First thing in travel, don't expect anything. At least that's what those gone before you had advised but then again, sometimes it might just carry a bit of water.
Not that we found a lot of it (the water I meant) here as we arrived on a very comfortable night that was slightly more humid compared to the dry state of Tibet. After an entire 16-hour day of travelling in between airport lounges and long waits on the tarmac, throwing in a dash of bad behaving local Mainland travellers just spiced up what was otherwise, another boring China Airways run-of-the-mill.
Men and women acting out of their usual (or was this just another day in China Paradise?) antagonising the air stewardess, complaining about a situation that they couldn't change to a person who couldn't change any state of their unchangeable situation. I just dived into the wonderful world of Western Philosophy while we waited for two hours to take-off... in my seat 39H, just two rows from the toilet. Next to hubby was a nervous, foul-mouthed and bad-smelling man that sent off permeating noxious gas of garlic and teeth plaque, demanding that he be allowed to get off the plane so that he could smoke himself to death. Demand denied, he sat back and threw the biggest tantrum, during and after take-off and post-meal too. When we were ready to disembark, he was still stuck inside the toilet - smoking no doubt, or probably passing out before he could light that stick.
And here I thought I had seen it all in China.
So we climbed into a squeaky bus to town in a comfortable, cool night. After all, at this stage of travel, we were veterans in finding a hostel right? Time check: 11:30pm. The night was a weary prostitute in lousy make-up under those neon lights. A certain air of lethargy hung in the air as we waddled with our bags counting the number on the buildings. We were supposed to head to a particular No. 786 but somewhere in between No. 784 and No. 788 our miraculous epiphany had disappeared. We weren't sure if we were on the right road anymore.
Another cab ride and many steps later, we were stuck between a hard place and a rock. Deep in the dark alley that your mother told you not to wander, we walked right into the pits of hell. More neon lights. There in the corner a lone old auntie was selling some drinks. My throat felt like I was swallowing lava stones. Giving her some change for a cool drink, I bought some intelligence regarding that elusive No. 786. So that was where our cabbie guy left us. He dropped us and drove off. No money given. I still wondered about the reason that he didn't ask for payment yet he let us off at what later revealed, was the right location. Was he an Uighur angel? But only after shedding our stubbornness and walking one big block around the clock, we came back to the same spot with a gruffy watchman shouting at us to head up the stairs. After all, you can't really have two backpackers wandering around the city after midnight, right?
Welcome to Urumqi, the city furthest away from any point of sea. I had my first kebab of cuttlefish here in China.
I do not understand if the agony and the anger of the Uighur people were expressed at anyone else outside their circle of birth, including us travellers but I definitely sensed a great sense of discontent beneath the daily hums of city life here. An otherwise bla place, Urumqi boasts of some of the most fun bazaars and night markets that you can take as an introductory dose to what was to come in the forthcoming weeks into Central Asia.
Some may argue to give China a bit of time and space to develop her sense of unity between the non-Han races such as the Uighurs here but I'm beginning to suspect that it's just time buying with a lot of smoke and mirror shadow play. In the banks, legal and law enforcement agencies, I saw no Uighur being trained to upgrade their working skills. You need some hard labour? You need the streets swept? You want some flowers planted on the side roads? Call up the Uighur chap then. A clear demarcation between the qualified and "privileged" is happening all over here again, such as the case in Tibet. At the end, it was a sad conclusion on the term being printed on your birth certificate. I met some other non-Han races such as Manchurians but born in Urumqi. They were sort of elevated slightly up the food chain but unsure of their allegiance. In the end, it was still a lot of S.W.A.T. teams and riot police patrolling the gardens and roads.
One of the mornings, a small demonstration of Uighurs was held in the public park outside of our hostel. Big Brother sent down a big team to cull them off. The daily night markets famous for their local eats were cancelled without absolutely any reason. We suspected it was a veiled message to fellow Uighurs to "ask" their brothers to not stage anything of that sort else their livelihood will be cut off.
Sweet comfort of little means to a lot of people here that formed almost a fifth of the nation's headcount.
So can you really blame an Uighur for being brash to you? Not really. They can't seem to trust anyone else. Not again when even some of your own betrayed their honour by collaborating with the "foreign" Hans that came in pouring money to set up big KTV lounges that thrived with beautiful Uighur girls selling, using a local Chinese term, "the skill of a songstress". Just another polite term for the real dirty business that went behind the gleaming golden doors of such institutions.
But these people have strength. After a week here, I saw enough to conclude that many of the young chose to go the other way - deny the Han's structure of education that lead to nowhere, deny being subjugated to a certain level of class / profession prescribed by Beijing, deny at all cost except your own culture. If you have to slave it off at your father's little mutton soup shop, then so be it. At least you speak your own tongue, you keep close to home. Live by little but grow huge in your pride of being an honest, Uighur lad.
I can't say it was right or wrong, but more of circumstantial and lack of options that drove the Uighurs to choose a road hard trodden.
The other day we braved the long wait outside the Kazakhstan's Embassy. I had a lot of visa applications done in the past but none could surpass the bureaucracy surrounding this overweight, 2-hour lunch, stuffy and inefficient office. There were ex-U.S.S.R. fat goons in a monkey suit that couldn't even hold a passport the right way up standing behind the glass panel, acting all important. You kept smiling and obliging these "powerful figures" and entertained their silly questions on the reason you like to visit their country. While they sat in the side of the room that was well ventilated, we mortals stood in the other side - a case of the grass was indeed greener on the other side - suffocating in a one-lane room that was infused with a lot of people who ate way too much mutton for the past twenty years of their lives.
Returning to obtain your visa was another hell of Earth. Talk about getting out of the same gate that served as both the entry and exit of that god-forsaken building... I could understand a lot of the old grand aunties and uncles wanted to get inside to renew their visa. I uttered a prayer of thanks to the Malaysian Government for doing enough to accord our holding that darn red book some right of being front of the line. But it did nothing in protecting me from the assault of the great big boobies.
Yes ladies and gentlemen. They came in pairs of fury, hot warm fleshy molds of size DDD, smashing up at your face as you try to squeeze through the opened gate. I said "I am coming out, then you can go in" with a furtive smile. Those determined eyes of green, hazel, and gray shot past me and their titanic bodies bull-dozed through while I used my only god-given arsenals to defend what would be left of me... my arms.
There they were, I looked on as if they were detached from my mortal body. Two tiny hands pushing weakly into the bodies and boobies of these big, mutton-fed women. Oh the smell, oh the smell! The toxic mix of slangs and sweat that I couldn't understand. I tried to remember the injustice and the romance of a tried and tired country, I remembered to love thy neighbour. Oh yes, I called upon the great church, star and crescent, crucifix and all. Yet I saw my futile attempts being swallowed into the thick flesh of these women like a tiny fly being sucked into the clumps of bread loaves akin to an insect-eating plant. I tried to pluck my fingers out from the cleavage while remembered to disinfect later with my alcohol swipe.
Despite the madness and the feeble understanding on my part of such an incredible history and culture, I got out with my two arms, my Kazakhstan visa, and my appetite for more of Urumqi and the Uighur's beautiful offers. Head out to the Great Bazaar, speak in their language, even if you don't understand. They love hands (no kidding) and they always can resort to a calculator to tell you how much that chicken costs.
See all those food being offered. See all that glittered really wasn't all the time gold. For sometimes, more so for a city as complex its problems and issues as Urumqi's future, many dwell into the material to just escape - even just for a moment of bliss, no mater how artificial it may be.
