Grassroots Diplomacy

Today was extraordinarily educational.  It started with a long meeting with a professor at the Academy who has spent his whole career studying the mammals of Xinjiang - including an extensive study of more that 70 species of rodents about 20 years ago.  He knows the jerboa habitats and how to catch them, so tomorrow I am going to buy a 200 meter long, 2 meter wide net to stretch across the desert and catch jerboas that get tangled as they're hopping across in search of food.  Apparently if you go in the early morning before they get a chance to chew their way out,  you can pluck them off the net unharmed and alive.  We will see how well this works, but I am of the opinion that just about anything is worth a try.  He seemed thrilled to teach me all he knows and wants to take me deep into the Taklamakan (one of the largest deserts) in search of more jerboas.  Unfortunately that's about a 2 day drive and not suitable for my current itinerary, but image search Taklamakan to see why that would be pretty freaking awesome.

The rest of the evening was spent in fascinating conversation with a dear friend of mine from years past.  I told him that I was back in Urumqi, and we were planning to see each other, but I happened to run into him on the sidewalk yesterday just by chance.  It's been three years, so he looks older and has  suddenly turned from a fresh faced young college student to a young man. I recognized him but didn't want to make the assumption in case it was just someone who looked very similar, so I smiled big, and his face burst into shock and disbelief followed by a bright grin.  There are two different cultural reasons why the Chinese and Uygurs don't hug.  The Chinese have more personal space in individual interactions (though not in a crowd) and exhibit less physical affection.  The Uygur women who are my close friends will hug me and hold my hand.  But Uygur men of strict religious faith won't even touch a woman who is not a wife or relative.  My friend isn't that strict, but I know better than to throw my arms around him in a big bear hug, even though I think I could tell he sort of wanted to do the same.  Instead we approached each other with one palm out face forward to intertwine our fingers and clasped each others' hand in a way that was like the best hug I could have gotten.  It's so good to see him.

We took a long walk yesterday but spent most of the time just catching up on the civilities of the last 3 years.  What each of us has been up to professionally and future plans.  Today we met up again and went to dinner where we spent at least 2 hours lost in conversation like old times.  I have had the best conversations with him about cross-cultural comparisons, and we joked today that it's like we are cultural ambassadors for each of our groups. He told me some pretty amazing things that he's been taught in his community lately.  That the Free Masons have met as a secret society in the UK to discuss the problem of overpopulation and what to do about it - distribute poisoned medication as charity in developing countries to kill off large numbers of poor people.  So some people here will no longer take medicines that are made overseas.  He knew that Lady Gaga had worn a meat dress, and his imam said this is considered normal in the West and is an example of why young people here shouldn't have access to the internet. And that the US military was somehow responsible for the earthquake in Sichuan. He seemed to be telling me all of this as if he hoped I would refute it all but he didn't quite know what to believe.  I reassured him that this is me.  I am American.  This is American.  Not these propaganda stories he's been hearing.  But it goes a long way to explain the mistrust and downright hatred towards us in this part of the world.

But I also explained to him that it goes both ways and that I am doing my best to do the same for him and his culture that I hope he is doing for me and mine.  That there are a lot of Americans who think all Muslims are violent extremists.  That most Americans have never met anyone who follows Islam and don't understand that it's a different culture, but we are all the same at the core.  We had a really long and fascinating conversation about comparative religion and the steps from Judaism to Christianity to Islam and how similar it is to the story of the Tower of Babel - a story that is common to all of our religions because we start from the same book. And I learned a lot about the Islamic belief of conversion and redemption and how they see religion as a choice of free will. And we talked about how faith is not the problem, and at the core each of the religions is really not so different.  But just as some Christians choose to believe the parts of their faith that support their personal ideology and thus have started many of the world's most brutal wars, many Muslims now do the same.  People are the problem.  Lack of education and mutual understanding is the problem. Every time I come here, I have some of the most insightful and educated conversations with him, and it's always a delight.

Other than that being the same, a lot of the neighborhood where I have lived before is different.  I will refrain from writing more while I am here, but suffice to say there is a lot of new development.  A lot.  The people are still the same.  The culture is still the same.  The context is different.  And it's interesting.  Makes me wish I'd taken more pictures.

Bed for now and off to the desert tomorrow...