Uyghurs challenged by life in Beijing
By Paloma Robles
BEIJING - For anyone moderately experienced with Beijing's bustling street
life, the image of the swarthy, Caucasian-featured kebab street vendor is an
easily identifiable sight. Yet beyond stereotypical representations and a few
misconceptions, little is known about the social reality of the Uyghur
emigrant, a Turkic-language speaking Muslim ethnic group original from
Xinjiang, China's largest by land area and western-most province.
Lack of official registration makes it difficult to obtain reliable figures,
but a few thousand Uyghurs - mostly students, artists and entrepreneurs seeking
their fortune - are estimated to live in Beijing today. For most of them,
integration and life in the capital is far from easy.
Kaysar, 23, is a student at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music. He comes
from Urumqi - Xinjiang's capital. He has round
eyes, a straight nose, he doesn't look Chinese. At the bar where he plays
guitar every evening, located in the touristic area of Houhai, foreigners often
approach him to ask where he's from. When he says, "China", they often stare at
him in disbelief. When he adds, "Xinjiang", some don't even know Xinjiang is a
part of China, or have trouble reconciling his looks with their stereotype of a
Chinese.
He is used to it, he says. "Sometimes, even Chinese find it hard to believe
that I am from Xinjiang. They say I don't look Uyghur." The majority of Uyghurs
claim there is little knowledge and understanding about their culture and
complain of a marginalization at national and international level.
There is in fact little international news coverage of Xinjiang and the
representation of Uyghur ethnicity has been largely controlled by the Chinese
authorities. The national media usually offers an idealized portrayal of ethnic
minorities, emphasizing their exoticism and folklore and stressing the fact
that they live in harmony and unity with the Han majority.
This is regarded by most Uyghurs as a distortion and simplification of their
culture and social reality, and as a strategy to undermine the threat that
their difference or "otherness" represents. Unfortunately, this is not the only
challenge they face.
Ailkam, from Urumqi, returned to Beijing after six years living in Ireland, not
long after the clashes between Uyghurs and Han Chinese that took place in
Urumqi in July 2009, and that resulted in 156 people dead and at least 1,000
injured, according to the Chinese government.
Ailkam soon found a job as an English teacher in a school, but received a call,
a few days after the job interview, with the news that the school principal had
changed his mind and would not give him the job anymore. Only because he was a
Uyghur. He got his second job, also as an English teacher, under one condition:
the need to conceal his ethnic origins. Given the current political climate,
his employer said apologetically, parents would never accept a Uyghur as a
teacher for their children. Ailkam was jolted.
"They told me I should tell the students I was a foreigner", he explained. With
his Caucasian looks, he would have easily got away with it, but he turned down
the offer. Nurtay (a pseudonym), a Law student in Beijing, travelled - also in
2009 - to the United Kingdom to visit his sister.
Upon his return, when he and his family reached passport control, they were
asked not to stand either behind the foreign passport line or behind the line
reserved for Chinese nationals. Uyghurs, they were told, had "a special line of
their own". In recent years, the treatment of Uyghurs in Beijing has steadily
worsened with fear and resentment rising over riots in Xinjiang.
This situation reached its peak after the 2009 clashes in Urumqi.
Today, the police still pay a visit to Uyghurs and Tibetans who check into a
hotel in Beijing, and many have reported the difficulty of renting an
apartment, as they are often subject to suspicion. Large numbers of Uyghurs
started to migrate to Beijing in the late 1980s, several years after the
introduction of a free market economy. Most of them came to Beijing in search
of better opportunities, and concentrated in the areas of Ganjiakou and
Weigongcun, located in west Beijing, and also known as the "Xinjiang Villages".
The majority of them worked in the food business, and the image of the kebab
street vendor eventually became a symbol associated with their ethnicity. In
1998 and 1999, the Xinjiang villages were demolished by the authorities, but in
subsequent years, Uyghur communities began to grow in other parts of the city.
