Agent of change

Updated: 2014-10-01 07:59

By Yu Fei(China Daily USA)

  Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按钮 0

When Chen Xuanbo, 40, an ethnic Han official, was sent to work in southern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, he thought he was going to a place where it would be "too dangerous to fall asleep".

On March 5, only days after 29 people were killed and more than 140 injured in Kunming, in an attack that police said was organized and committed by separatists from Xinjiang, Chen left regional capital Urumqi for Azkhan village that is located in the Kezilesu Kirgiz autonomous prefecture.

"It would be a lie if I said I had no fear then," Chen says.

 Agent of change

Above left: A young man in Azkhan village in the Kezilesu Kirgiz autonomous prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, plays a traditional musical instrument. Below: Women chat before the start of a village meeting. Below: Chen Huanbo with children from the village's primary school. Photos provided to China Daily

Agent of change

Before his departure, friends and relatives repeatedly wished him a "safe stay", while his 10-year-old daughter bought him a pair of sneakers because she said, "he would walk a lot there".

Now everyone in the village knows him.

"Many of my worries were unfounded. My daughter gave me the most useful thing," he says. "Various kinds of fruits are ripe. I can pick them and eat them under the trees and feel very safe."

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China decided in February to send about 200,000 officials to work in grassroots units, mostly in southern Xinjiang, over the next three years.

The project aims to ease ethnic tensions and counter the infiltration by terrorist forces.

"Southern Xinjiang has been isolated from the outside world for a long time. The Uygur and Han ethnic groups don't communicate with each other, and 'Eastern Turkistan' terrorists have become rampant. If the situation continues, misunderstandings between Uygurs and Hans will be exaggerated."

He began to write an online diary as soon as he arrived, and he has posted more than 80,000 characters and more than 10,000 photographs of the region as seen through his eyes.

Most entries are about his daily work such as visits to families, farms and schools, and his accounts fascinated readers on Tianya and Tiexue, two popular online forums in China.

"Many people call southern Xinjiang the home of terrorists. I refute this. I didn't really know much about southern Xinjiang before I came here. Now I want to tell the world about it," says Chen, who works in the regional industry and commerce bureau.

Azkhan, a mainly agricultural village, has a population of 3,563 and about 98 hectares of farmland. The average annual income in 2013 was 5,252 yuan (about $846), according to Chen.

The village is on the outskirts of Atushen city, which is known for its shrewd business people. Local residents buy silk products from eastern China to sell in the region and do business in Central Asian countries such as Kyrgyzstan.

More than 500 residents have passports, and travel abroad is common.

"Some are very rich and some are very poor. They all like to have the exteriors of their houses sumptuously decorated," he says.

In his official capacity, Chen once gave detailed guidance to a villager, Zaire, on how to open an auto repair shop.

Within three months, Zaire had earned more than 150,000 yuan and had employed about 30 workers.

In his diary, Chen ponders why some villagers are so poor, as the government has many preferential policies for farmers in Xinjiang.

He attributes the poverty of some families to a low per capita area of cultivated land and the lack of labor.

When Chen visits homes, some families appear friendly and some indifferent. The Uygur villagers face the same problems as people in other places. They quarrel with their neighbors, but if a dispute involves Uygur and Han, it can be seen as an ethnic conflict.

He visited a villager who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2000 for the crime of endangering State security. The man, who had returned home and fathered two children, had learned to speak fluent Mandarin in prison.

"He was reluctant to talk about his past. He said he only wanted to focus on improving the life of his family," Chen says.

In order to better understand the villagers, Chen studied a Chinese version of the Quran. Chen has made friends with Mullah Abdul Sammy, a respected senior cleric, who told him, "all real Muslims hate terrorism".

Chen asked if he could take a Uygur name. The cleric said yes, but he should have four witnesses and the mullah must chant from the Quran, which made Chen hesitate.

"There was no precedent. I'm always puzzled about issues related to religion and ethnic groups," Chen says, adding the nation lacks expertise in ethnic issues and how to bridge the gap between Han and Uygur.

"Sending officials to southern Xinjiang is a trial. We need to cautiously look for solutions to the problems."

After a terrorist attack in a market in Urumqi left 31 dead and 94 injured on May 22, Chen and his colleagues posted anti-terrorism notices on the door of every house in the village. A day later, some had been torn down.

"My heart sank. I thought they had rejected us. But after talking with those families, I learned naughty kids had done it - not the adults," Chen says.

Chen's online diary has many Chinese followers, and many readers leave comments. Someone by the name Laowen, wrote: "I was sent to Khotan in southern Xinjiang in March. I think what you write is true. Many Uygurs there still live in poverty."

China Features

(China Daily USA 10/01/2014 page8)

8.03K