police have guns, then the people should have guns. But really no one should have guns.

I pass a Chinese Muslim (Hui) BBQ place, and tekshurush (check) stations on my left: Barriers to block cars from entering the alley, an entrance that requires an ID scan, an office lit by bright florescent lights and a few security officers talking and eating ice cream inside, and an exit that is not monitored. I pass three of these on each alley way on my way home. I wonder if I should try to enter, and think about the scary time last summer when I got stopped in one such alley and asked not to come back. I wonder if they can require that of me when I live in the neighborhood?

I pass two drunk men arguing over something, three Wusu [brand of beer] cans perched on the black fence. One guy is holding another man back, a guy who is insisting on entering the store nearby that has rows of liquor inside. Then I pass a mustached man totally passed out on his back on the sidewalk, his huge belly protruding from under his orange polo shirt. I stare and when I look up, I make eye contact with a young Uyghur boy who is watching me and chuckling. I smile back. I pass hotels, their front desks protected by metal bars you would see at the bank. I pass row after row of hotels, wondering who patrons these? Prostitutes, or couples needing alone time? Travelers? Businessmen?  They are shitty, seedy hotels that are only open at night, ones that my friend said he would never stay in.

Then I pass an intersection near my home. The policemen who are usually in their van are standing in two rows, five of them, standing there on alert but talking and laughing, the doors of the van still open. Nearby sit four men on the playground exercise equipment and smoking, and three women with headscarves standing and chatting. Four kids are playing on the elliptical machines next to them. A man walking very briskly with eyebrows furrowed and mouth tight in a police uniform passes me. I keep walking, a young couple staring at the blue light of their phone screen that illuminates their face as they walk with their arms around each other in the dark. The rest of the street is deserted and pitch black. I return home and collapse in my bed with exhaustion, but my mind races.

Why? Why are they wasting so much money on this “security” when clearly people are going about living their normal lives? Or is it “normal” the way people turn to alcohol and sex to cope? What is normal? How do people survive day in and day out in this suffocating environment?

What do people think of the government? Do they care, or notice at all? Or do they try not to think about it? Why is China so invested in maintaining control? Is it oil, or saving face, or the domino theory, or the territory buffer, or pride, or greed, or power, or a false sense of control and paternalism? Is it insecurity and fear? Is it about the false veneer of simultaneously looking back and looking forward into infinite time and space of the "nation-state”?

How people get through the day? How do they keep moving through amidst oppression? Do they ignore it? Do they see it not as oppression, but as liberation through development? Do they see it as an opportunity? Or do they push against it, doing what they can to avoid the power that tries to control their everyday life? How do people deal with inequality? Do they see it as normal and justified? Do they participate in tiny transgressions against oppression throughout their everyday life? Do they suffocate as I do? If so, how do they survive knowing that they will never leave? How do they deal with the lack of choice?

My Neighborhood in the Daytime

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.

A Typical Conversation

One of the types of experiences I had with culture shock was intrusive questions about my and my family's financial background and situation. Here are my thoughts on it.

When I enter AN’s house, I unexpectedly find her grandfather sitting near the window, facing the door when I enter. He rises to greet me, and automatically I tell him to sit out of habitual politeness. “It’s my house, I’ll sit when I want to sit,” he responds with a small smile, and I laugh in embarrassment, covering my face with my hands. It is not the first nor the last time I will fumble with proper etiquette. 

He is missing several teeth and his face is tan and deeply wrinkled. He wears a doppa, and has a long white beard. AN tells me that he is over 80 years old. They invite me to sit and we chat amicably about the weather. After a long pause, the questions from bowa start rolling in. (Bowa means grandfather and is a polite address for old men.)

“How long does it take to get from America to here?”

“Can you take a train from here to America?”

“What’s the time difference between America and here?”

“What kind of food do you eat there?”

“Do you eat pork?”

“How much does meat cost?”

