Kurbanjan Samat: In a social environment where Xinjiang has become iconized, they have not chosen to take an escapist approach or resort to extremist acts, but have, through individual effort and struggle, kept enjoying life, devoted themselves to their cause or career and have reaped the fruits of their labor.
I. My Parents
A Jade Merchant and His Wife
Chinese people see Hotan jade, especially the “mutton fat” jade, as a rare treasure, despite its apparently commonplace look. As the saying goes, “people and jade nourish each other.” With the passage of time, “mutton fat” jade wearers would typically be very impressed with the fine and enhanced qualities of the jade, including density of texture and creaminess. After several years’ experience in the jade business, I have dealt in all varieties of jade and met with all kinds of people. Some genuine “mutton fat” jade lovers would spend as much as 100,000 yuan just to see and appreciate top-grade “mutton fat” jade for a good hour. There are also jade dealers who buy jade with one hand and then sell it with the other just to make a markup. Jade and people have a special relationship that resembles interpersonal relations. This relationship of mutual nurturing reminds me of the one between my father and mother.
My dad’s place of origin was Atush and my mom’s was Kashgar. Mom settled down in Hotan for the sake of her inherited business and Dad stayed on account of Mom and me. My parents have different accounts of their first meeting. From Dad’s perspective, he was a small business owner while Mom was a rebel of her family who had left home so that she would have her own ways. They fell in love at first sight in Kashgar. By Mom’s account, she was selling head coverings in a bazaar in Hotan. Dad fell in love with her and started courting her while doing business over there. They got married in Atush and lived there in my father’s parents’ house until I was born, but Mom decided that she did not want to keep living in Atush after she was summoned by her mom back to Kashgar. She took me with her when she left Dad. Dad missed me so badly that he would smell my diaper just to get by. So, my Grandma said to him, “Go join your wife and baby! You should stay with them wherever they are.”
Hotan in Xinjiang is a treasure land rich in Hotan jade. A great majority of the families there make a living on the jade business. So Hotan Jade is their important money-making tool or “golden rice bowl” as you may call it.
My mom’s family used to be very rich in Hotan. Dad could have easily become part of the family business, but he did not. Instead, he was by turns a carpet and animal skin seller and a restaurateur before getting into the jade business. Based on what I heard, Dad was probably prodded on by Grandma’s scornful attitude towards him. Sustainable development never seems to be any concern of the upstarts of all walks of life. The Yulong Kashi River was dug deeper and deeper, and jade became harder and harder to find, and as good-quality jade kept circulating on the market, the quantity of high caliber jade became less and less.
As competition becomes more and more heated and the price of jade soars higher and higher, real jade diggers became poorer and poorer. Although Dad was also a jade dealer, he never had the chance to become a multimillionaire. Due to their common sincerity for the jade business, many customers have become friends with Dad, even when there was little profit, Dad would sometimes give good jade to someone who truly knows its value and cherishes it. Just because of this unique and incredible business philosophy, we as a family have not yet grown rich. But Dad seems happy and content. Not many businessmen can do it. Dad’s explanation is that he is the go-between in the jade industry. He wants to tie the knot between each customer and the jade and make sure they are perfect matches.
Dad sees jade as part of his life. In my age of innocence, my deepest impression of Dad was how he would wash the jade in the courtyard of our house every day. Whenever the bright light of the afternoon sun was cast into the yard, Dad would prepare a basin of clean water, put it in the spotlight of the sun before soaking it and gently rub it with his hands. I can’t remember how many times I’ve watched that process. At that time, I thought what he was doing was very funny and my siblings and I all wondered why he would do that. “I want the jade to drink enough water and get enough of the sun in its hometown before parting with it, because once gone, it will hardly ever get back.”
In addition to caring for the family, Mom helped Dad with his business. She knows a little bit about jade and she likes it because it’s profitable. When my third younger brother was born, Dad was already in the jade business. Due to business needs, he sometimes had to leave home for business for months, even up to a year.
Every time Dad came back from business, he would give all the money he’d made to Mom and make sure the family was well provided for before leaving home again. But things did not always go the way they were supposed to. There were times when he got broke and couldn’t get home for a long while. To make ends meet, Mom had sold some of her much treasured jewelries and peddled various fruits on roadsides. As the daughter of a wealthy family who used to live a cozy life, she chose to rise to the occasion and share the financial burden of the family without regret. Knowing what she was going through, Dad helped with whatever he could around the house once he got home, including cooking, doing the laundry and cleaning up the house. He even served as midwife for me and a brother and sister of mine.
