My Chinese Wedding

A few days after Jia and I obtained our Chinese marriage certificate, we celebrated our wedding in Urumqi with family and friends (mostly hers).

Before the celebration, we had a few more things that needed to be prepared. Jia had already booked the hotel--the Yindu Hotel, which was one of the nicest hotels in the city. To save some money, she contacted a friend who worked at another hotel to supply us with soda, wine, and baijiu (he agreed to buy back any unopened bottles). After picking up the drinks, we went in search of firecrackers--we had to set off a long line of them before we entered the hotel for the reception--and purchased a roll of 1500. We also had to purchase cigarettes to be places on each table--I didn't want to buy them, but I was told that guests would be very disappointed if we didn't have them (fortunately, most of Jia's friends were kind enough to smoke outside).

Jia stayed with her aunt and uncle who lived just down the street from our hotel, so it was easy for me to pick her up. Because my Chinese wasn't too good, I didn't have to play all the painful games that grooms must endure on their wedding day. Traditions include refusing to open the door until the groom answers questions and slips hongbao under the door, hiding the bride's shoes, and other obstruction tactics courtesy of the bride and groom's friends. The worst test I had to endure was carrying my bride down four flights of steps to the car (why couldn't they have lived in a building with an elevator?).

The firecrackers were lit as our car arrived at the Yindu Hotel. We stood at the entrance, waiting to greet our guests as they arrived over the course of an hour. We got to see how other people in Urumqi celebrate their wedding as another couple hosted a ceremony next to us. We had a bit of a laugh as we saw the bride in her Western-style white wedding gown next to the groom who wore dress slacks and short-sleeve shirt and tie. I was tempted to offer my services as a stand in with a tuxedo--they could later edit the photo with his head.

Before I arrived in Xinjiang, Jia also hired a photographer and MC for the day. I was a little confused about the MC, but Jia explained that he was just there to host the reception and provide a little humorous fun. To prepare me, she told me what questions the MC would ask so I could prepare my answers. Unfortunately, he spoke too quickly and didn't go in the order I was told--Jia had to translate a lot for me. He asked me questions like "How tall is your bride?" and "What size shoe does she wear?" The MC also came with a local musician from the university--she played a few instruments and was quite impressive.

After being roasted on stage and exchanging rings, dinner was served. Jia and I didn't get to enjoy dinner as we made our rounds and toasted our guests with wine and baijiu. My brother was disappointed as he thought he'd have to drink for me, which is the custom for the best man. After we toasted everyone, my brother made his rounds and tried to toast Jia's friends who became scared by the foreigner who wanted to drink baijiu.

I finally got to shovel some food into my mouth after two dozen drinks. I wish I could've eaten earlier because the food was excellent (or so I was told).

It was still early when the celebration ended. We decided to continue the party elsewhere after changing at the hotel. We rented a huge room at the local KTV--it had a projection screen and foosball table. We enjoyed more drinks and a buffet for a few more hours with about half the guests.

Retreat

I was talking with an American poet and professor in China, and he mentioned wanting to set up a writers' retreat in China. Of course, he made a reference to having the retreat above the clouds as a source of inspiration for the ancient poets. While I knew that was impossible, I figured I could suggest a location that would be close enough.

I do think Tian Chi in Xinjiang would make a great backdrop for a writers' retreat in China. I just hope Jia and I can save enough money to travel out there this summer (even if there are no other writers to meet).

Far From Xinjiang

I returned from my short trip to western Pennsylvania to find Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, was in flames--a riot had broken out after what allegedly began as a peaceful protest/vigil by the Uyghur population turned violent because the police had to suppress any form of protest.

My wife began calling her friends and family in her hometown just two hours from Urumqi. She found that all landlines were inaccessible and only a few cell phones could be reached. Later, there was no phone service or internet access in the region. We have to hope that Jia's family and friends will be safe during this time.

While I do not condone violence, I do understand why the Uyghurs are angry, and would support any attempts at peaceful protest. From my limited experience in Xinjiang and around China, I have witnessed a lot of racism toward these people. There were plenty of rumors around--such as they were spreading AIDS through cheap barbecued food. I've also seen plenty of Shenzhen locals mistreat waitstaff at Xinjiang restaurants (though that happens often in most restaurants, it was usually worse in Xinjiang restaurants). It can be difficult when such a group of people is treated so poorly by the majority that is seen as representative of the government.

