The Emperor Far Away Read Online Free
Author: David Eimer
means that the party is able to monitor what is being said in the mosques, as well as who is attending them.
Beijing has progressively tightened restrictions on the Uighurs’ right to worship since then; anyone under the age of eighteen is now banned from attending a mosque. Billy wasn’t religious, but like most Uighurs he was upset about the rule. ‘When I was young, we all went to the mosque with our fathers. Now the children can’t do that. They can’t study the Koran in school and they can’t study it in the mosque. Their parents have to teach them about it. The Chinese say we have the freedom to practise our religion, but they are stopping young people from learning about it.’
While we ate, I asked Billy about his family. I still felt guilty over what had happened to them when we first met in July 2009, in the immediate aftermath of some of the worst ethnic violence in China for twenty-five years. Almost 200 people, mostly Han, died and around 1,700 were injured after an initially peaceful protest by Uighurs in Urumqi turned into a vicious race riot with Uighurs indiscriminately attacking Chinese across the city. Han mobs took to the streets on the following two days to exact revenge. Billy had introduced himself to me by showing off the wounds he had received fighting them.
Talking to a foreign journalist was risky then for a Uighur. The next day, we were spotted by one of the low-level Han officials who oversaw Billy’s neighbourhood. A shrill woman in her mid-thirties, she approached us demanding to know what we were doing. When we walked away without answering, she tried to rip my press card from around my neck, saying I might be a spy. That night, Billy’s parents received a visit from the police who told them he shouldn’t be talking to westerners. It had frightened them.
Now, we were much more cautious. I bought a local SIM card for my phone, rather than using my Beijing number which was known to the authorities, and we established a cover story. I was an old friend from Shanghai, where Billy had studied, in town as a tourist. And in an effort not to stick out so much, I was also growing a moustache. I didn’t want to attract the attention of the police, who might wonder what a westerner was doing in a Uighur neighbourhood.
My dark hair, along with my skin quickly turning brown under the desert sun, made a moustache seem like good camouflage, especially as nearly every adult Uighur male sports one. Beards are frowned upon by the CCP, which associates them with religious zealotry, and Uighurs working for the government are prohibited from growing them. So a moustache, like the doppa so many of them wear, is a compromise, a way to express both their faith and identity. Billy approved of the fledgling growth above my top lip, even if I found it off-putting each time I looked in a mirror.
Billy’s family were originally from Kashgar, the Uighurs’ spiritual capital. His parents had come to Urumqi in search of better jobs, and his father was a cook in a restaurant. Billy was the middle of three sons. Uighurs, like all minorities, are exempt from the one-child policy that was introduced in 1980. It is a huge cause of resentment among the Han, along with the fact that the minorities need to score fewer points on the gaokao , the national university entrance exam, to go on to higher education.
One Han shopkeeper in Urumqi expressed that bitterness after the 2009 riots by saying ‘Uighurs are like pandas.’ It was a sly comparison with the dwindling numbers of China’s iconic national animal and the way they are cosseted by the authorities. Many Chinese can’t understand why the minorities aren’t more grateful for such apparently preferential treatment. But it is only in the last thirty-odd years that the Han have been restricted to having one child, and they still vastly outnumber the other ethnic groups. The questions on the gaokao , too, are in Mandarin, which most of the minorities don’t
Beijing has progressively tightened restrictions on the Uighurs’ right to worship since then; anyone under the age of eighteen is now banned from attending a mosque. Billy wasn’t religious, but like most Uighurs he was upset about the rule. ‘When I was young, we all went to the mosque with our fathers. Now the children can’t do that. They can’t study the Koran in school and they can’t study it in the mosque. Their parents have to teach them about it. The Chinese say we have the freedom to practise our religion, but they are stopping young people from learning about it.’
While we ate, I asked Billy about his family. I still felt guilty over what had happened to them when we first met in July 2009, in the immediate aftermath of some of the worst ethnic violence in China for twenty-five years. Almost 200 people, mostly Han, died and around 1,700 were injured after an initially peaceful protest by Uighurs in Urumqi turned into a vicious race riot with Uighurs indiscriminately attacking Chinese across the city. Han mobs took to the streets on the following two days to exact revenge. Billy had introduced himself to me by showing off the wounds he had received fighting them.
Talking to a foreign journalist was risky then for a Uighur. The next day, we were spotted by one of the low-level Han officials who oversaw Billy’s neighbourhood. A shrill woman in her mid-thirties, she approached us demanding to know what we were doing. When we walked away without answering, she tried to rip my press card from around my neck, saying I might be a spy. That night, Billy’s parents received a visit from the police who told them he shouldn’t be talking to westerners. It had frightened them.
Now, we were much more cautious. I bought a local SIM card for my phone, rather than using my Beijing number which was known to the authorities, and we established a cover story. I was an old friend from Shanghai, where Billy had studied, in town as a tourist. And in an effort not to stick out so much, I was also growing a moustache. I didn’t want to attract the attention of the police, who might wonder what a westerner was doing in a Uighur neighbourhood.
My dark hair, along with my skin quickly turning brown under the desert sun, made a moustache seem like good camouflage, especially as nearly every adult Uighur male sports one. Beards are frowned upon by the CCP, which associates them with religious zealotry, and Uighurs working for the government are prohibited from growing them. So a moustache, like the doppa so many of them wear, is a compromise, a way to express both their faith and identity. Billy approved of the fledgling growth above my top lip, even if I found it off-putting each time I looked in a mirror.
Billy’s family were originally from Kashgar, the Uighurs’ spiritual capital. His parents had come to Urumqi in search of better jobs, and his father was a cook in a restaurant. Billy was the middle of three sons. Uighurs, like all minorities, are exempt from the one-child policy that was introduced in 1980. It is a huge cause of resentment among the Han, along with the fact that the minorities need to score fewer points on the gaokao , the national university entrance exam, to go on to higher education.
One Han shopkeeper in Urumqi expressed that bitterness after the 2009 riots by saying ‘Uighurs are like pandas.’ It was a sly comparison with the dwindling numbers of China’s iconic national animal and the way they are cosseted by the authorities. Many Chinese can’t understand why the minorities aren’t more grateful for such apparently preferential treatment. But it is only in the last thirty-odd years that the Han have been restricted to having one child, and they still vastly outnumber the other ethnic groups. The questions on the gaokao , too, are in Mandarin, which most of the minorities don’t
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