A Stone Is Most Precious Where it Belongs by Gulchehra Hoja

Author:Gulchehra Hoja [Hoja, Gulchehra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00

While all of this was going on at work, Elzat and I were barely speaking. I came home each day exhausted and often went straight to bed. He was sleeping on the couch, and the apartment had taken on the chaotic look of an unhappy home.

One night I couldn’t stand it, and I went out into the living room. “We have to do something about this situation, Elzat. One of us has to go away for a while.”

“I won’t give you a divorce,” he said.

“Fine, but I won’t live like this forever.”

“I know,” he said wearily. “I think maybe we do need some time apart, to remember what we appreciate about each other. Remember that grant I applied for to study abroad in Austria? I just heard that I got it.”

“Good. I hope you’ll be very successful.” My voice was stiff and unnatural.

“I’ll have to go to Beijing first for an intensive language class.”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone nice there,” I said bitterly.

“Don’t, Gul, please.” He looked at me beseechingly. “I’m doing this for us. When I come back, things will be better between us, I promise.”

“Fine,” I said, not believing a word of it. “If you need help packing, let me know.”

After Elzat went to Beijing, I was sent out into the field even more. Because I was a well-known figure by that time, the Communist Party officials at the station wanted to use my status in Uyghur society to promote a new social program ostensibly aimed at helping Uyghur get better schooling. The authorities in Beijing had started a program to send impoverished Uyghur kids away from their homes to get a Han education. It was a highly unpopular program among parents, of course, so I was ordered to produce stories encouraging parents to send their children to twelve different cities in China to study Chinese.

When I met these children, I saw firsthand how wrongheaded and cruel the idea was. The children were taken from the only homes they had known and the parents they loved and trusted and put into a completely unfamiliar environment. Separated from their language, people who loved them, and their own culture, they were put under appalling stress at such a young age. Some of them weren’t eating; others missed their parents and friends so much that they could barely stop crying. It was unbearable to look into their eyes and see such pain there.

All while I was under orders to put together shows promoting this program, I wondered, If they really want to help us, why not build good schools in the Uyghur communities? If these children live in poverty, why not help their parents financially instead of taking their children away from them? It seemed that the point couldn’t be to enrich the Uyghur communities and help the people but must be something much more insidious—to destroy Uyghur homes, families, and the passing down of culture and beliefs from one generation to the next. Removed from their parents, grandparents, and entire communities, these children were being set adrift, severed from their own heritage.

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