Last hours in Urumqi

Under surveillance in the bazaar

We take the car to go to the city’s bazaar. We were expecting an old bazaar but instead we are in front of a large street with little shops that looks like any other shopping street in a French tourist town. There’s nothing left of the large Oriental bazaar dad saw here 13 years ago. Actually there is: his pictures of it! To replace the little stands, people hang the shirts they are selling on themselves, like moving coat hangers, while shouting to attract customers. There are also people who put the things they are going to sell on the ground like food, small objects or clothes. When we arrive, we begin to film. A police officer follows us, and since we’re leaving his surveillance zone, he calls a colleague who is in the surveillance zone we are heading towards. After 5 minutes, we are followed by three police officers and two of their colleagues are questioning our driver. So, we ask Liu Jia to ask the driver if he can pick us up further to avoid the police officers. After a few minutes, we get in the car and go to another place. We walk around a block where there are a few shops; we go into one but when the salesman sees that we are filming his store, he throws us out. We learn later that it’s because he sells pirated CDs. We eat ice cream and I think of my cousin Soheil who loves ice cream, it’s the only person with whom I ate three scoops of ice cream at my favorite ice cream shop in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the South of France. But the police are still there. So, we take the car again and head to the museum, but the museum is closed and dad talks to mom again about work. It’s a bit much, but I guess they have to work. Since the museum is closed, we decide do go to a hill that has a view over the entire city. On the road, statues made of grass had invaded the street. We stop. We’re in front of a mall and there’s a camera store inside where we might be able to find cassettes since we are already running out. But the salesman said he didn’t have any. We ask him if he knew of another store that might have some, he gives us the name, but says that it’s closed. So with dad and Yang Dong we go outside and photograph the statues. But in a moment of precipitation, I accidentally knock over dad’s camera and its wide-angle lens. Luckily Allah helped me and in the end nothing was broken. At that moment, dad gets a call from Liu Jia who says that she bought the train tickets to Hami for tomorrow. Dad tells her that he’ll pass the phone to Yang Dong so that he can tell her where the other camera shop is, but since Yang Dong tells her that it’s closed she doesn’t want to go. Dad explains to her that it’s common that a salesperson mentions another store but says that it’s closed so that we’ll buy at his store instead. Liu Jia goes to the store and fifteen minutes later she calls saying that it’s open, so dad takes a taxi and goes to meet her. In the meantime, he asks me to take pictures of the statues and when I’m done, I sit on the stairs and play Snake on Yang Dong’s cell phone while he films and takes pictures. While I’m playing, my cousin Soheil calls and I’m happy to have him on the phone and I hear news from him and especially of his daughter Mona who is three-years-old. He tells me that everything is fine, so I’m really happy for them. Dad and Liu Jia come back with 20 cassettes and I’m glad about that. We go back to the hotel and ask our driver to come pick us up tomorrow at 6:30 am Turkistan time to be at the train station on time to make our 7:53 am train. We go to the room, surf the net a little, then I write my texts and go to sleep.