A little corner outside of the busyness

The air is getting cooler. The wind whips around my face and blows my hair into my mouth. Women with long straw brooms sweep the orange dried leaves that fall on the sidewalk. I pull my hat tighter across my ears and zip up my jacket to my chin, hunching my shoulders against the wind. Red Chinese flags with five yellow stars whip vigorously in the wind. I walk down Friendship Road by Red Mountain Park. High rises jut upward toward the sky like concrete and steel trees. Busses rumble past and cars zip by, an unmarked taxi honking at me and slowing down until I shake my head no.

I approach my little neighborhood and walk down a row of shops amidst the high-rise office buildings showing off rows and rows of glass windows glinting in the sun. I turn down the alley to briefly escape the hustle and bustle—the exhaust fumes, the police stations, the electronic billboards, the cars, the hotels—that surround the row of 3-story shops. I pass the cigarette and alcohol shop, which sells steaming hot dogs and corn on the cob outside.

Inside is a small room where the shop’s entire stock is laid out in full for open observation of whoever walks in—there are no aisles or back rooms, it’s just one small room facing the street. It is stocked full from floor to ceiling with different types of alcohol, beverages, and cigarettes. In the spaces between the wall and where the boss sits are boxes piled on boxes of water, yogurt, energy drinks, soda, and snacks. I dig underneath a pile of boxes for a big bottle of spring water. The cashier sits behind a glass counter with cigarettes underneath. She has dark, wrinkled leathery skin and her straight black hair is pulled back in a pony tail. She pulls out a huge stack of differently colored bills and licks her fingers as she counts my change, smiling and asking me about my studies.

I stop next door for a plate of kungpao chicken with rice, and munch on the peanuts and spicy peppers and perfectly square pieces of chicken to my heart’s delight. I stop at the foot massage parlor and am greeted with smiles and warmth, and invited to sit and relax. They talk amongst each other and I can’t understand their Sichuan dialect. Fat Big Brother (yes, he told me to call him that) gets a video call from his young daughter back in Sichuan, and he excuses himself to talk to her. I can hear her voice and his dialect floating in from the other room. The blind masseuse complains about the salary and the lack of customers, saying that he is going to go back home and look for other work because he can’t fill his stomach on the salary they give him.

Chinese Food

The glass door has the faded markings of two red characters written vertically and reading "noodle shop" (mian guan). Half of the first character has been scraped away. I saw the husband scraping it off yesterday. I think it's because it's not really a noodle shop. Above the door sit large white characters reading "Hangzhou Dumpling Shop" (“Hangzhou Xiaolongbao Guan”).

Inside, I read the menu facing me on the opposite wall. On the top left hand corner, the first item listed is "pork dumplings" (“darou xiaolongbao”). The menu on the wall has at least 40 items on it ranging from dumpling soup to fried pork. On the right side wall is another menu with pictures: fish-flavored eggplant, fish-flavored meat strips, kungpao chicken.

On one side of the room is a “sanitize dishes and chopsticks” machine, which takes up so much space next to the fourth table that only two people can sit at it. Each table has a white porcelain canister for spicy chili peppers and black vinegar.

"Sister!" (jiejie), I call out, but there is no response. Jiejie is the polite address for a woman who is less than 10 years older than oneself, and a common address for servers, service workers or other people you might interact with when you do not know their name.

I get up and walk to the kitchen. There is a small hallway with a large cutting board and a refrigerator with a piece of cardboard on the muddy ground. “Jiejie,” I call out again. Still no response. I peek inside the kitchen: her back is to me at the sink washing dishes, and she is either lost in thought or the water is drowning out my voice. The kitchen is small—just narrow enough for a two range propane stove, a counter, and a sink.

“Jiejie,” I say again, and she turns. Her drooping eyelids are lined in black eyeliner, the bags underneath them puffing out and wrinkled.

“Do you have roast pork"? I ask.

“Certainly,” she replies with a smile and nod, and I turn to return to the table.

As I wait, two young women—who I gather from eavesdropping on a phone call are staying at the fancy five-star hotel next door—ask me questions about myself: Where are you from, why are you here, do you have any siblings, how old are you, are you married, is your sister married?

When jiejie brings out the plate of pork, they scoff, “Why’d you get roast pork here of all places? You could get it much better quality somewhere else.” I want to slap them. I just shrug my shoulders and tell jiejie later that the meal was delicious.

New Tennis Shoes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Akash!” the little girl insisted.

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

I laughed.

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

“80 kuai.”

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

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

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

I tell her I will come back.

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

“Yes.”

"Are you American?"