This requires an explanation of exchange rates, Purchasing Power Parity, as well as different types of meat (lamb is more expensive than beef, I explain), pounds versus kilos, and different prices for different cuts of meat. Ground beef is one of the cheapest types of meat but steaks are one of the most expensive, I point out. They slowly shake their heads back and forth, eyebrows furrowed. This is confusing for them because everyone knows how much the current cost of mutton per kilo is here.

“What’s the average salary in America?”

When I respond, they exclaim, “MY GOD THAT IS SO MUCH MONEY! That is more money than I can ever dream of. You guys are all so rich. Life must be so richly beautiful and plentiful for you all.” (The truth being that in reality money rules and dictates many of our lives, and economic oppression in the US holds many people in invisible chains more powerful than an authoritarian dictator. But I digress.)

I explain again about exchange rates, and the cost of a basket of goods, and how with the cost of rent in America, such a salary is just that, an average standard of living. But they still won’t stop talking about what a high salary that is and how great it would be if they could live in America.

“How much do houses cost in America?”

This also takes a long explanation of the fact that we don’t use square meters—we use square feet, I tell them—to measure the size nor value of a house. I explain how a house in Shanghai is going to cost different from a house in Guizhou and they nod.

“But what is the average cost of a home in your city?”

I explain how housing prices vary depending on where the house is located, the condition of the house, and other amenities, so the range of housing prices varies widely—a penthouse in Manhattan is going to be different from a tenement in The Bronx. They are not too satisfied with this answer since everyone in every city in China knows how much the average cost of a home is by square meter and they don’t understand why we don’t use the same measuring system, nor pricing system.

I sigh and talk louder, gripping my hair and waving my arms as I explain what to them are completely new concepts. I’m starting to get annoyed and frustrated now. I am bored of talking about this topic that I have talked about so many times before, frustrated that they aren’t understanding these brand new concepts that I’m introducing, and annoyed that all they seem to care about is money and how much things cost. The truth is that I don’t know. I don’t know what the average cost of a house is in Pittsburgh or Boulder. I really have no idea. It’s not something I think about. For them, however, everyone knows the latest average real estate price values. Saving for and buying a house is a major part of life here.

“How much do your parents make?”

I say, I don’t know. We don’t discuss such things with each other, this is a very private matter for us, but again I have to explain that with the exchange rate it wouldn’t translate correctly into yuan anyway.

“How much do you spend each month?”

I react by getting more annoyed as I experience this as an extremely intrusive question on my personal life. The truth is that I don’t know because I don’t actually keep very good track of my money here. I do keep a strict budget in the US, but in China the dollar stretches far enough that I can live comfortably without having to track my expenses very closely. The question touches the core of my American privilege, and I get insecure, sitting in my privilege and wealth of not having to keep close track of my monthly expenses. I avoid the question by saying my scholarship covers my living expenses. The questions do not cease, however.

“How much scholarship money do you get?”

I respond with “enough to live on” to try to avoid the subject, but they press me several more times, thinking that I don’t understand their question. I say, I understand what you are asking, but we don’t talk about such things in my culture. But they press me again, and I refuse again. This is easier now, I’m not so annoyed anymore. Setting up the boundary gives me some space to breathe from being self-conscious. The truth is that my scholarship, which pays in American dollars, is a higher salary than they will ever dream of earning, and I do not dare reveal this.

They continue with their questions.

“What’s your rent?”

I cave and I tell them the truth this time. That it’s 2,000 yuan a month ($300/month). Their eyes grow even wider. This amount is higher than their monthly salary. Again, I try to bury my privilege by explaining that the school pays for it, but they look at me with wide eyes, speechless, their jaws hanging open, and their heads shaking in confusion and wonder and awe.

