The Week

Because Urumqi is as far from Shanghai as New York is from Los Angeles, I had to take a flight – on China Southern Airlines, one of China’s domestic carriers.

It was not a pleasant flight. Though it’s been nearly ten years since that flight, I can still remember the flight as if it were yesterday. Especially the smoke permeating the cabin.

No, not engine smoke. Cigarette smoke.

Seems China hadn’t gotten the memo that smoking on flights was not a good idea. Don’t know if they still think that way; if you’ve flown on China Southern, or another domestic Chinese airline, please let me know if it’s still true or not.

Anyway, I can’t recall ever being happier that a plane landed. I don’t think I’d have cared if the flight had crash-landed. I was just glad it landed.

But the fun wasn’t relegated to the flight.

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, my new boss, the school owner, didn’t speak English. As a result, he met me at the airport with his family, including his 13-year-old daughter, who did speak a modicum of English. She was my translator for the next week.

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. She was a nice enough girl and the family a nice enough one. But I couldn’t help thinking a familiar refrain that I’d thought in Korea, too: the owner of a steel company usually knows steel and the business of steel very well – why in Korea and China (and elsewhere) do people who have no knowledge of English think they can run an English school? I know some people would argue that business is business, but I repeat: how often have you run across a steel magnate who doesn’t know steel? A bank CEO who doesn’t know banking?

Anyway, Scott (he was able to introduce himself in English) was in the computer parts and service business. He apparently was a very wealthy man, but it’s all relative.

He and his family showed me Han Chinese culture amidst the week-long Lunar New Year celebrations. Elaborate dinners at sumptuous restaurants. Our own fireworks celebration in a local park. Skiing, snowboarding, and tobagganing at a local resort. Hitting tourist spots for what I realized later were Han Chinese spins of East Turkestan traditions.

At the hotel in Urumqi where I was staying, I even got the obligatory call from a prosititute, which I’d read would be coming. It’s common in big Chinese cities for hookers to become aware that a foreigner is staying at a hotel, particularly a nice one. Sometimes, the hotels have relationships with these women and will call them. Other times, the ladies will call up or visit the hotel and get the room numbers of the names that are obviously foreign.

Regardless of the method, a call is made, in broken English, to the room where the foreigner is staying. If you’re unaware of this practice, it’s easy to get yourself in trouble because any misunderstanding of what is being said that results in a “yes” response from you constitutes an agreement to whatever has been proposed. A visit to your room, whether or not there is sex or even fondling, even if it’s opening the door to answer a knock before quickly realizing what’s going on and rejecting any advances, can result in your being charged a fee. Refusal to pay this fee often ends up in beatings and/or worse. Many hotels, complicit as they are in this practice because they receive a cut, will not side with the foreigner – and neither will the local police. Of course, you’ll never get anyone to admit that this actually happens.

Though I knew it was coming, the call still nearly fooled me. The woman on the other end said my name, albeit in garbled fashion, and offered to help me during my time in Urumqi. Her English was more than passable enough, and her offer not so transparent, that I nearly acquiesced. Being alone in a strange place and being awoken from sleep early in the a.m. both contributed to my nearly being weak enough to say “yes”. Fortunately, I saw through the scheme before I crossed the point of no return.

As for any interaction with Uyghurs, it was limited to getting kebabs at street vendor stalls or at small restaurants and taking them to go. At the Urumqi hotel, as nearly all tourist hotels, there were only Han working. And no Uyghur food. Outside of Urumqi, at some of the tourist spots, however, there was more Uyghur presence in hotels and restaurants, but we didn’t frequent those places as much.

But I saw Uyghurs everywhere. Eating at and running Uyghur restaurants. Riding bikes through neighborhoods. Operating mom and pop convenience stores. Walking to school. Sitting on curbs. Pushing carts. Selling their wares. Playing hauntingly beautiful and often quite rhythmic traditional songs.

Because of the language barrier, I was unable to ask questions. But I watched and observed, marveling at how marginalized economically a majority population could be in its own land.

After a week being in and around Urumqi, and of wondering when I would head north, we finally left for the nearly 200-mile trip to Karamay.

“We” being Scott (no English) and me (no Mandarin). Scott’s family lived in Urumqi and didn’t make the trip with us.

And for such an uneventful trip where the communication was possible only through hand gestures and monosyllabic stabs at each other’s language, it was unforgettable.