Sunday, May 9, 2010

Police Officer in Kashgar i.e. Arhat, Abdul, and Me

So as you can tell from the many month gap in posting... things have been a little busy lately. I still have a list of stories I want to write about, and looking over it a few minutes ago, I realized two things: 1) I have a really shitty memory/write really bad notes. Most of my “reminders” are random words and phrases such as “xiaojie” (I probably meant that to mean prostitute ... except I have no clue what that is referring to. I think it’s about the time I was playing pool with a girl who I presumed to be a lady of the night, and I was shaking the whole time... but I don’t know), or, and this one is my personal favorite “spitting on a table and treated like a dog” (probably eating dinner at my bosses’ house ... no clue where the dog part comes into play ...) which leads into 2) if I don’t start writing these soon, they may be lost to mankind, which would really be a shame. I’d like to believe the world is a better for hearing about taxi drivers squeezing every last yuan out of me, weird food I eat, and random assholes I encounter.

This story is going to be out of place and thrown randomly onto the blog. It’s from my time in Xinjiang, specifically Kashgar (now all the signs there say Kashi, the Chinese government renamed the city Kashi, and I heard other foreigners call it Kashi, BUT DO NOT CALL IT THAT TO THE UYGHURS!!!!!! That is the Chinese slave name. They call it Kashgar and expect you to do the same). To bring people up to speed, in between semesters last year, I had about 6 weeks off. I spent 2 weeks of that in Malaysia and a little over a week in Xinjiang, split almost evenly between Urumqi and Kashgar. Now, I originally wanted this trip to also include Kyrgyzstan and/or Tajikistan. Why? A combination of me being a history nerd/just wanting to be able to say I went there (which also explains my recent obsession with going to North Korea). Long story short, I wrote a report on Central Asia once and have found the place interesting ever since. There’s just something about it that I found intriguing, and the Lonely Planet people talk it up in their books, though I think falsely. While each city definitely has lots of recent development, they are fucking tiny by Chinese standards. Surprisingly/scarily so. They reminded me of American suburbs and Kashgar doesn’t even have a million people?!?!?! WTF China?

I ate most of my meals in one restaurant where the owner spoke fluent English, hated (and I mean fucking HATED) Han Chinese, and made fantastic food. I went there my first night, we chatted for awhile and he gave me some great tips about sightseeing opportunities. I believe his name was Abdul, so I’m going to call him that. Anyway, I was at the restaurant one night and had to go relieve myself in the bathroom and there was another Chinese in there who had been drinking. We both finished pissing at the same time and went to the sink to wash our hands. There was only one sink and since he’d been drinking and I had no interest in being harassed by another drunk Chinese (one of their favorite past times. A few nights later in Urumqi someone struck up a conversation with me to insist I was Pakistani [I will admit my hair was long and I hadn’t shaved in at least a month, but only because it was so fucking clod!], even though I spoke perfect English with no accent, while he was drunkenly slurring his pidgin shit English. One of the few times I actually turned my back on someone and refused to continue speaking with them. The manager apologized and moved him away from me).

Back to the story, I moved back (somewhat dramatically, I’ll shamefully admit), and let him wash his hands first, and thought nothing of it. He finished, then I washed, left, and returned to my table. I was reading a book when I heard the same guy yelling. I thought nothing of it, knowing he was drunk. He carried on for a few minutes, and when I looked up, I saw him pointing excitedly at my table and heard he was speaking about me. I went into defensive mode, trying to think of what I did to piss this man off as I now saw he was wearing a police uniform. You do not fuck with the police in general in China (at least the ones with the navy blue uniforms), but especially in certain sensitive areas, like Xinjiang. Soon I see him walking towards my table and I start shitting myself.

*note* Here is where the story will get a little fuzzy because I need to remember the conversation. I probably won’t get it 100% but I know what happened next and will do my best to replicate it.

So he sat down and we got formalities out of the way, and Abdul came over as well. We do the obligatory ’you speak Chinese?!?!!? But you’re American?!?!?! zen me yang?!?!?!?’ His childlike wonder out of the way, we got down to business. He was drunk and slurring, so Abdul was helping to translate for me (later you’ll find out why this was a big deal for him) while I would respond in Chinese to the officer.

Apparently by letting him wash his hands first, I’d made the guy’s year. Being a foreigner in China, I was showing so much respect to the Chinese and wasn’t rude like so many other people, and he really appreciated it (still really makes no sense to me. Have I mentioned how drunk he was yet? He legitimately mistook my timidness for respect....). So he carried on and on for awhile about how awesome and respectful I am, stopping every patron in the place who walked by my table to tell them of my heroic deeds.

While this was going on, we went through the usual why are you here? what are you doing? are you married (yep, standard question. I apparently had reached the marryin’ age by being in my mid 20s. I wonder if the Chinese realize how much they have in common with the South....). He orders some beers and insists we all cheers with him. I really wasn’t drinking at this point (not out of any detox idea or civi duty, I’d just drank myself dry in Wuxi and had been alone for a week, and I usually try and avoid drinking alone because of the obvious implications of alcoholism that go along with it), but it would have been rude to refuse, so we cheers and have some beer. We continue to talk and I find out he is a border officer, on the border between Xinjiang and Tibet, just one of the most sensitive areas in the country, next to the tomb of Mao and border with North Korea where they attempt to keep out of the starved, shrunken North Korean people (just kidding .... kind of). In his joyousness, he took my Lonely Planet and inscribed his name and phone number. Some of you with lascivious thoughts may think this means he was trying to pick me up. Alas, no. He told me that because he worked at the border to Tibet, and since I am so fucking awesome, if I ever wanted to go, give him a call in advance, and he’d let me through his crossing within minutes... even though you usually need to apply for a pass and wait several weeks for permission to enter. Awesome! Of course I never followed up. I was leaving Xinjiang in a few days for the steamy weather of another locale (which I may write about at some point). I doubt he still remembers me.

You’ d think this tale is over... but o no, this wouldn’t be my blog if there wasn’t more to tell. After giving his contact info we cheers some more, and finish off the beers. He thanks again, profusely shaking my hand, and got up to go. I was relieved, to be honest. Something about drunken Chinese policemen with guns in a tense area makes me a little nervous (outside the restaurant was where a shooting had happened a few weeks earlier between cops and some people upsetting the social harmony of the People’s Republic). So the cop left (for some reason I’m remembering his name as Arhat right now...) and Abdul came to sit with me again. The cop had paid for my meal, which was awfully nice of him. I would’ve doffed my cap to him if I’d known. However, he was currently outside peeing in the street next to an SUV that was going to take him away. At least he wasn’t driving, but I couldn’t verify to sobriety of the person behind the wheel. At this point, Abdul went into a giant rant about how he hated Arhat. You see, Arhat was ethnically Uyghur, but worked for the government. I believe Abdul called him a ‘pig,’ amongst other vulgarities. His own father had pulled him out of school, lest the Han majority corrupt his son. Instead, he apprenticed as a tailor, somehow learning French and English along the way, and earning enough money to open the restaurant/run a tour agency (which also prompted his hatred of some foreigners who would treat him like shit and not tip him... Abdul was a complicated man). Basically Arhat was a sell out, Abdul was troo and kvlt, and I got a free dinner and quite a story. I’d say everyone won here.