Danwei interviews two journalists for China Newsweek, Wang Gang and Wang Jing, who covered the violence in Urumqi for the magazine:
Danwei: Have you been to Xinjiang before? Was there a contrast in ethnic relations between when you were there last and when you went this time?
WG: I lived in Xinjiang for a time as a youngster. At that time my father was a soldier in the north of Xinjiang, in the Shihezi area, where the small town had nothing but the military and the Great Gobi, but now I hear that it has become biggest “garden” city in Xinjiang. Impressions from that time are not very many, but I feel that at the time Uighurs were amiable, the relationship between Uighurs and Han are not as tense as they are now.But now, in Urumqi, incompatibility between the Han and the Uyghur can be perceived everywhere. On the street, as a Han, it was easy for me to harvest unfriendly looks from the Uighurs. This kind of unfriendliness can be likened to the attitude that Uyghurs get in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai. In Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, people with even a little bit of experience will want to keep a little distance when seeing Uighurs. Because a lot of the time, these people are associated with thieves.
This kind of attitude has existed in mainland cities for around ten years. Therefore in Xinjiang, where Uighurs gather together, a Han person appears like a monkey: this is normal. What I want to say is, for rational people, if we are talking about Uighurs discriminating against the Han, then it must have started with the Han isolating the Uighurs.
