High tech and hot pot, p.22
High Tech and Hot Pot, page 22
“I was astonished. Even seriously intelligent friends of mine, people with university degrees, weren’t questioning what they were seeing. They got very angry about the Han Chinese.”
The authorities sent the military to the demonstration on July 5, 2009. There were hefty clashes, and a mob with clubs and knives took to the streets searching for Han Chinese. By evening, more than 190 people were dead. Further attacks followed; for example, in Kunming in 2014, when Uyghur rioters killed thirty-one people. Now, anti-terror measures have become a pretext for the state to enforce the assimilation of a whole ethnic group.
Alim says the situation has gotten really out of hand since the hard-liner Chen Quanguo came to power. “He is completely crazy. Seriously, I hate him. He doesn’t give a damn about people. He says, ‘Okay, if you want a fight, we’ll give you one.’ He was the one who decided to set up the camps. And there are a couple of other local governors, in Kashgar and Hotan, for instance, who use their power simply to send everyone they don’t like to ‘study.’ The people are incredibly scared.”
• • • • • •
EVERY TIME I go back to my downtown hotel, the security gate beeps, triggered by my camera, cell phone and wallet. Nevertheless, the tired guard waves me through to the elevator. I don’t have to place my ID card on the scanner that then shows all the important information about a person on an iPad-sized screen, because I have a foreign passport that doesn’t respond to this system, and because I don’t look like Uyghur. A black riot police protective shield with a bulletproof viewing window leans on the wall next to the guard. You see these shields everywhere in Xinjiang: symbols of a province in a constant state of readiness.
And everywhere you look, the red-and-blue police lights blink. At no point on any street in the city center can you do a 360-degree turn without seeing at least one police post, or a police car with tinted windows. The regulations for downtown are: one police post every three hundred yards.
During my tour, I am stopped twice. First, by a polite policeman on the roadside who wants to see my passport. Then, while taking a snap on my cell of the large mosque near the bazaar, I have a less friendly encounter.
A young man in uniform blocks my way and another climbs out of a car and asks: “What’s the problem?”
I am asking myself the exact same question when he speaks into his walkie-talkie. We are joined by a third policeman who appears to be their superior. All three are equipped with heavy machine guns.
“Delete,” the boss says. “No photos of the mosque.”
“Why not?” I ask.
He just says: “Bazaar photo okay, mosque no.”
After deleting the photo in front of him and showing my passport again, I am allowed to continue.
On the way to the bazaar forecourt, I pass more metal detector gates. They are made by a company called Guard Spirit, and on one of them is written: “Please accept inspection consciously.” The local population puts up with the checks with a kind of stubborn resignation.
Then I am in an inner courtyard with an immaculately renovated tower and brick buildings. At the moment, there is a dance performance in traditional costumes with the musical accompaniment of three drummers and a trumpeter on a roof directly beneath a Chinese flag.
Tourists form a circle around the graceful dancers in their colorful brocade clothing and take photos, some swaying to the music. Later, they stroll through the endless alleyways of the bazaar, marveling at the clothes, the delicacies and the handicrafts. The setting is almost a bit too clichéd, a perfect multicultural world, smelling of patchouli, myrtle, and leather, on a sunny day right in the heart of Ürümqi. Daggers are also on offer in the bazaar, but Uyghurs are not allowed to buy them, though traditionally, fathers presented their sons with decorative daggers on their eighteenth birthdays. Nowadays, the state even monitors how many kitchen knives a Uyghur family owns.
I take a cab to Hongshan Park. It is very green, very family friendly, and as secure as a prison. The name translates to “red mountain,” because the park is located on top of huge reddish rock formation that used to be bleak and craggy until, in the 1950s, the Communist Party and many volunteers planted thousands of trees to make it more appealing. Today, the greenery is protected by fences topped with razor wire and heavily guarded entrance gates.
In the park, you can hear soothing bamboo flute music from loudspeakers with the latest generation of security cameras hanging next to them. A sign informs visitors that, in 2006, the National Committee for Quality Evaluation of Tourist Attractions gave the park an AAAA ranking, the second-highest grade. Hanging between elms and maple trees next to the pathway are thousands of plastic propellers sorted by color, turning in the wind. A food vendor is making lollipops out of light brown icing in the shape of the animals of the Chinese zodiac—dragons and horses are more expensive than rats and dogs. At the entrance to a ghost train there is a scary figure with a pig’s head dressed in some sort of silk bathrobe. The highest point in the park is marked by a red pagoda—the emblem of Ürümqi—surrounded by the obligatory warning signs: “The garbage does not fall to the ground, the red mountain is more beautiful” and “Cherish your life no crossing.”
Nothing in this park in the middle of Xinjiang province, even in the slightest way, hints at Uyghur traditions. Were it not for the conspicuous police presence, Hongshan could just as easily be in any other Chinese city.
I sit down on a wooden bench next to a small artificial pond about the size of a tennis court and around two feet deep. In the middle is a replica of an old water mill. A boy of about six or seven with an undercut hairstyle paddles a futuristic-looking plastic boat around the pond. Instead of oars, it has two bucket wheels on the sides that are operated by a hand crank. The possibilities are limited: he can go around the mill either clockwise or the other way; whatever the direction, it is still a circle.