Now comes news that mobs of Han youth are going around Urumqi for revenge in what they consider defending the country. They're also spreading more fear and rumors by claiming that the Uyghurs will poison the water (a tactic that would be rather stupid considering the Uyghurs would need to drink water in the desert as well).

The greatest challenge to stability in China is not that it needs to pacify the minority population, but it now needs to fix its image in the Muslim world. While US media is paying little attention to the unrest, Al Jazeera seems to be giving it a bit more air time (it is the lead story on its English website). China has been rapidly making deals with Muslim countries, mostly for natural resources needed to continue development. Though other nations have kept quiet about the situation in Xinjiang, it may only be a matter of time before attitudes change, thus altering current and future deals.

Hard Labor

Jia and I were talking about summer jobs, spurred by the article in today's Star-Ledger about dwindling opportunities for teenagers. I told her about my time mowing lawns and other yard work, manufacturing, warehouse work, and other adventures in temporary labor. Any difficult or boring labor I endured was easily topped by my wife's tale.

From high school and on into university, Jia joined her classmates and worked the fields of Xinjiang--they needed students to do the work because they didn't have enough local or migrant laborers. Most of those expeditions involved picking cotton, though she also had to harvest barley. Sometimes it was just for a weekend, other times it was for two-week stretches. The students slept on hay in a barn with rats running about. They drank from dirty plastic barrels of water that were dragged out to the fields by exhaust-spewing tractors. And they drank thin soup and ate bland mantou (steamed bread).

Jia said they had no running water--just a large trough in the field to rinse the dirt from their hands. And the field was their toilet. It wasn't so bad when the work was only on the weekends, but for the longer stretches it was difficult to live without a shower.

Early into her time at university, Jia and her classmates staged a protest--the upper-classmen told the younger students to stay in their rooms when the teachers came to take them to the fields. When they were finally dragged to the farm, they refused to work. They wanted to at least eat some meat if they were to work so hard. In response, the farm slaughtered a single pig to feed the group of hundreds of students. Jia doesn't recall even seeing meat in the soup that day.

For their hours of hard labor, the students were expected to meet daily weight goals for their harvest. Those who didn't meet the daily goals were fined. This led to some students adding water or small rocks to their sacks. Jia says she lost money every time they made her work in the fields.

Turkish Time

Saturday we met my cousin and her boyfriend for lunch in New York. We didn't realize that there was a Turkish parade through Manhattan that we had to cross in order to meet them at the restaurant.

Along the parade route, we saw what appeared to be a float of Xinjiang Uyghurs under the heading of Turkestan (which includes Xinjiang and part of Russian and Afghanistan). Jia was surprised to see Uyghurs in New York, but was a little confused about the lack of a Chinese flag (or about their relation to Turkey).

By coincidence we had lunch at Kanaat Turkish Cuisine on Lexington and 55th. Probably because of the parade the restaurant was quiet. The atmosphere was pleasant, and it probably would be with more patrons. We began our meal with fairly large plates of humus and patician salad (which resembles a non-spicy version of 老虎菜 lǎohǔcài). Everyone was happy with the entrees that included adana kebab, chicken sarma, and istim kebab. Every dish was good and the portions were decent for the price in Manhattan ($14-17 each).

The only disappointment was the Turkish coffee. My brother and I agreed that it was too sweet. And for my brother to say that means that it was excessively sweet (he likes a lot of sugar in his coffee).

Northern Exposure

Josh at Far West China reminded me of part of my journey through Xinjiang in 2006. On my first summer holiday in China, my parents visited. I planned to take them to Xinjiang for the sole purpose of meeting Jia--I had no idea what there was to see and do at that time.

After our trips through the bazaar, provincial museum (still one of the best museums I saw in China), and Heavenly Lake, Jia took us to walk up Hongshan (红山) or Red Mountain. She told us that anyone who visits Urumqi has climb the mountain, which was more of a hill.
Like most parks in China, there was a bit of a cheesy carnival atmosphere by the entrance. Visitors could rent boats to go around the man-made lake, pay to have their photos taken in front of fake rocks that are next to real rocks, and even play carnival like games (but not whack-a-mole).
We first hiked up the steps to the tower at the top of Hongshan to take in the beautiful views of Urumqi on a bright August day with the much larger mountains in the background.


