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Tuesday 2004-06-29 - Kuqa, Xinjiang (China)
Uyghurs and Han Chinese
Back in Kuqa, Carla and I first walk around the new part of town a little, checking out the shops. In the evening, we all have dinner together: next to the Min Mao hotel is a well-stocked supermarket and next to that is the “Uyghur Restaurant”.
Although this is actually my fourth visit to Xinjiang, here in Kuqa I see for the first time ‘imported’ Han Chinese interacting normally and friendly with the original local population — Uyghurs here. (Original at least when the Chinese claimed this territory; much farther back in history, the Turkic peoples and Tajiks themselves moved into what is now the Xinjiang province of China.) What I saw until now was two different societies living almost completely separate lives, going to different schools, shopping at different shops and market stalls, eating at different restaurants. Here in Kuqa I’m interested to see a mixture of Chinese and Uyghur on the market, a Chinese woman having a friendly chat with an Uyghur woman on the street corner; and here in the restaurant, run completely by a team of Uyghurs serving both Uyghur and Chinese food, both Uyghurs and Chinese come to eat.
This warms my heart: maybe, given time, these peoples can indeed live peacefully together without the Uyghurs giving up their identity.
The atmosphere at the restaurant is very pleasant, and the food is truly excellent so we end up taking nearly all our meals here.
