Death Beyond the Jade Gate - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Central Asia is fraught with deserts but is not mysterious anymore. Finally, even Uyghurs' homeland has started glittering like a gem amidst of the Gobi and Taklimakan deserts. Anyhow, our survival remains unique in the sense that apart from following the law of nature, we Uyghurs must also obey the rules some other mortals have set out for us.

That is where my family’s story comes in, starting just before The First World War, when my father was born. It was a time Uyghur children studied in Madras and the only reason to travel abroad was to embark on the long journey to Hajj. With plenty of stoicism, my parents rarely complained about their lives until the arrival of communism.

I feel nostalgic for my good old childhood days in Harbin, where we spent a quarter of a century just as one of the refugee families among tens and thousands of others. We found comfort socializing with Russian immigrants, and studied English with Maria Ivanova.

An unbroken thread linking the entire book is my father’s mentor, Memtili Efendi, a great Uyghur educator and poet. His intention to empower the Uyghur nation with education was outlawed by the Chinese Nationalist Government in the 1930s. Memtili Efendi was jailed for his enlightenment movement in Kashgar then murdered with all the other inmates in the Kashgar prison fire. He was buried in an unidentified grave.

Could we fare better by gaining independence? But what if we joined those not so economically independent states, and carry on living under the mercy of China, Russia, not to mention America! It is hardly worth it to fight until our last breath just to attain a seat in the UN, for the purpose to cast an insignificant vote in the future. There must be a way to continue living our entangled life together, based on mutual respect, while accepting all individuality!

We may still be the elusive actors on the world stage, but when it comes to the human mind and heart, we Uyghurs are not that different from the rest.

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