My parents’ harmonious marriage, a rare case of mutual help and support in male chauvinistic Hotan, became a target of negative comments, jealousy and denunciation. At the peak of his jade business, Dad met with swindlers one after another and got defrauded of all of his jade, and even his ID was not spared. “Allah has taken away what he has provided,” he said light-heartedly. However, fully aware of his role as the main breadwinner of the family, he set his mind on recovering what he had lost and left home again within days. For four years thereafter, we lost all contact with him. All my siblings and I were hoping for was that he stayed alive.
But Dad’s disappearance was definitely a heavy blow to Mom, especially when rumors spread that he was dead or was married to another woman and was seen walking with her and a kid of hers. Not knowing how to console her, I simply said that Dad was better off alive than dead. I even told her if Dad did marry someone else, I would help her find a new husband.
Not until four years later was I able to find Dad in a small hotel in Henan Province and bring him home. Mom was relieved and peace returned to the family.
A Man and a Woman
“Men are from Mars; women are from Venus.” This metaphor has been used to describe differences between men and women. Differences are not necessarily bad, because communication can turn them into something complementary. Without communication, differences will translate into differentiated treatment. From the story above, you may have already sensed various differences between my dad and mom. Those differences originate from their own personalities, their respective families and their frequent separation.
Perhaps there was nothing to hesitate about when it came to making marital decisions in those days. People would get married as soon as they felt right, without bothering about communicating. In my opinion, the problem with my parents is that Dad is a rare “lamb fat” jade who has been treated as a rejected stone. The rejection was finalized in the 32nd year of their marriage, and the one who opened that Pandora’s Box was me-their son. In my memory, my parents have either been living separately or has been quarreling at home. Dad would throw into a tantrum if the house wasn’t properly cleaned up, while Mom would be upset with the way he taught us kids and for his neglect of the family. The most peaceful moment in the family was when Dad wasn’t home. But Mom would have no peace of mind then. Though my parents couldn’t get along, they always confronted their “enemies” in solidarity.
As a businessman, Dad had to deal with money all the time. Years ago, the Hotan jade circle did not go by written contracts. Deals were made through verbal contracts and no breach of contract was feared because Allah was the witness. As Dad put it, what’s yours would not become mine unless by mutual agreement. Ultimately, however, there would still be people who put conscience on their lips and leave Allah behind.
During the four years Dad was away from home, though my siblings and I all did so well that Mom didn’t have to worry about family finances, his sudden disappearance was definitely an enormous blow to her. Pressure, distress, anger, remorse… I can’t imagine how many negative emotions she must have gone through. By the time he returned, Mom was almost 50 years old and Dad’s health soon took a bad turn. Due to conflicts with a younger brother of his, Dad was suddenly stricken with cerebral embolism. Though saved as a result of timely treatment, he became partially paralyzed. We often say a married couple should love each other so that when they grow old, they may take care of each other. I desire the same for my parents because I won’t feel happy when they are not happy.
Everyone seems to feel Xinjiang is an unsafe, faraway place not worth knowing more about. But when it comes to provinces of Hainan or Yunnan, or even exotic places like the US and Dubai, people would be much more enthused to visit, however far away they have to go. Xinjiang people, who seem to be from a totally different world, are no less strange and scary to many people. They don’t know how to communicate with them even though we are particularly interested in the life of foreigners.
So, I want to tell you my story and tell you about the real Xinjiang that the media fail to mention and the Xinjiang people who are no different from you. My name is Kurbanjan Samat, a freelance photographer now living in Beijing.
I was born in a Uyghur family in Hotan, Xinjiang in the early 1980s. I was good at communicating even as a kid. My family used to live close to a bazaar that I visited on regular basis. I had a habit of greeting the women peddlers from one end of the bazaar to the other. Sometimes I would help these “apas” (apa is the Uyghur word for “mom”) sell ice suckers, melons seeds, bean jelly and sheep chop suey etc. and get treats from them in return. By the time I walked to the other end of the bazaar where our barbecue booth stood, I would be almost done with a day’s work, and I would have two shish kebabs Mom had ready for me before heading home for dinner.
