Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China by Hessler, Peter (2007) Paperback

Author:Peter Hessler [Hessler, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00MXBQOEU
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

POLAT NEVER MENTIONED the mugging during my visit in January of 2001. I didn’t learn about it for more than a year, when a mutual friend informed me. Afterward, I asked Polat what had happened, and he told the story. He said that both the driver and the gunman were “African.”

“At first I was frightened, but once he told me to get down I wasn’t frightened anymore,” he said. “At that point, he shoots me or he doesn’t shoot me and there isn’t anything to do. I didn’t think he was going to shoot me. He was very skinny and I think he was a drug addict.

“I didn’t tell the police, because I didn’t have asylum yet. It wasn’t worth the bother. That was an ugly scene—down on the ground like that.”

Polat shook his head and laughed ruefully. I realized why he hadn’t told me earlier: the mugging had humiliated him. Several times, he mentioned how ridiculous he must have looked on the ground beside Rhode Island Avenue. I tried to reassure him by saying that he had done the right thing; there was no reason to resist a man with a gun. But Polat disagreed.

“One of my Uighur friends was delivering for Domino’s and a man held him up at gunpoint,” he said. “He was also African. He pointed the gun at my friend, and my friend just grabbed the gun and pulled it away. There weren’t any bullets. They began to fight, and soon a police car came and picked them up. The officer put handcuffs on both of them and took them to the station. My friend called an interpreter, and once the interpreter arrived they let my friend go.”

I told him that the Uighur had been lucky, and that it was always best to assume that guns come with bullets. Polat shook his head.

“It depends on the situation,” he said. “If they don’t seem like they know what they’re doing, you can fight. That happened to me once in Yabaolu. It was in 1997—four money changers were murdered that year. Three guys must have been watching me for a while, and one evening they tried to rob me. The leader stopped me on the street and showed me his knife. He just flashed it and said, ‘Friend, can you loan me some money?’ You know how those guys talk—‘Friend this, Friend that.’ He had a northeastern accent.”

Polat smiled proudly. “I didn’t give him anything,” he said. “I told him, ‘I’m from Xinjiang, from Urumqi, and we know about knives. That knife you have is nothing special. I have friends in this neighborhood.’ After that, they left me alone.”

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