Unregistered
10-03-08, 08:31
There are some interesting discussion on the recent article "Dispatches from China's Wild West" on the website where the original article is posted. I am pasting responses from Uyghurs to a Chinese guy named Danny who claimed his parents moved to Urumchi 40 years ago and he was born and raised there. His as usual denies that there is oppression there and claims that Uyghurs receive preferencial treatment in college entrance exams and employement. The following might be helpful if some one picks a web fight with the Chinese anywhere on the internet.
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Memet Uyghur's responce:
Danny, I am an Uyghur, and was born in Urumchi as well. My parents and grandparents were also born and liven in Urumchi. It is funny you said that Uyghurs would be offended to be catagorized as a separate people from the Chinese. How would you know that? Since when have "your Uyghur classmates" been allowed to speak their minds? By the way, growing up in Urumchi, how many Uyghurs do you know and how many Uyghur friends do you have? As I remember, Urumchi is one of the most ethnically segregated cities on the planet. Have you seen any Uyghurs at any Chinese weddings, funeral or other ceremonies and vice-versa? For your information, all the Uyghurs I know, quite a few, you can count on, regard Uyghurs and Chinese as separate concepts. I would not blame you if you did not know. A lot of things you do not know about us just like the rest of the Chinase people living in our land. It would be safe bet that you know much more about the Americans than the Uyghurs. For the Chinese, we simply do not exist, if we say we do, we would end up in jail. But, as long as we keep singing and dancing and smilling as if everything were ok, the we would be left alone. If give away the slightest sign that we also actually have families to feed, minds to think, emotions to feel, and ability to judge what is fair and not, that would spell doom for us. You do not know what people do and say to survive. To have a remote sense of what it would feel like, you may imagine this:you are apparently a well-educated person, imagine if you could not get employment appropriate for your skills because you are not white, imagine if the hiring people tell you that they would hire only the whites because they are themselves are white. And we talking about a discrimination in a foreign country for you, but I am talking about discrimination in my homeland by people who migrated to the land from other places.
Before you compare our language situation to the spanish people in US, you have bear in mind that Uyghurs are living in their own land for thousands of years using their own unique language and written alphabet, and they did not invite your parents or the other Chinese to their land. The spanish people in US at the other hand are immigrants. Immigrants naturally have to speak the language of the land just as you and me do. But in our land, the immigrants are imposing their language on us. I do not think the spanish immigrants imposing spanish on the American people. By the way, how may Uyghur words do you know other than the usual "hosh" and "yakshimusiz"?
You said Uyghurs are given preferencial treatment in employment. You should be ashamed of yourself to say such a lie. It is true that the law signed when we had an army capable of fighting then the weak red army in 50's that the governor and some top government positions have to be Uyghur. Therefore, the governor is always an Uyghur, so are some other top government positions, but we also know that they do not have real authority and everything is determined by the party secretary who is always a chinese. Uyghur employees in government inistitutions are tylically less than 5% in Urumchi and about 10% in local governments. I used to work for a provencial government department with 800 employees among which only 32 were Uyghurs. All the Uyghurs except a driver had college degree while 70-80% of the Chinese employees were at best high school gratuates.
You talked about the Universities. Most Uyghurs can go to only the 5 or so Universities in Xinjiang, while your people can go any University in China. Even so, there are more Chinese students in those 5 Universities than the Uyghurs even though the population of Uyghurs in Xinjiang are higher than the Chinese. I am sure you are capable of doing the math, afterall you are a Chinese, from the inteligent and not-lazy stock.
People go to college to have a better job and better life. That is what motivate them to study. If you know that your chance of putting what you learned to good use and get a good job after graduate is slim because you are not white, I am sure you would be asking yourself if it is worth it try that hard.
The 20th Century brought many people from the relatively backward societies to the modernity. This included the Chinese who went through a remarkable journey of losing the funny looking pony tails, and mostly uneducated dirty looking backward peasants and becoming a modern nation claiming its place in the 21th Century. Some people in Asia, Africa and other part of the world were living in jungles without clothes at the beginning of the 20th Century, but today they are more modern than the Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China who had long history of civilizations and written languages. The minorities are the only ones left out of the progress because they fell victim for the Chinese national pride hurt by the foreigners, the others. Since the Chinese could not touch the others, they took it on the other outsiders they can tough and abuse, the minorities in China. It is sort of like a psychopath behavior of a father who lacks self-esteem and try to boost it by abusing his own children.
Before you try to accuse us that we are not capable of doing things, try to stay the hell out of our land and see how we manage it ourselves. Look it the Kazakhs in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. They are like people from different plannet. The Kazakhs in Kazakhstan are running a modern and prosperous country while their kins in China are little different than who they were 100 years ago, poor, uneducated nomads who still largely live on the moutains. The Kazakhs in either side of the border were same 100 years ago, today they are different thanks to the inteligent, enlightened, educated and hard-working Chinese.