Wandering around other parts of the park, we came to temple. Unlike any other Buddhist temple I've been to, this one was surrounded by small, noisey carnival rides. It was hard to imagine finding inner piece with all that racket outside the temple walls, but I suppose it was good practice for the monks. When we entered, a woman tried to sell us incense, telling Jia that if she got her "tour group" to buy it at an inflated price she would kick back a few kuai (this was a common theme on our trip through Xinjiang).

We followed up our little hike with dinner on the street near our hotel--there was a line of restaurants to sit in or to pick up some barbecue and walk along. It was a great way to spend our last day in Xinjiang before heading to Chengdu and the hottest weather I have ever encountered.

In Style

Last night we decided to go out in style...sort of.

We had another going-away party (we've now had four with more to come) with quite a few of our friends at the Xinjiang restaurant across the street. We went all out and order the whole roast lamb. It weighed in at 14 lbs. and came with four side dishes (laohu cai, cucumber and garlic, and some noodles). The lamb was tender with thin crispy skin. We had to tear it apart and dip the pieces in a variety of spices (cumin, chili powder, chili sauce, and combination of cumin, chili and other spices).

With the number of people we had, we also had to order a few more vegetable dishes and nang. Because we've been in there rather often for the last year, the boss even gave us some soup and a very large fruit platter (with yellow watermelon?). It all tasted great along with a bit of Tsingtao and a bottle of cognac.
When all was said and done, we were thoroughly stuffed and the bill only came to about US$100--far cheaper than if we had chosen to eat one of the more popular buffets.

Jia's brilliant idea after the long dinner was to head down the road to Good Friend Health City for foot massages. We checked it out a few days ago, and they said it was 38RMB for an hour. Somehow Jia managed to get us a group discount, so the foot massage only cost us 30RMB each. I got comfortable next to two of my friends who speak decent Chinese, and we had some fun talking.

The girls giving the massage were quite amusing. One kept commenting how much more work she had to do with D.'s enormous feet. She also said something about his hairy legs, which was more amusing considering mine are hairier. All three girls laughed at I. for drinking beer during the massage--he kept trying to offer them some, but they refused. For some reason, the girl giving me the massage was very polite and made no odd comments about me--it was much appreciated.

The only one who didn't quite enjoy the massage was J. He managed to get the girl who gave an unwanted rough massage in a rather tender area when moving up the leg.

Xinjiang Art

Last summer, when Jia and I got married in Xinjiang province, I met a lot of people in her hometown. One of those people was the artist Dong Zhentang (董振堂), who is a friend of my mother-in-law. We were amazed by his work--he uses a traditional Chinese painting style, but his work portrays the minority population of Xinjiang. They are beautiful and inspiring scenes.

My wife returned from her bureaucratic journey home to retrieve some documents with a lot of gifts (mostly food). But she did bring a gift from Dong Zhentang--a large painting of an old Uyghur man and mules, titled "Going to the Bazaar."
I found a Web site with pictures of Dong Zhentang's other work (the site is in Chinese, the links are at the bottom).

Scene on the Streets

Saturday, I came across this sign in Shekou.

It appears that the government hastily erected a blue metal fence around half a block. The area appeared to contain 18 businesses and at least one small apartment building that looked gutted. The sign reads, "Blood accuses the government of being heartless. Return my shop. Return my investment. Return my justice." That is the best translation I can make of it, but if you can offer a better one, go ahead.

Also in the news, there has been quite a lot of talk about terrorism in China. The blogs of China are buzzing with bits of information from the newspapers in the country. Unfortunately, there are no details about any of the incidents that have occurred recently. All of them involve Uyghur (or Uighur) "separatists" from Xinjiang province. Some details or rumors that have spread around, particularly about the plane incident, sound a bit far fetched. Since it has been blogged to death, I'll give you some links to the nice posts at Shanghaiist, Mutant Palm, and The Opposite End of China.

Which way to Hanoi?

It's been a busy week here. It was rather tiring, but it went well. I met some really interesting people who are new to Shenzhen (some staying here, some just passing through) at dinner and lunch for Rosh Hashanah. I also got confused in a variety of languages ranging from Hebrew, French, Spanish, and others (I can't remember where a few of the people are from). Of course, I made my pathetic attempts to speak Spanish with H. from Colombia. It really makes me wish I hadn't half-assed Spanish class in high school and college.

To go along with the mixture of language, I present a slightly delayed Friday photo from my wife's hometown in Xinjiang province. Please note that the two characters 河内 can mean "inside the river" as well as a city of Vietnam. Seeing as we were in the northwest of China, I think they chose the wrong translation.