"I am."

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

The boy hides his face in shyness.

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

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

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

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

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

Kawapchi

Kawap: Uyghur word for kabob

Kawapchi: One who roasts kabobs

March 2017

I jump off the bus and take a deep breath of the cool air. I feel a sense of calm and relaxation wash over me as I turn my phone off to prepare my brain for sleep, and begin my walk home. After waiting for the light to turn green, I cross the street, dodging turning cars from all directions who don’t give me right of way. I stop at the kawap stand, no larger than one square meter. The kawapchi smiles in recognition and replies with “yaxshi” (good) to my greeting of “qandaq ehwalingiz?” (how are you).

“I’ll have 3 egg-coated chicken kabobs, please!” I say, hardly able to contain my excitement.

“For here or to go?”

“Here!”

“Spicy or Cumin?”

“Cumin!”

He carefully uses an iron pincher to pick up and place three kawap on iron rods into the round, pit (tonur) oven that is glowing red with the heat of the coal burning inside.

Picture of a tonur oven with samsa I got from the Internet:
https://asianmarketsphilly.com/2014/07/20/uyghur-flatbreads-meat-pies-and-the-tonur-oven/

The smokey scent of roasting meat fills my nose. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, illuminating the tiny area under the awning where I wait with four other patrons for our roasting kawap. We are all waiting with our hoods up, rubbing our hands and bouncing our legs in the cold. My nose is running but every time I sniff I get a big dose of kawap grill smoke down my throat.

I also ask for two samsa from the shop next door. I hear a boy around 12 with a baby face rounding out his cheeks say softly under his breath, sighing, “Only a few more samsa left.” “Do you get to go home when you sell them all?” I ask. Smiling, he says yes, and dishes out a Dixie cup of freshly made cream-flavored ice cream to a little girl about five-years-old who stops by for a treat in her tracksuit uniform and Disney’s Frozen backpack.

The two kawapchi working are smiling with droopy eyelids like they are high on hashish, making jokes and calling each other sen (very intimate second person address). They are working together, one putting the kawap (egg-covered mutton or liver) in the tonur oven, then the other taking the iron rods out and squeezing the meat with naan to pull it off the rods, sprinkling cumin on them, and wrapping them up in plastic bags to go.

I make small talk with them, the usual stuff. The kawapchi replies to my series of questions: “I’m from Kashgar, I’ve been here a year, I’m 19 years old. No, I don’t like it here, but it’s more free than my hometown. I have 4 brothers and sisters.” They smile in amusement at my accent and tell me I’m cute.

When the kawap are finally done, I stand next to the cardboard box that’s been set out for trash, and eat the bite-sized chunks of meat off the iron rod, chewing the meat off the bone and spitting it out into the trash can-box. The others next to me do the same. We stand there together wordlessly enjoying the juicy meat, the salty flavor of the cumin, and the crunchy coating of egg over it. Some others opt for liver kawap instead, and one has a trickle of blood running down the side of his mouth when he bites into it. After I finish, my stomach full, I hand them 6 kuai and thank them. They smile back at me and I'm on my way.

Tonur oven with samsa: https://www.farwestchina.com/2011/03/a-uyghur-oven-pic-of-the-week.html

Kawap! It turns out there is no shortage of Uyghur food pictures on the Internet: https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/kashgar-uyghur-cuisine-silk-road-best-bites-travel.html

First Steps

Describe yourself when first engaged in your project. What most intrigued you, what did you hope, and what did you fear? 

I was confident I could make it work, perhaps out of naivety, perhaps out of arrogance, a need for adventure, a need for challenge, perhaps out of stupidity, perhaps out of braveness, or was it brashness? I wanted to be unique, to be special, to stand out from the crowd and be different. Was it that my drive to learn new languages, to go to new places where I don’t know a single soul, to go to the place that is the farthest point on earth from any ocean and a 12-hour difference from Colorado, literally on the other side of the earth, is because shame is a familiar feeling for me?

The adventure, the difference, the risk, the danger called to me. I wanted to learn another language, to be trilingual, to do something different and special. It drove me to ignore everyone’s advice and listen to my adviser, JohnO, and to start a new adventure that would take me to places personally I had never been to—to loneliness, to fear and anxiety I had never known, to new examinations of gender and sexuality (that of both shame and liberation). And to such a rich life too, overflowing with people and things and learning and growing and challenging, and crying and anger and sadness.

