assimacopoulos

Aziz' Land Cruiser was a superior ride—a Shangri-La on wheels. Outside it was as tough as a tank, but once inside it gave you the impression of being in a high-tech marshmallow. It was a welcome relief from the tiny, unsafe-at-any-speed, street-scraping tin can Rihangül’s family and I had been careening around in over the last few weeks—the music cranked, seven people distracted by song, not one eye on the road, no airbags (too expensive), not one seat belt fastened (bad luck), fueled by propane (the tank was bolted down right behind me), chance, and prayers, playing chicken with the hordes of offensive drivers jamming the city’s network of roads and uncontrolled intersections, and dodging everything in sight from coal trucks, buses, taxis, bicycles, bean readers (Xinjiang-style fortune-tellers), schoolchildren, police, and the swarms of rickety tuk-tuk contraptions carting loads of jiggling, unsuspecting, deliciously fat-assed sheep to their demise.

Our current vehicle was not that ride, and it turned the usual unhinged experience of driving in Ürümqi into a pleasure: quiet, powerful, pampering you in its slick leather interior with buttery, body-gripping seats, and protecting you with multiple airbags and a bump-eating suspension (as opposed to a bone-on-bone, nonexistent one) behind tinted—I assumed—bulletproof glass.

The SUV’s state-of-the-art surround sound system pumped out Uyghur Pop. The ubiquitous local genre juxtaposed ancient instruments with cutting-edge electronic ones and had its own Vegas-like star system replete with flashy, ’70s Elvis-inspired silk and polyester stage costumes. U-pop blasted from every cd shop, and it had grown on me—an unrepentant pop-hater—with its frenetic mix of earthy tradition and synthesized modernity. Dramatic, heartfelt, unaware of its own nostalgia, the music was kitsch but not old-fashioned, and its lyrics writhed with love or sadness, seldom stewed with anger or revenge, never spoke of revolution, and throbbed with arresting beats below the soulful, tight-lipped cries of its singers. It was what remained after more traditional forms, often viewed as rebellious, were consumed and digested by the Party’s censors. Buoyed by U-pop, the four of us floated untouchable across Ürümqi’s cutthroat traffic in our low-altitude Kevlar blimp.

I glanced around at the telling faces of my hosts. Ahmat, Aziz, and Rihangül were Uyghurs, the indigenous people of the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria, a people with deep, centuries-old, Buddhist-then-Muslim roots in the Turkic soils of the region, alongside other Central Asian peoples—Kazakhs, Tatars, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz.

The Uyghurs had unified under the pressures of history, military campaigns, territorial feuds, and more recently, land grabs, demolitions of their homes, disparate hiring practices, racial profiling, and disappearances—among sundry other oppressions perpetrated by the Han-dominated Communist Party and its Beijing-controlled police state. They tolerated the encroachment of the modern Han hordes from the east on their own ancient land, as it was renamed and reinvented out from under them by Beijing as Xinjiang, the “New Dominion.”

I sensed Aziz, Ahmat, and Rihangül had in one way or another suffered under the weight of that jagged, bloody history. It was the fiber holding the Xinjiang Uyghurs together, and I already felt it winding around my hubristic sense of individuality. An evocative breath captured the essence of this suffering: a deep, resolved exhalation I had in recent days dubbed “the Uyghur sigh.” I heard Uyghur sighs everywhere.

What I represented to them, I didn’t know. Aziz and Ahmat had never been to the United States or anywhere outside China. I had no idea what Beijing’s propagandists taught them about my nation’s history, culture, or people. It was all a flash in the pan compared to theirs.

Ahmat startled me by asking in careful English, “Ar yu hun gree?”

“He’e,” I said. “Yes. Siz chu? ”

“He’e,” Rihangül said and leaned toward Aziz. “Maqul. It is agreed,” she said. “Andrew guy is hungry, you are hungry, I am hungry. We are all hungry. Let’s go.”

Aziz and Ahmat nodded. I nodded back. I hadn’t met an Uyghur

yet without an enthusiastic appetite.

“Andrew guy, he can use chopsticks with he left or he right hand, andah he will eat or drink anything you put in front of him,” Rihangül said.

Her proclamations brought on more of Aziz and Ahmat’s admiring nods. I didn’t burn with my usual self-consciousness at being put center stage. Rihangül positioned me so the two men in the front could appraise me as I reposed in the external expression of my Greek–Norwegian ancestry.

“Andrew guy he, ah, looks Uyghur, he’e?” she said.

“He’e,” they said, nodding. “He looks Uyghur.” Their eyes flashed, their faces lifted with pride. Three flattering mirrors had surrounded me. “He even walks like an Uyghur,” said Ahmat.

They laughed. My wide, ready for anything, urban gait had, apparently, already impressed them. To be pulled into the embrace of the Uyghur fold in this way was a compliment. It had happened before and had puzzled me because from what I could conclude after padding around with the Uyghur Ürümqiliks, there was no uniform Uyghur look. Except for having an enthusiastic appetite in common—in that respect, I was Uyghur—their compliment was a crown I wasn’t sure how to wear.