When I was a kid, I had little chance of seeing other ethnicities in Hotan, where 96.4% of its population are Uyghurs. My parents would never go out of their way to tell me what Han people are like and what Kazaks are like. At elementary school, my teachers would brief us about China and tell us about different ethnicities in China. A textbook of mine contained cartoons of China’s 56 ethnicities. Han people were depicted as doing yangge dances wearing turbans on their heads and drums at their waists. Caricatures of all 56 ethnicities were dancing happily.
One of the most frequently asked questions about us Uyghurs I’ve heard is: “Do you Uyghurs sing and dance every day wearing tiny Taipak hats?” “You Uyghurs are all good singers and dancers!” They would follow up by saying. But it’s certainly not always true.
When I first met my best Han friend Wen Xing, my Chinese was so bad that I could only understand between 10-20% of what he was saying. Although my college major was Chinese, I never had a good attendance record and I spent most of my extracurricular time boxing, photographing, and dating.
I first met Wen Xing when I was playing basketball at my then girlfriend’s school. As basketball players, we didn’t have to communicate verbally. After playing basketball one day, Wen Xing invited me to dinner at his house by gesture. I accepted the invitation right away because I felt he was genuinely honoring me. His house was actually no different from mine. As we chatted, I learned with surprise that his mom who was born and raised in Hotan had the same life habits as Uyghurs. She also cooked delicious Xinjiang pilaf and spoke Uyghur more fluently than me. That was when I felt deeply for the first time how communication could be unrelated to language when the communicators chose to ignore whatever language barriers they had. After that experience, my desire to learn Chinese grew, and so, when I returned to school, I chose to live with Han students so that I could improve my Mandarin through daily conversations with them. In the end, my Mandarin got better and better.
Wen Xing told me he wanted to study Uyghur at college. His parents didn’t like that because they felt that Uyghur was a redundant major in Hotan because there was a natural learning environment there. But he insisted on his choice. He was admitted to a junior college in the city, as part of the first class of Uyghur language students with Han background. All of his classmates chose Uyghur under the dictates of their parents. Wen Xing was the only one who made his own decision.
Apart from learning Uyghur, Wen Xing also began to read the Koran and learn about Islam so that he could better communicate with me. I was touched by what he was doing, which made me realize that communication per se has no relationship whatsoever with ethnicity or faith-sincerity is all that is needed. It was sincerity that brought Wen Xing and me together and sincerity that made it possible for me to know many more Han friends who grew up in Hotan. Communication became something I wanted to work on more and more.
I got a great job shooting documentary movies after graduating from the Communication University of China. During that period of time, news stories concerning Xinjiang became very hot. Media and readers were all on such a novelty hunt that any story or article containing the word “Xinjiang” would become instant hits. On the other hand, those of us who came from Xinjiang all had a lot to explain about the region, whether in terms of singing and dancing, thieves, acts of terror, or in terms of why chain incidents of violence involving Xinjiangers were occurring in cities all across China. I even had to go through the basics and tell them that Xinjiang is a multiethnic region inhabited by native Xinjiangers of 13 ethnicities and permanent residents of 47 ethnicities. For friends who are just curious, a word of explanation would do, but in many cases, I find it impossible to explain.
“Majority” and “minority” are both relative terms. While in Xinjiang, Xinjiangers do not feel they are part of the minority category. Once they leave their home turf, though, they find themselves categorized as minority people and labeled as Xinjiang or Uyghur representatives. This is the case not just for Xinjiangers, but also for people from other places. Some Xinjiangers have left their hometown to work and live in other parts of China and have managed to make a good living through their hard work and expertise and have created a lot of wealth and value for society. In a social environment where Xinjiang has become iconized, they have not chosen to take an escapist approach or resort to extremist acts, but have, through individual effort and struggle, kept enjoying life, devoted themselves to their cause or career and have reaped the fruits of their labor.
I believe all people are attached to their places of origin and are inseparable from their hometowns, wherever they are and for however long they have been away.
For the Xinjiang people, Xinjiang spirit has been deeply imprinted in them. Xinjiang has bestowed on them a distinct personality and has given them unusual choices. Each and every Xinjianger is a dab of color on the tableau of China. I have taken many pictures of Xinjiang’s natural scenery and human landscape. I used to believe those beautiful pictures of nature and traditional culture would leave people with good impressions about Xinjiang, but later experience made me realize that real people in Xinjiang and their true stories were the most touching and appealing.