The questions continue, “What is the different between education here and there?,” “What age do you marry over there?” “How many children does your government allow you to have?” “Is there a cure for cancer over there?” “Is it easy to find work over there?” and I answer as patiently and as calmly as I can, the truth being that it is difficult for me to make such broad generalizations about life as a whole in America. The truth is that experience in America varies widely, and that me as a representative of white girls is a minority of Americans. Such conversations happened on an almost daily basis.

My negative reaction to their questions about money is rooted in being self-conscious about my American privilege because my salary from my graduate fellowship is many times more than most people will ever dream of. I live in an apartment that is nicer, bigger, and more expensive than most people would ever imagine. So I get defensive when people ask and if I do answer, I lie.

Of course, the narrative for myself is that I came from a working middle-class background and worked really hard all my life to build up to this point where I was awarded a very prestigious scholarship. The story I tell myself is that the scholarship is not that much in American dollars, but it goes far here, and I do struggle to make ends meet when I’m in America.

But the truth is that my American bank account—the one that lets me stretch the dollar up to 6 times more its value while I’m in China—is the very core of the imperial privilege that the American dollar has built itself on through a legacy of genocide and colonialism. Our history of slavery and labor exploitation is exactly what has allowed us to set the standard of value of this piece of paper and say that it’s worth 6.5 times more than the yuan.

And then there’s the privilege that allows me to cross those national borders and spend the dollars in a place that is on the losing side of imperialist and colonialist manipulation of the value of money. I can buy a plane ticket and obtain a passport and a visa that allows me to live in China and spend those dollars at 6.5 time their value.

These are the reasons—because I am white from a country built on the blood and sweat of black and brown bodies—that I am able to live comfortably without a budget, that is the reason our average salary is higher than they will ever dream of having their entire lives, that is the reason my measly scholarship is higher than their annual salaries ever will be, that is the reason why I can afford to live in an apartment whose monthly rent is considered cheap for me, but for them is higher than their monthly salary for a large family.

And that is why I get frustrated with their questions. At its core, it’s not a cultural thing. Yes, their questions are intrusive, but why? Why do we shrink from disclosing such information? Because it exposes our privilege built on vast differences in access to material resources, differences built on genocide, racism, and colonialism, a difference in access to resources that will shape the trajectory of our entire lives.

How it feels

As I enter the Grand Bazaar, I walk down a street of over-priced restaurants for tourists. Young, skinny men—pants hugging their legs and still sagging below their hips, a concave dent at their back pockets—stand outside the front doors, stoking the smoldering coals of the kabob grills and hawking for clients, yelling out, Jiger kawap! Leghmen! Polu! (Liver kabob! Spaghetti! Rice Pilaf!) in an unending call to no one in particular. As I approach the center of the bazaar, the crowds thicken and the beggars increase. Advertisements on a recording loop amplified through megaphones announcing cheap cell phone cards combine with the crowds in a cacophony din. Enveloped in privilege of carrying cash, a cellphone and a passport, I hold my purse closer to my ribs. I double check to make sure my cell phone and passport are still in the inner zipped pocket of my purse, sending relief over my body when I feel their outline safely in the pocket and I walk forward.

I want to take a picture of the landscape—the police station against the exotic-looking sign announcing the Grand Bazaar to tourists situated against the backdrop of Hotan jade shops. In the foreground people are shopping, street vendors are hawking, and clothing shops are selling soccer cleats and knockoff Manchester United soccer jerseys. But I hesitate, remembering the times police officers have seen me taking pictures and told me to stop and to bring them my phone, but ignoring them and pretending I don’t understand them, I’ve run away. Not wanting to repeat that, and seeing the cameras surrounding me, eyeing me like one-eye robotic alien creatures, I decide not to pull out my phone to take a picture.