In short, what China is doing in Xinjiang, which by the way is called East Turkistan in my own language and it is a crime to call it that name today, is the worst form of colonialism. Only in China colonialism still exists today thanks to enlightened and superior race of Chinese. Just to verify my credentials as an Uyghur from East Turkistan, I would like to add a few words in Chinese:
Hanzuren shi zui meiyo xiuyangda minzu.
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Free Uyghur's responce:
Memet said most of what I want to say, but I like to add a few words here from an Uyghur perspective as well.
Danny, before you compare Uyghurs to the spanish in US, you have to remember one thing, US is a immigrant country where every one came here volunteerily except the black people and adopt the common language of the land, English. But, China is not an immigrant country, they Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols and other minorities lived where they live now thousands of years forming different ethnic identity, diffent language and culture. They did not come to China, but China came to them and forcing their language and culture on them. I am suprised a inteligent person like you could not tell the difference.
You said Uyghurs are admitted to Universities easier than the Chinese counterparts. Its is just plain BS. Before come to this point, first let's look at the middle & high school situation. In a typical county with 300K population in Xinjiang, there is only one high school with roughly 600-1000 students in Uyghur areas. But, in Chinese areas, there are more school with at least 5 times more students, not to mention the much better school conditions. For example, Yarkent (Shache) county is the biggest county in Xinjiang with more than half a million people most of whom are Uyghurs, but there is only one Uyghur high school!!!! Let's forget the rural areas for while and focus on Urumchi, there are just 3 Uyghur high schools in the entire city with 300,000 Uyghur population. For you information, they are 5th High, 14th High and 17th High Schools. They each accomidate just several hundred middle and high school students. Now let's talk about what study at school: Chinese history, story of Wang or Zhang instead of Memet and Semet, which we have little to relate with nor are interested in or care about; Chinese geography, story of a remote land that we couldn't care less; Chinese literature and poerty, who cares!! But, we have to for a lousy test score.
Since you are a inteligent person, imagine a hypothetical scenario: classes are offered in Uyghur for the Chinese since they immigrated there from somewhere else. Ok, I'll take it back, why would you settle for such a lousy deal while you are the one holding the gun, right? Ok, let's imagine a different scenario: classes are offerend in Chinese for every one including the Uyghurs, but the contents are local, which means, learning the history and geography of the land that provides shelter, water and bread for you and me. That is every learn the history and geographu of Xinjiang, story of Memet and Semet rather than Wang and Zhang. That would only be fair, your language my content, right? Only then we could have anything close to a fair score comparison. Until then stop spinning your weightless lies about preferencial treatment!!!! If you do not like us, you are welcome to go back wherever your parents came from. I asked around, nobody sent invitation to your parents.
Have a good day and good life in a foreign land. I could only wish that I could enjoy one tenth of what you enjoy here in my own traditional home land.
####
Memet Uyghur's responce:
Danny, I am an Uyghur, and was born in Urumchi as well. My parents and grandparents were also born and liven in Urumchi. It is funny you said that Uyghurs would be offended to be catagorized as a separate people from the Chinese. How would you know that? Since when have "your Uyghur classmates" been allowed to speak their minds? By the way, growing up in Urumchi, how many Uyghurs do you know and how many Uyghur friends do you have? As I remember, Urumchi is one of the most ethnically segregated cities on the planet. Have you seen any Uyghurs at any Chinese weddings, funeral or other ceremonies and vice-versa? For your information, all the Uyghurs I know, quite a few, you can count on, regard Uyghurs and Chinese as separate concepts. I would not blame you if you did not know. A lot of things you do not know about us just like the rest of the Chinase people living in our land. It would be safe bet that you know much more about the Americans than the Uyghurs. For the Chinese, we simply do not exist, if we say we do, we would end up in jail. But, as long as we keep singing and dancing and smilling as if everything were ok, the we would be left alone. If give away the slightest sign that we also actually have families to feed, minds to think, emotions to feel, and ability to judge what is fair and not, that would spell doom for us. You do not know what people do and say to survive. To have a remote sense of what it would feel like, you may imagine this:you are apparently a well-educated person, imagine if you could not get employment appropriate for your skills because you are not white, imagine if the hiring people tell you that they would hire only the whites because they are themselves are white. And we talking about a discrimination in a foreign country for you, but I am talking about discrimination in my homeland by people who migrated to the land from other places.
Before you compare our language situation to the spanish people in US, you have bear in mind that Uyghurs are living in their own land for thousands of years using their own unique language and written alphabet, and they did not invite your parents or the other Chinese to their land. The spanish people in US at the other hand are immigrants. Immigrants naturally have to speak the language of the land just as you and me do. But in our land, the immigrants are imposing their language on us. I do not think the spanish immigrants imposing spanish on the American people. By the way, how may Uyghur words do you know other than the usual "hosh" and "yakshimusiz"?