We human beings tend to develop stereotyped impressions of certain groups of people based on isolated special events. This is a common phenomenon and a frequent topic of discussion all over the world. Superficial things such as scenery, songs and dances, and melons and fruits are always good, but are limited in their appeal and do not carry much weight. If the wrong doings of a limited few can change people’s impressions of a certain ethnic group, then the correct understanding and activism of the majority should be able to do a better job of improving that group’s image in the eyes of the general public. I feel that ordinary Xinjiangers like me are in a unique position to help people know us better so that they may have a better understanding of who we really are.
In the past few years, news stories of violence and crime involving Xinjiang kept emerging. I was sad, angry, and much affected. From online comments I noticed that people no longer cared about the beautiful scenery of Xinjiang, but began to show concern for Xinjiangers around them, wonder what they were up to, what happened to them, and why violence happened the way it did.
So, I decided to pick up my camera and record the lives of real Xinjiang people who work outside Xinjiang. Based on their stories, I produced a book titled I Am from Xinjiang on the Silk Road. My hope was that the book would work towards a redefinition of Xinjiangers and present a true image of them, and more importantly, help those of different ethnic backgrounds communicate better and appreciate each other better.
After visiting more than 20 cities in four months, I interviewed 100 Xinjiangers of different ethnicities, including Uyghur, Han, Kazak, Mongol, Hui, Tajik, Tatar, Xibo, Daur, Uzbek, Russian, Tibet and Dongxiang, who live and work in all parts of China other than Xinjiang. While recording and filming their lives and work, I found that it was also recording myself because of their stories I had experienced in some way. Throughout the interviews, I felt keenly that their stories were very similar to what I had been through.
In May 2015, based on 18 stories from the book, I began shooting a TV documentary about the lives of Xinjiangers or second-generation Xinjiangers who work and live in various inland or coastal cities and go through all kinds of trials and tribulations just like everyone else.
Ilik Abdurehim, a 63-year-old Uyghur, has lived in Beijing for 34 years and is now selling barbecue in the city. In 1982, shortly after China kicked off her policy of reform and opening up, he opened a restaurant in Urumqi. When a visiting business research group from Beijing saw the prosperity of Urumqi’s bazaars, they felt that they could copy that in Beijing. So, they picked Ilik and a dozen or more other Xinjiang businessmen and invited them to Beijing to set up retail businesses at the city’s Madian Grocery Market.
He started off selling fruits before getting into to a barbecue business. His initial plan was to earn enough capital for running a restaurant back in Urumqi. Before he could fulfill his plan, however, his third child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and had to spend more than 1,000 yuan per day on medical expenses, which depleted his bank savings in no time. He had no choice but to sell his booth and right now he is selling roast meat to support the handicapped kid and a younger son. Though many have told him his son is incurable, he insists on staying in Beijing in hope of finding a miraculous cure for his son.
Another interviewee, Xie Shengli, is a 71-year-old tambourine master who had never been to Xinjiang. As the only Han apprentice of the late Abliz Aheqi known as “King of Xinjiang Tambourine,” Xie mastered the skill after overcoming tremendous difficulties, one of them being language barrier. When Abliz died, he got into the habit of playing the drum three hours a day as a memorial to the teacher.
Twenty-seven-year-old Yakupjan Abdulsamet helps run a family jade store in Shenzhen. His father has been dealing in jade for more than three decades. After graduating from college that summer, he went with his dad on a business trip to Guangdong Province. Since Halal restaurants were very rare over there, they often had to walk for hours before they could find the right food to eat. Abdulsamet could never forget that day when his slightly hunchbacked dad brought food to the hotel room where he was staying after having walked for a long time in the rain. He wept as he realized how hard his dad had to work in a place far away from home just to provide for the family. He dropped his dream of working as a tour guide and opted to join his dad in jade business. His dad told him to begin by learning to be a good person instead of a quick money maker.
Among the 100 interviewees, there are also recent college graduates, couples raising kids while pursuing Ph.D. degrees, employees of small companies, and executives of Fortune 500 companies. They are all committed to what they do and they all lead regular lives just like everyone else.
I hope readers could find something in common with these average people who have had unusual choices to make and unique experiences to build up. Instead of making idols out of certain individuals, I hope these true stories about Xinjiang and its ordinary people will help set aside all regional and ethnic disparities and improve inter-ethnic relations. I further hope that the book would lift up the spirit of the younger generation and give them the courage to endure hardships and fight for a better world. Instead of complaining, slacking or resorting to extremism, I want them to be braving the storms for change and striving to make things happen.