A policeman’s eyes follow me as I walk by the police station, and I hold my breath as a line of military police in camouflage fatigues pass me. They are carrying riot shields following a man in a black police uniform with a blue armband reading “commander” speaking into a walkie-talkie. When they pass and take no notice of me, I breathe a sigh of relief and walk on. As I pass through an alley that has been bottle necked due to limited space from the encroaching subway construction, the crowds thicken and I am being squeezed and pushed around in the crowd. I hold my purse even tighter and feel claustrophobic. There are street hawkers waving towels and aprons in my face, yelling out prices in an unending loop ("besh koy besh koy besh koy!") seemingly without even stopping to take a breath. Beggars are crying out in tears and wails of pain and loss and struggle, their stumps for legs and their rashes and boils on display. When I reach the row of tents selling food, shoes, and jeans, I am tempted to look at the jeans someone is selling for 20 yuan and then I remember that I can’t fit into jeans for women here. My mouth waters at the sight of steaming sheep lungs and intestines (opke-hesip, one of my very favorite foods) or hard-boiled eggs with carrots and chickpeas, and someone calls out to me, “It’s Nazaket!” (a different white girl who used to live here). I tell them I’m not her, and the whole crowd bursts into laughter, and I move on, watching as police officers chase away a banana vendor on the street.

When I pass by the same area later that night around 8:30 pm on the bus, I see a black police van with bars over its windows—the kind that looks like a prisoner transportation van—that is parked outside the entrance of the Grand Bazaar with its blue and red lights flashing. My heart seizes then, and I pray a prayer to a god I don’t believe in that none of the 6 year-old boys I saw earlier selling Q-tips and aprons were picked up, hoping that the police did nothing more than chase them away. Could they get arrested? Would they do that to a young boy? Images of the stories E told me about her friends’ brothers disappearing for no reason wrenches my stomach.

The Big City

From the shiny skyscrapers glittering in the sunlight to the 8-lane bridges, Urumqi gives you the feeling of being part of something larger than yourself. The flashing neon lights and hugely garish electronic billboards pulse with life and energy, and the promise and hope for a better future. The massive traffic circles with an endless parade of cars and busses speeding past create an ambience of being busy: I am busy, you are busy, and therefore we are worthy.

You see big buildings, big cars, big roads, big bridges. It’s all very impressive and phallic. You see the skyscrapers and cars and think "development!" and when you think "development!", you think advancement and progress. You see people, smiling and drinking milk tea, playing on their iPhones, taking selfies and shopping at the market, sitting down for a fried chicken sandwich prepared in less than 1 minute. You see these things and think, "development!"

But when you look a little closer, you see the bags under people’s eyes and the wrinkles on their forehead, their shoulders slumped and their spines round, their legs limping or waddling from pain. You see a grandmother picking plastic bottles out of the trash for pennies, and the young mother who plays on her phone a little too often because she is posting pictures of her daughter thousands of miles away on her WeChat Moments. You ask them about their children and their parents, and you find they are separated from their closest family members. You look into their eyes and you see desire and dreams and hope for the future... But you also see desperation and despair. You see exhaustion of barely surviving. This is the cost of development. Do the ends justify the means?

Water

On one day, I wake up with no electricity and no water in the house. The elevator can’t work without electricity. I live on the 15th floor. This isn’t the first time this has happened and I have run up and down those 15 flights of stairs many times. I resign to staying inside for the day and catching up on work, my house a little warm bubble inside the smoky smog clouds and cold that surround my windows.

To flush the toilet, I use the tap water that S put aside for me that day we had no water, saying that I should always keep some on hand for such occasions.

“How do you say, ‘water put aside in case we run out of water,’ or ‘saved/leftover water’ in English?” He had asked me that day. 

I looked back at him with wide eyes and an awkward, embarrassed smile. “I don’t think we have a name for that in English.”

“Well, what do you call it then? I mean, how do you refer to this jug of water set aside?”

“To tell you the truth, I cannot remember a day in America when we went without water. I don’t think we have a word or a term for it.” M and S stare back and at me, and slowly their mouths turn up in a half smile, half smirk. They shake their heads. “Oh, Amerikilik, Amerikilik…” they say in unison. “Oh, Americans, Americans…”

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