Eric's Beijing Diary

This evening I was going through the roll for one of my evening classes, and a student from Xinjiang Province corrected my statement of his name. I thought perhaps I had mispronounced it. But that was not the issue. He said, "That is my Chinese name, but my real name is Abdullah. We are Muslims."

He is part of the Uygur minority. The Uygur are a Central Asian people who have been in China for about 1200 years. They are largely Muslim. In the past, China seemed to be determined to wipe out, or at least minimize the effects of religion in China. But things have changed. The government seems to have resigned itself to the presence of religion. In some places in Xinjiang, they actually put a the large character for "East" on one wall of all hotel rooms, so that the faithful will know which direction to face when they offer their homage five times a day.