III. The Power of Tolerance
I’m generally known as a photographer and author of a book titled, I Am from Xinjiang on the Silk Road. However, few people know I used to be a boxer who had won second place title in the juvenile group during a championship at the autonomous regional level. From a fully-equipped pugilist who combats with gloved hands to a photographer who records with a camera and a sensitive heart, I have not only experienced career change, but also personality change. I have learned how to be patient and long-suffering. I used to be a violent person who depended on the power of my fist for self-protection.
I believe many people in their school days have had experiences of being bullied by “big, fat” guys. One day while I was in junior high school, a guy like that poured boiled water on my desk. Since I could neither beat him nor forbear him, I made up my mind to learn boxing. On the day I was about to take my pledge of allegiance as part of the ceremony for joining the Youth League, I finally got my chance to settle the old score with him and I beat him badly three rounds in a row. In consequence though, I had to be expelled from the League right after I had joined it.
I chose to retaliate because I thought tolerance was a sign of weakness and I felt like a hero despite the price I had to pay. Subsequently, I even fell in love with boxing. While attending a junior college, my PE teacher signed me up for competitions here and there until I won second place at a regional championship. By then, I began to feel the power of my fists and tried to seize every opportunity to fight.
I could not stand idly by if any of my classmates got bullied. So, if anyone dared to touch my people, I would reckon with him tit for tat. As it turned out, however, I sometimes had to deal with large groups and I ended up badly beaten.
While I was eating out one day, a guy sitting beside me smashed a wine bottle in my presence. Being in a bad mood that day, I couldn’t bear it at all and went straight at him! It turned out the drunkard was having a party with more than 30 people. I got beat up again!
Though twice beaten, I still thought my opponents got an upper hand just because they overpowered me by number. I would win for sure if only I had more helpers than they did! I simply felt I was great because I won most of the fights. Following an eye injury during a boxing match, however, I had to drop my gloves and do something else because my fists weren’t much use any more. I took to the peaceful hobby of photography, began observing everything from the lens of my camera, and got into the habit of deep thinking.
I saw a bigger world in Beijing and started learning videotaping from a teacher named Wang Lu. He saw through my personality and realized how burdened and sensitive I was about my ethnic background. He saw how I wouldn’t allow any bad comments about Xinjiang and how harsh and demanding I was on myself in all respects. So, he told me to be patient, control my temper and take it easy, and I took his advice.
I was in Beijing when I watched the breaking news of what happened on that dark, bloody day in the summer of 2009, in my regional home city of Urumqi. Within days after that terror incident, on July 11, when I was on a subway train talking on the phone in Uyghur with a friend of mine back in my hometown, I vaguely felt something ominous in the air and saw a tall and brawny man staring at me from his seat.
When the train halted and the door was about to open, the man stood up, raised an elbow to my neck and nudged me before getting off. I was nonplused as I put a hand to my neck. After stepping outside, he paused defiantly on the platform, as if ready for a big fight. But I only smiled at him. The train door closed again, leaving behind his surprised look. I kept asking myself why I did not get off at that time. Was I afraid of losing? Couldn’t I have at least vented my wrath on him? When I brought these questions to my adopted father Meng Xiaocheng, he kissed my forehead and said: “My dear son, you’re a grown-up now, because you have learned there are problems that your fists cannot fix. Patience and forbearance don’t mean you are scared, but that you have a bigger heart than the man. That’s why you’d smile.”
That was the best answer I could find. I used to think the best moment to test the power of a horse was the moment when it’s racing. Now I think it’s the split second when it stops in the middle of a fast race. It’s the very power of restraint and self-control.
This marked a big change for me, from a man of violence to a man of patience. Many of my friends have had similar experiences of being stereotyped or insulted. Some of them have used violence because they could not tolerate being misconceived or misunderstood.
Which talks louder? The fist or a smile? Talking with the fist is simple and easy because all you need is the force of your strength. Talking with a smile is hard because you need to hold your anger or impulse in check. A lot of us have learned that respect is usually what we reap once impulse is turned into communication. Each of us can encounter problems in life that the fist cannot solve. So, if you find something intolerable, just take a step back and gain a higher ground of peace. It’s through denial of yourself that you win over those you conflict with.
(selected from Xinjiang: Beyond Race, Religion, and Place of Origin by Kurbanjan Samat, translated by Wang Chiying, published by New World Press in 2017)