The kid’s grandma is standing beside the pond, watching and shouting at him to go right and not bump into anything. Then she looks at her cell, perhaps tapping in a few WeChat messages, maybe browsing for clothes on Taobao, possibly checking to see her latest rating on Sesame Credit. The boy notices that no one is watching him now, so he stops paddling and simply lets himself drift.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WITHOUT THE HELP of many kind people this book wouldn’t have been possible. Five out of a possible five gratitude points to Joanna Szczepanska, Stefen Chow, Nora Reinhardt, Anastasiya Izhak, Haifen Nan, Lillian Zhang, Hallie Guo, Janine Borse, Tonia Sorrentino, Gilda Sahebi, Andreas Lorenz, Stefan Schultz, Antje Blinda, Anja Tiedge, Verena Töpper, Ruth Fend, Felicitas von Lovenberg, Bettina Feldweg, Verena Pritschow, Ulrike Ostermeyer, Petra Eggers, Christoph Rehage, Kai Strittmatter, Sébastien Lorandel, Luisa and Giorgio in Schilpario, Valentina in Bianzone, Traudl and Uli, and my parents.
Also huge xiexie to all Couchsurfing hosts who received me so warmly, as well as Binbin in Guangzhou, Jelena in Fenghuang, Kurt in Zhangjiajie, Fire in Beijing, Owen in Beijing, Yane in Tianjin, Jiannan and Tomas in Dalian, Taylor in Qingdao, Him in Xining, Yung Chung in Shanghai, Sunma in Shenzhen and Gus in Hong Kong.
NOTES
1.Ulf Meyer, “Shenzhen Stock Exchange,” Arcspace, December 17, 2013, arcspace.com/feature/shenzhen-stock-exchange/.
2.Confucius, The Analects, trans. D.C. Lau (New York: Penguin Classics, 1979), 74.
3.Samuel Wade, “Minitrue: Don’t Report on Kindergarten Abuse,” China Digital Times, November 24, 2017, chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/11/minitrue-dont-report-comment-beijing-kindergarten-abuse/.
4.Samuel Wade, “Minitrue 2017: February—Smog, AI, HIV,” China Digital Times, December 15, 2017, chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/12/minitrue-2017-february-smog-voice-recognition-hiv-infections/.
5.Josh Rudolph, “Minitrue: Delete News on Truck Drivers’ Strike,” China Digital Times, June 12, 2018, chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/06/minitrue-delete-news-on-truck-drivers-strike/.
6.Samuel Wade, “Minitrue: On U.S.–China Trade Tensions,” China Digital Times, June 29, 2018, chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/06/minitrue-on-u-s-china-trade-tensions/.
7.Ibid.
8.Sophie Beach, “Minitrue: No Hyping North Korea Nuclear Test,” China Digital Times, September 3, 2017, chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/09/minitrue-no-hyping-north-korea-nuclear-test/.
9.Samuel Wade, “Minitrue: 21 Rules on Coverage of the Two Sessions,” China Digital Times, March 8, 2016, chinadigitaltimes.net/2016/03/minitrue-important-notices-coverage-two-sessions/.
10.Samuel Wade, “Minitrue: Defeat at the Tennis Table Tournament,” China Digital Times, November 14, 2017, chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/11/minitrue-defeat-at-german-open-table-tennis-tournament/.
11.Josh Rudolph, “Minitrue: Follow Xinhua on Jiuzhaigou Earthquake,” China Digital Times, August 8, 2017, chinadigitaltimes.net/2017/08/minitrue-follow-xinhuas-lead-jiuzhaigou-earthquake/.
12.Li Jing, “Go Big or Go Home: Guizhou Bets on ‘Big Data,’” Sixth Tone, July 13, 2018, sixthtone.com/news/1002616/go-big-or-go-home-guizhou-bets-on-big-data.
13.Wang Wei, “The Bamboo Grove,” trans. Jean Elizabeth Ward, All Poetry, accessed October 23, 2019, allpoetry.com/The-Bamboo-Grove.
14.Joseph Rock, “Konka Risumgongha: Holy Mountain of the Outlaws,” National Geographic, July 1931, Volume 60, Number 1.
15.“Daocheng Yading Travel Guide and Tour Packages,” Sichuan Travel Guide: More Than Pandas, accessed October 23, 2019, sichuantravelguide.com/daocheng-yading.html.
16.Rian Thum, “What Really Happens in China’s ‘Re-education’ Camps,” New York Times, May 15, 2018, nytimes.com/2018/05/15/opinion/china-re-education-camps.html.
17.“‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression against Xinjiang’s Muslims,” Human Rights Watch, September 9, 2018, hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs.
Copyright © 2020 by Stephan Orth
English translation copyright © 2020 by Jamie McIntosh
Originally published in German as Couchsurfing in China: Durch die Wohnzimmer der neuen Supermacht by Stephan Orth © 2019 Piper Verlag GmbH, München/Berlin
20 21 22 23 24 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Greystone Books Ltd.
greystonebooks.com
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-77164-562-1 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-77164-564-5 (epub)
Copy editing by Shirarose Wilensky
Proofreading by Alison Strobel
Cover and text design by Fiona Siu
Cover photographs by Stephan Orth and Stefen Chow
Photo credits: © Stephan Orth, except for the photo on page 32
© Stephan Orth/Pitu app; and the photo on page 131 © Stefen Chow.
Map by Birgit Kohlhaas
Greystone Books gratefully acknowledges the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples on whose land our office is located.
Greystone Books thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Government of Canada for supporting our publishing activities.
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.
Stephan Orth, High Tech and Hot Pot