You said Uyghurs are given preferencial treatment in employment. You should be ashamed of yourself to say such a lie. It is true that the law signed when we had an army capable of fighting then the weak red army in 50's that the governor and some top government positions have to be Uyghur. Therefore, the governor is always an Uyghur, so are some other top government positions, but we also know that they do not have real authority and everything is determined by the party secretary who is always a chinese. Uyghur employees in government inistitutions are tylically less than 5% in Urumchi and about 10% in local governments. I used to work for a provencial government department with 800 employees among which only 32 were Uyghurs. All the Uyghurs except a driver had college degree while 70-80% of the Chinese employees were at best high school gratuates.
You talked about the Universities. Most Uyghurs can go to only the 5 or so Universities in Xinjiang, while your people can go any University in China. Even so, there are more Chinese students in those 5 Universities than the Uyghurs even though the population of Uyghurs in Xinjiang are higher than the Chinese. I am sure you are capable of doing the math, afterall you are a Chinese, from the inteligent and not-lazy stock.
People go to college to have a better job and better life. That is what motivate them to study. If you know that your chance of putting what you learned to good use and get a good job after graduate is slim because you are not white, I am sure you would be asking yourself if it is worth it try that hard.
The 20th Century brought many people from the relatively backward societies to the modernity. This included the Chinese who went through a remarkable journey of losing the funny looking pony tails, and mostly uneducated dirty looking backward peasants and becoming a modern nation claiming its place in the 21th Century. Some people in Asia, Africa and other part of the world were living in jungles without clothes at the beginning of the 20th Century, but today they are more modern than the Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China who had long history of civilizations and written languages. The minorities are the only ones left out of the progress because they fell victim for the Chinese national pride hurt by the foreigners, the others. Since the Chinese could not touch the others, they took it on the other outsiders they can tough and abuse, the minorities in China. It is sort of like a psychopath behavior of a father who lacks self-esteem and try to boost it by abusing his own children.
Before you try to accuse us that we are not capable of doing things, try to stay the hell out of our land and see how we manage it ourselves. Look it the Kazakhs in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. They are like people from different plannet. The Kazakhs in Kazakhstan are running a modern and prosperous country while their kins in China are little different than who they were 100 years ago, poor, uneducated nomads who still largely live on the moutains. The Kazakhs in either side of the border were same 100 years ago, today they are different thanks to the inteligent, enlightened, educated and hard-working Chinese.
In short, what China is doing in Xinjiang, which by the way is called East Turkistan in my own language and it is a crime to call it that name today, is the worst form of colonialism. Only in China colonialism still exists today thanks to enlightened and superior race of Chinese. Just to verify my credentials as an Uyghur from East Turkistan, I would like to add a few words in Chinese:
Hanzuren shi zui meiyo xiuyangda minzu.
####
Free Uyghur's responce:
Memet said most of what I want to say, but I like to add a few words here from an Uyghur perspective as well.
Danny, before you compare Uyghurs to the spanish in US, you have to remember one thing, US is a immigrant country where every one came here volunteerily except the black people and adopt the common language of the land, English. But, China is not an immigrant country, they Uyghurs, Tibetans, Mongols and other minorities lived where they live now thousands of years forming different ethnic identity, diffent language and culture. They did not come to China, but China came to them and forcing their language and culture on them. I am suprised a inteligent person like you could not tell the difference.
You said Uyghurs are admitted to Universities easier than the Chinese counterparts. Its is just plain BS. Before come to this point, first let's look at the middle & high school situation. In a typical county with 300K population in Xinjiang, there is only one high school with roughly 600-1000 students in Uyghur areas. But, in Chinese areas, there are more school with at least 5 times more students, not to mention the much better school conditions. For example, Yarkent (Shache) county is the biggest county in Xinjiang with more than half a million people most of whom are Uyghurs, but there is only one Uyghur high school!!!! Let's forget the rural areas for while and focus on Urumchi, there are just 3 Uyghur high schools in the entire city with 300,000 Uyghur population. For you information, they are 5th High, 14th High and 17th High Schools. They each accomidate just several hundred middle and high school students. Now let's talk about what study at school: Chinese history, story of Wang or Zhang instead of Memet and Semet, which we have little to relate with nor are interested in or care about; Chinese geography, story of a remote land that we couldn't care less; Chinese literature and poerty, who cares!! But, we have to for a lousy test score.
Since you are a inteligent person, imagine a hypothetical scenario: classes are offered in Uyghur for the Chinese since they immigrated there from somewhere else. Ok, I'll take it back, why would you settle for such a lousy deal while you are the one holding the gun, right? Ok, let's imagine a different scenario: classes are offerend in Chinese for every one including the Uyghurs, but the contents are local, which means, learning the history and geography of the land that provides shelter, water and bread for you and me. That is every learn the history and geographu of Xinjiang, story of Memet and Semet rather than Wang and Zhang. That would only be fair, your language my content, right? Only then we could have anything close to a fair score comparison. Until then stop spinning your weightless lies about preferencial treatment!!!! If you do not like us, you are welcome to go back wherever your parents came from. I asked around, nobody sent invitation to your parents.
Have a good day and good life in a foreign land. I could only wish that I could enjoy one tenth of what you enjoy here in my own traditional home land.