I wanted to do this project because the idea of challenging the idea of a homogenous nation-state incites my curiosity from both sides—why do the states hold on to these rebellious territories for dear life? And why to people die and kill for these territories? It’s an unanswered question, and one that remains for me one of the most fascinating phenomenon of human existence. I was intrigued by a new language and a new alphabet, an oppressed and struggling people that might need my help, a new place to explore and perhaps even call home? New food, music, customs, and histories. I was intrigued to go somewhere that other people did not dare to go, to go somewhere with a history of colonialism and violence that was unique and yet reflected in so many other parts of the world at the same time.

I hoped to get a new insight into some of those old questions, what is a nation, and why do people construct it? Why do people challenge it and hold on to it so strongly? Is the nation-state all about modernity and capital accumulation and exploiting cheap labor, as some have suggested? Or is it about something else? Is it pride and greed, or fear? I hoped I could maybe do something to help a struggling people. I hoped to learn a new language, and learn about a controversial place and its marginalized people.

I feared I would be kicked out, or couldn’t do research, or have my data stolen, or be found out and arrested, or otherwise unable to find people to talk to me.

During the same period, how do you think you appeared in the eyes of others? What categories might they have drawn on to place you? 

I think I was a strange figure, a grown adult coming to learn a new language for no explainable reason. They might have placed me as a spy or a missionary or a journalist, or as a rich person playing on their daddy’s trust, or perhaps a stupid person who couldn’t make it in their own country. In GJ’s eyes, I was strange and clumsy and stupid and selfish and rude. In guys’ eyes, perhaps I was slutty and crazy and weird. In others’, I was a nice and friendly girl trying my best to learn a new language. For others, I was their ticket to freedom through study abroad by practicing English.

How and why did you originally get interested in this group of people and this topic? 

At first, I had a desire to help people. I wanted to “make a difference.” 

But that drive to find meaning in one’s life by “making a difference”? Sometimes that drive is more about fame and ego than anything else. 

Such thinking is part of a white savior trope that can be a narcissistic and ethnocentric way to think about the world and to think about other people. It starts from the assumption that one holds a superior position, rather than recognizing that power imbalance as a result of material inequalities of colonial legacies. This thinking highlights the privilege and power I hold over my research participants from the beginning.

I must acknowledge this problematic relationship with my research site and the people who live there, an unequal relationship that inevitably permeates everything I do. 

Second, mine was a sexy topic. The place and people were under-researched, for sure, and that was part of the draw. It was exotic and exciting, dangerous and adventurous, daring and risky. It required bravery and I liked that. I was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to take the time to learn a third language and start a whole new project because I thought it would make me stand out from the crowd. I also desired to be able to contribute to something that was under-studied and not well understood, and shed light on something that not many people know about. That is important too, but my research is still laced with power relations of exploitation and self-interest—a desire to be noticed, to be special, to earn some fame or acknowledgment, acceptance, or approval, and in the end, get a job out of it. 

Third, the idea of safe/dangerous places always fascinated me. The idea of XJ as a dangerous place enticed me from the very beginning, from the July 5th riots to the “AIDS syringes” in 2009. I want to understand why and how that place is thought of as dangerous, and how that affects the people who live there. Part of that is the way people say, “one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter,” and the way the status of state sovereignty often dictates these two definitions. 

Finally, I wanted to give people a voice. Now I know that such a statement is highly problematic, thinking that my research participants can speak through me only perpetuates that unequal relationship rather than helping to break it down. It assumes a god-like quality in oneself. How can they speak through a white woman, when I’m not really giving them that much stage time and they are not benefitting materially or directly from my work? When they are not speaking directly to the world, but only through my voice? How is that equitable? How is that fair and just? Why perpetuate the unequal power relations that such an assumption is based on (English-language skills based on centuries of British colonization, for example) instead of working to undermine those relationships? 

It needs to be addressed that this relationship between the researcher and subject is highly exploitative and that I am benefitting greatly—materially and socially—for being able to use their words. 

I wonder if my dissertation needs to start with something along the lines of, “I’m a white, American woman.” Period. Full stop. Because one of the most important aspects of this research is my position in relation to my subjects.

My position as a white American affected how and why I got interested in this topic, which affected how I approached the project and the questions that I asked. My whiteness and Americanness and femaleness affected my experiences in the field, which invariably affected my data collection. I will never know what it feels like to be a Uyghur in China. I got a taste, but I will never know exactly what it’s like. So to claim to speak for the oppressed while benefitting from their words, benefitting from their experiences of oppression, is a dangerous perception. Such a position as a researcher and as an American will also inevitably affect my interpretation of the data and how I write it up. So that relationship—as a white American studying Uyghurs—can be very problematic and needs to be acknowledged right away. 

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?