The majority of Uyghurs living in Beijing has experienced some form of overt or
covert discrimination and as a result feel a sharp antagonism towards Beijing's
rule, and by extension, towards Han Chinese. The overall sense of resentment is
so pervasive that even trivial cultural differences have become the target of
criticism, standing in the way of unbiased communication and contributing to
further segregation.
"Han Chinese have the habit of using their own chopsticks to put food in their
guests' plates. This is just cultural, but we Uyghurs regard it as dirty",
explains Nurtay, who acknowledges the existence of a cultural bias. In fact,
many Uyghurs admit having few or no Han Chinese friends. It is not uncommon to
see Uyghurs drinking and eating together, and chatting in their language. Like
other migrants, they have formed exclusive communities in Beijing, in which
frequent gathering creates a sense of belonging which they otherwise find
hardly available in the capital.
Further, in a reflex of passive resistance against a society which quite
systematically denies them integration, Uyghurs have come to regard Han Chinese
as a threat to their culture, and tend to strengthen their national identity by
emphasizing the cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious aspects which
distinguishes them from the Han. But the biggest problem perhaps is that
whereas Uyghurs don't feel at home in Beijing, they don't feel at home in
Xinjiang either.
Today, Xinjiang has 40% Han Chinese and roughly 60% ethnic minorities, of which
45% are Uyghur. Only in 1949, Uyghurs accounted for more than 90% of the
region's population, while Han Chinese accounted for only 5%. Uyghurs regard
this as a form of colonization.
They also complain of sharp and ongoing repression in Xinjiang: lack of freedom
of speech and religious freedom, forced attendance to political education
sessions in their work units are only a few examples. They also argue that good
jobs are taken by more qualified Han Chinese. Today, a large number of Uyghur
students in Beijing have expressed their reluctance to return to Xinjiang
because they claim the job market is controlled by Han Chinese who are not
willing to employ Uyghurs.
"The experience of many of the Uyghurs who live in Beijing is closer to that of
exiles and refugees", argues Nimrod Baranovitch, a professor at the University
of Haifa, who has done extensive research on Uyghur communities. Baranovitch
reminds us of Edward Said's words, who defined exile as "the tragic fate of
homelessness", which brings "an essential sadness that can never be
surmounted".
Therefore, besides a need to assert their identity, Uyghurs also struggle with
a sense of oppression, alienation and lack of roots. "When we get together,
many of us indulge in binge drinking and get into fights," explains Nurtay.
"These are not things to be proud of", he admits, "but sometimes, these habits
and lifestyle are only the result of a need to vent out a deeply ingrained
sense of alienation".
Uyghurs feel integration is more problematic for them than for other ethnic
minorities, who may come from other regions, but remain Chinese. Many simply
claim they are not Chinese. Not only are their religion, customs and values
totally different, but their looks as well. In this respect, their very
appearance gives them away and makes it difficult to even momentarily create
the illusion of integration into the mainstream. With no sense of belonging
either in Beijing or in Xinjiang, they are trapped in a no-man's land.
"For other people, it's different", says Nurtay. "They might feel ill at ease
in a place, but you always have the possibility to return to your country. For
us, it is not the same. We don't have a homeland to return to." The
alternative? Going abroad, which is what many of them do. Some, however, do not
contemplate this option. On the one hand, it is not easy for Uyghurs to obtain
a passport. On the other hand, this pattern of emigration is not the result of
a purposeful and motivated decision, but rather an escape.
Nurtay doesn't see this as a solution, because, he argues, "if you don't have a
clear reason to go, why would you be willing to leave your friends and family
behind for an unfamiliar place that is not your own?" This, again, would be
closer to exile than to migration.
Many Uyghurs in the capital see it as a hostile environment that exacerbates
their sense of alienation and their need to assert their cultural identity and
ethnicity while at the same time preventing them from doing so.
Paloma Robles is a freelance journalist who has lived in Beijing and is
now based in Madrid.
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