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Yearender-China Focus: Urumqi seeks recovery from riot trauma
URUMQI, Dec 31, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) --
As the whole world is counting down
to the year 2010, people in northwestern China' s Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region are crossing fingers for a peaceful new year.
The year 2009 has been a nightmare to many in the city. Some
people lost their acquaintances, some lost their peaceful life,
and some lost their cherished friendship which they didn't know if
they could retrieve.
CURING THE TRAUMA
Ma Shijie's New Year wish was to find another job.
Formerly a chef from a hotel in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang,
the 26-year-old soft-spoken man said his life was changed on this
past July 5.
The riot happened while he was standing on the third floor of
the hotel, looking out of the window.
"I saw three pedestrians killed by knife-wielding mobs," he was
reluctant to recall the bloody scene. "It was...horrible."
In the following months Ma's acquaintances noticed that the
mild man changed. He became irritable and always got angry with
others.
The worst thing was that he could no longer touch, or even look
at the knife he used in the kitchen. This undoubtedly meant an end
of his cooking career. Ma's mother called psychologist
Meng Xinzhen from the psychological consultation center of
Xinjiang military area went to Ma's home in November, to whom the
man gradually started to confide.
"In Urumqi, there are many people like Ma," said the
psychologist. "People strongly stimulated by bloody and violent
scenes would need at least one month to half a year to recover."
Compared with Ma, children were more likely to be affected,
Meng said.
It took 12-year-old Khalkhas girl AygulAblizto go out of her
home again after knowing that her neighbor' s family was killed on
July 5.
Nearly 100 psychologists in Urumqi are trying to help people
like Ma and Aygul.
"But there are some people who couldn' t recover in short time.
A few maybe living with the mental trauma for the rest of their
lives," Meng said.
HORROR STILL FELT
As the New Year holiday was drawing near, college student Liu
Xialing was preparing gifts for her grandparents in north China' s
Shanxi Province.
She liked the woolen vest sold in the Great Bazaar, but had
give up the idea of going there on safety concern.
"Although there are police patrolling the streets, I am still
afraid on the thought that something so horrible happened there,"
said the girl from the Xinjiang University.
"On the Christmas Eve I had a party with my classmates, among
whom there were both Uygurs and Hans," she said.
Although they chatted and played games, the youngsters chose
their words cautiously.
Her feeling was shared by Gheyremenyi from the Minzu University
of China, whose best friend in middle school was killed in the
riot.
The ebullient Uygur girl liked to hold parties. But she stopped
to do so after the riot.
GRADUAL RESTORATION OF WEB SERVICES
To "quench the riot quickly and prevent violence from spreading
to other places", Internet connection and mobile text message
services were cut in some areas of Urumqi shortly after the July 5
riot.
Zhang Xiaolei, dean of the Xinjiang branch of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences, was worried how could they conduct
researches.
"Our professors traveled to Lanzhou of Gansu or Shanghai by air
to download the data they needed," he said, adding that the
"Internet-searching fee" was not a small amount.
Some tabloids in Urumqi relied on online information. As the
Internet was crippled, the newspapers were affected greatly.
A desperate newspaper owner, who asked not to be identified,
finally found Internet from a major news organization. With its
own server, the organization was among the few units with Internet
to the outside world.
Disruption of Internet also hampered study of college students.
Abdul had applied to several American universities. While he was
waiting for the replies, the man had to travel to Lanzhou by train
and read his emails in an Internet cafe.
But there are some people who managed to find the good side of
the isolation.
Peng Ziyuan bought many books in the past but hadn't time to
read, as she spent most of her leisure time playing online games
with her boyfriend.
"Now I finished four novels," she said.
Besides, she noted that as the Internet was disrupted, they had
less spam mails and mobile phone messages. "My life is quieter
now," she smiled.
However, the regional government has said that it would
gradually restore access to some websites and Internet services,
and open up mobile text messages and international long-distance
phone services.
NEW YEAR WITH HOPE
"It will take a long time and efforts of the entire society to
revamp the relationship between ethnic groups in Xinjiang," said
Ma Dazheng, director of the Xinjiang development research center
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
As the New Year holiday was approaching, local government
decorated the trees with paper flowers and the squares and parks
with ice sculptures so as the change the city' s gloomy image
after the riot.
Zou Huabin, a businessman from the eastern Zhejiang province
who had been in Xinjiang for 10 years was optimistic of his
business next year.
A clothes seller in the Xiaoximen clothes market, Zou said his
business was affected a lot by the riot.
"Many of my friends closed their stores here and returned to
their hometowns," he said. But Zou, encouraged by the tax
reduction in Urumqi, decided to stay.
"Someone told me that more favorable policies shall come out
next year," he said. "If possible, I would like to open a store in
Kazakhstan."
After the riot, student Liu Xialing' s parents suggested that she
find a job in Shanxi. "After all you have relatives there who
could take care of you," they said.
But Liu refused.
"I had been living in Xinjinag for 18 years," she said
emotionally. "My friends, my teachers and my memories were all
here. How should I adapt to another place which was totally
unfamiliar to me?"
Like Liu, the 68-year-old Zeng Ying had been living in Urumqi
for 30 years. When he was young, the busy man left his children to
his Uygur neighbor Patamkhan to take care.
Despite the riot, the two elderly people still visited each
other from time to time. "After so many years, our friendship
couldn' t vanish overnight," Patamkhan said.
Zeng and Patamkhan shared a common wish. "Hopefully next year
there won' t be collision between the Hans and the Uygurs any
more, and people could coexist in peace as if nothing happened."
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