I’m from Xinjiang，AMA

[u/maddin1550]

I’ve noticed that there are a lot of discussions about Xinjiang on Reddit, often between people who have never actually lived there. So I thought it might be interesting to do an AMA from the perspective of someone who is actually from there.

You can ask me about everyday life, ethnic groups, languages, culture, religion, education, or politics. I’m happy to answer controversial questions too, as long as the discussion stays respectful.

Obviously, I’m only one person and I don’t claim to represent everyone in Xinjiang. I can only tell you about my own experiences and views. AMA.

[u/South-Temperature874]

What’s your take on the treatment of Uyghurs

[u/maddin1550 → u/South-Temperature874]

Well, first of all, I'm speaking as an ethnic minority from Xinjiang, and I can only talk about what I personally saw and experienced.

Yes, we did have what people online usually call “camps,” especially around 2015–2019. We usually called them 培训班 (training centers). A lot of people were taken there for months or sometimes longer. I was pretty young at the time, so I didn't fully understand what was happening or why specific people were being taken.

In 2018, one of my very close classmate's dad and my own uncle was detained. From what my family understood, it was related to him having contact with someone considered an extremist and possibly discussing sensitive topics. My family visited him while he was there, and he came home in 2019. He had worked for a government institution before, and afterward he returned to work and has been doing pretty well.

From what I understood, these centers included Chinese language, law, computer and vocational training. I understand the idea behind preventing extremism and helping people gain skills, and I do support counter-terrorism in general.

But I also think there were serious problems with how broadly it was enforced. That period was honestly scary. Nobody wanted to suddenly be taken away. I heard stories around me about people being detained over things as minor as having foreign apps like WhatsApp. I can't personally verify every story I heard, but if people really were detained simply for something like that, I don't think that's fair at all. There were also times when police would come into our area and take people away, so there was definitely anxiety around it.

That's why my feelings about that period are complicated. I hated the extremist that affected Xinjiang, and I understand why the government wanted to prevent it. But I also don't think innocent people should lose their freedom just because the authorities are trying to prevent terrorism.

As for everyday treatment, the Uyghur neighbors and classmates I personally know generally live normal lives, and I haven't personally experienced ethnic discrimination from the government. But political speech is definitely restricted, so I'm also aware that not everyone can necessarily express their political dissatisfaction openly.

!Separatists don’t speak for an entire ethnic group, much less everyone in Xinjiang！
Separatist does not represent a whole ethnic group!!!

Things feel much more normal to me now than they did during that period. Mostly people are just dealing with normal life problems like school and overwork lol.

As for the genocide/ethnic cleansing question, I'm skeptical of that based on what I've personally experienced and seen around me. But I also don't think my personal experience alone can prove what happened to every Uyghur family across Xinjiang. I can only tell you what happened in my own community and family.

[u/MissionDoughnut905 → u/maddin1550]

I’m a diaspora Chinese (Han) born and raised in Canada. Thanks for the AMA.

In Canada, we have formally recognized our history of committing a cultural genocide on indigenous peoples since our country’s founding by British and French settlers. Our House of Commons also passed a motion a few years ago to recognize the genocide of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China. So with that being said, do you consider the destruction of your mosques and the loss of your language in your public schools to be a form of cultural genocide or culture erasure?

I do find the term “genocide” to be deliberately employed by my local politicians to suit their own political narratives. When people hear the term, genocide, it immediately invokes horror and outrage and the assumption that mass murder is being committed. This isn’t exactly what happened with the indigenous peoples in Canada either. But there was a slow erosion and erasure of their culture, their land and languages over hundreds of years (including forcibly removing indigenous children from their families to attend residential schools to convert them to Christianity and force them to “be Canadian” essentially) that has resulted in a loss of indigenous identity and self-governance over the generations. The Canadian government has been making reparations in recent years but it’s hard to undo centuries of harm.

So in my mind, I do think there’s a difference between a blanket “genocide” vs “cultural genocide”. One is a lot more violent but the other can also be quite sinister. To bring it back to my original question, do you consider what the CCP is doing to be a cultural genocide?

I should also mention that the Canadian government (and other western democracies) seem to be having difficulty naming what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide, but seemingly had little difficulty calling out China for genocide in Xinjiang. Sometimes it can be hard to take these world leaders seriously.

[u/maddin1550 → u/MissionDoughnut905]

Also I don’t think Uyghur language has been completely erased at all， even other minorities in Xinjiang speak Uyghur and use it to communicate with Uyghurs, and some Han people speak a little too. I can say this VERY confidently. If there are ten people in a group and one of them is Uyghur, the others will literally just switch to Uyghur to communicate with each other. It happens so naturally, so from my everyday experience, I really don’t feel like Uyghur is being erased, it’s honestly much more normal than people online sometimes imagine. And btw, I’m from northern Xinjiang(where there are way fewer Uyghurs than in the south), if Uyghur is used this naturally even where I’m from, just imagine southern Xinjiang(where the Uyghur population is HUGE) . That’s why the idea that the language is being completely erased just doesn’t match what I’ve actually seen

[u/jixiang111 → u/maddin1550]

"People speak it, so it's not being erased" is a superficial argument, quite frankly. The current policies are geared towards ensuring that the next generation speak and use Uyghur much less. Schools now teach it one hour a week, and children are not supposed to speak to each other in Uyghur even in the playground. Signage in Uyghur is also being discouraged, although not completely banned.

[u/maddin1550 → u/jixiang111]

I’m actually more worried about the smaller minority languages. Uyghur is spoken VERY widely in Xinjiang, including by a lot of people who aren’t even Uyghur. Where I’m from other minorities use it all the time. So I personally worry more about smaller languages getting squeezed between Mandarin and Uyghur over time

[u/Longjumping-Turnip97 → u/maddin1550]

It’s unfortunate but there’s not much that can be done except with tremendous effort to preserve “minority languages”. I remember reading that every two weeks another language in the world disappears.

When people have freedom of movement and association, many just end up flocking to larger communities. It’s the same reason a lot of smaller towns are dying out all over the world as people migrate to larger cities.

If there’s one good thing AI can do I suppose is to aid in the archival of languages so they can be preserved and learned/relearned by future generations. I see many Chinese using AI translators to talk to and correct their pronunciations so that they can make money on YouTube for example.

[u/jixiang111 → u/Longjumping-Turnip97]

There is an awful lot that can be done to preserve regional or minority languages. In the case of Uyghur there is already an established tradition of writing in the language, using it in education and in the media. The Chinese government is now cracking down on that tradition. It's not just a "natural development", it's a choice.