Ahmat sat large, official, and incandescent in his seat, the constellation of high-tech dashboard instruments setting his dashing face and perfect white teeth aglow: he had been promoted. According to Rihangül, I was staring at the new Xinjiang Provincial Postmaster General. She had told me Ahmat had always done things by the book, was uptight even. Perhaps that was necessary to rise in the Party ranks, but tonight Ahmat was in a high, relaxed mood. How could he not be? The Party’s media apparatus was spinning him into fame. He had been making the rounds in a tailored three-piece suit, starched shirt, and silk tie, impressing everyone with his compliant nature and winning smile. It was big news for an member of the Uyghur minority to be promoted into a higher echelon of the Party. His eyes sparkled, and he had a good sweat going—whether from being baked under studio lights, from exhilaration or relief, I didn’t know, but he was excited to meet us and eager to celebrate. His good spirits were infectious, and I liked him.

Our driver, Aziz, from Ürümqi, sat coiled behind the wheel. He had spent his entire adult life in China’s army—the People’s Liberation Army—and it showed. His sharp,uneven jaw laid the groundwork for dark, even sharper eyes, eyes that couldn’t help but track you. His attention riveted to the task at hand, no matter how small, and he rarely smiled. He looked scrappy, but maintained a dead affect. Had he ever killed anyone? I didn’t dare ask him—and I couldn’t, given my anemic Uyghur. I assumed he was of rank, and that his deluxe vehicle was a PLA perk, one I was enjoying.

Both men were of significant accomplishments. Ahmat and Aziz would have had to have either risen above or sold out to find their place in the “New Dominion” of Xinjiang. Aziz bullied through traffic—scaring every driver out of his way—and sped us toward the grand Erdaoqiao bazaar, the epicenter of Uyghur Ürümqi.

Through the U-pop delirium, Rihangül and Ahmat informed

me Aziz was an ex-champion boxer in the Red Army—information followed by Aziz himself cracking a smirk in the rearview mirror.

“Impressive,” I said.

The jabs and uppercuts of the Uyghur tongue already knocked me punch drunk, and then they knocked me flat to the canvas, at the mercy of my too vivid imagination . . .

. . . I filled with dread as we suddenly skipped dinner (unheard of in Xinjiang), diverted, and found some hidden, back-alley den of trouble. Aziz got in my face as soon as we got there. He didn’t want to celebrate his friend’s success, he didn’t care; he wanted an English lesson. “You me English teach,” he said, brandishing stiff index fingers. Across the trouble den, now in each other’s arms, Ahmat and Rihangül smiled, threw their heads back, laughed, and embarked on a pleasing conversational journey back in time, clinking their glasses of French wine.

“You me English teach!” Aziz bawled.

I froze.

The sad tale of Aziz’s dream to learn English, a dream killed by his own father, boiled inside him. Such a dream would only invite the heavy-handed scrutiny of the authorities—the kind that doesn’t knock first—and visit shame, misery, and punishment upon his family. Instead of encouraging him, Aziz’s father banished him into the red-and-olive-drab belly of the Party beast—the army—where he was still stuck, a career Communist dead ender.

“I can’t teach you,” I said.

“What?” he huffed.

“I can’t teach you English. Understand? Can’t.”

“Can’t? What is this can’t ? Okay, okay. You me drink, we

drink.”

We passed an entire bottle of liquor between us until it

was empty. The tension peaked.

“Well?” said Aziz.

“I already told you I can’t!” I said with a ruinous slur—I was so drunk I could barely speak English myself. “I’m sorry. Sa-ree,” I said.

“You me English no teach?!”

“Nope.”

At that, he pounded his fists on the table and erupted with a life’s worth of frustration. He shoved me and, knuckles dragging, charged over and broke up Ahmat and Rihangül’s tête-à-tête, clocked his best friend in the jaw and insulted Rihangül for inviting me there to shame him. He collared the empty bottle, broke it against the wall, and marched me out. In the alley, I had no choice—I lost, spectacularly.

Back to reality.

Rihangül glanced over and noticed I had become glazed, mute, and sullen.“Woy! Andrew guy! What happened?”

“I lost.”

“Ay?”

“I lost.”

“Lost? Lost what? Wake up yourself Andrew guy.” She poked me in the ribs. “Aziz and Ahmat want to take us out forah wonderful dinner. They admire you. They brought along something very special to celebrate Ahmat’s amazing promotion. They found it forah this occasion forah all of us to enjoy. They have to find the perfect environment. We cannot enjoy ourselves everywhere. Ürümqi has eyes maybe watching because of my friends’ respectable positions. I am a woman. They want me to enjoy myself too. That is another problem. We have to find a private room later. Okay?” Rihangül smiled.

“Okay,” I said. “Maqul.”

“Maqul, maqul,” she said.

I enjoyed Uyghur cuisine—from the staples naan and hand-pulled laghman noodles, to the outré sheep-lung-and-offal soup, to the palate-numbing da pan ji (big plate chicken) where an entire rather resplendent two-toned chicken is slaughtered, chopped to pieces, and stir-fried—feet, gizzards, and all—with several types of scorching hot peppers, and then combined with long, steaming flat noodles to conclude the meal. The Uyghurs I had met were skeptical of the idea of machines preparing their food, so Uyghur cuisine is usually prepared—and, if necessary, killed by hand within eyeshot of diners—using fresh local ingredients and served without fanfare . . .