Urumqi

Watching the news coming out (or sort of coming out) of Urumqi, China really has me thinking about my recent trip there. First off, here is just another example of one of life's truisms: never travel any place right after I've been there. It's OK to travel with me, but never after me. Whether it's sleeping on the floor of a terminal in Charles de Gaulle Airport a week before the roof collapsed, or leaving Amman, Jordan or Mumbai, India shortly before bombings, or leaving Eldoret, Kenya days before a sharp upturn in tribal violence, the pattern is pretty clear - in short, I am a calming influence.
Urumqi is one of over one hundred Chinese cities with a population of over a million souls, and is located in Xinjiang province in western China. It is ethnically very diverse - most of the major signs are in four languages, Chinese, Arabic, Russian and English - and has a fascinating and complex history. It is one of the provinces where the Han, the main Chinese ethnic group, are in the minority. The Uighurs, who speak a Turkish language and who are Islamic, outnumber them, but do not constitute a majority. There has been growing tension between the two groups for some time - the Uighurs have felt culturally and econically oppressed by the Han for a long time, and the Han have their own issues with the Uighurs (for instance, they are concerned about the Islamic faith of the Uighurs, and some Han don't like the fact that while they are limited to one child the Uighurs, like the other ethnic monorities, have greater freedom to have more children). I picked up subtle signs of this tension - for instance, if you go to the museum in Urumqi, and you definitely should because it is great, and has some fascinating mummies (which, by the way, are caucasian, which also speaks to the long-term ethnic complexity of the region), but I thought there was more propaganda featured in that museum than in any one I ever visited in China. For example, one sign discussed the conquest of Xinjiang by the Chinese centuries ago and how it had made the region an "inalienable part of the great motherland.". Fortunately, I never saw any signs of outright tension when I was there, but the recent loss of life is a terribly sad sign that things are never as calm as they seem.