 Great. Well, I'm so grateful to the Muslim Community Center for offering to show these photos. I've been hunting around and trying to think, you know, for a long time of how I could share them and if people were interested in seeing them. And sure enough, definitely the Uyghur community here was eager to see the photos. So we showed them once to Uyghur families only and now we're broadening it to the greater Muslim community and others to come and see. So thank you so much for coming. I had a great time in East Turkestan. It was just so, so wonderful. So the photos are, Kathima and I have been struggling to get the photos in order and there's a sort of a flaw in the setup and it's really, even with his computer skills, we're not able to get them into the right order. So, you know, I'll sort of jump around in terms of the chronology but initially, you know, the slides start with my trip across the Taklamakan desert to get to Tutifan was the first town I went to. So let's go ahead. So we actually, this first photo is of the bus I took, which is, whoa, and then we jumped. It's a little out of order but this is one of my first photos in Tutifan and you can see there's a Chinese military officer on his motorcycle. I thought this photo was very symbolic of the fact that the Chinese were watching out. I mean, I was totally, I and my friends were totally free to go wherever we want, which apparently is not the case at all now. You're interrogated by the Chinese authorities when you come to around that area according to a friend of mine who just went there. But at that point, you know, they would just, someone in uniform would appear sometimes in the photos, but I was free to go wherever I wanted by myself and meet people and interact freely. So, and this is a marketplace, the small marketplace in Tutifan and I took this photo because I love, the kids' haircuts were so wonderful. I loved the way they shaved their, the back of their heads and they shaved their heads and girls differently than boys. Here's a gentleman at the market and you know, lots of vegetables. The food, the food in Han China was really pretty tasteless at that time, unless you went to Beijing. There were some good restaurants there, but mostly it was canned fruits, canned vegetables and everything cooked in coconut oil. But so when I got to East Turkestan, I was just so grateful for the vegetables and the wonderful breads and the kebab. It was really nourishing after a couple of months in China itself or a month in China. And here's some kebab makers and here's a handyman type thing, repairs, etc. with his family and here's a little girl getting sugarcane, right, and also a wonderful haircut. And this guy was a traveling entertainer and he was talking and talking about what was in this bag, whatever it was, and he kept banging the bag and so I stood around with the crowd waiting for him to open up the bag and surprise me. But he went on and on and on and on and finally I gave up and went somewhere else. He took too long. So I don't know what was in the bag. So just a background, most likely what it was, it's probably, you know, people used to tell stories, long stories and probably was one of these stories that he's telling and sometimes they use different ways like maybe that what is in the bags are related to the story. Somehow he's trying to make it kind of symbolic just as a background. Two little kids with their ice cream popsicles and a cobbler and the butcher shop and the bread. I love this bread. I see you're nodding your head about the bread. The bread was so good. It was such, there was just no bread in China. It was all white rice so it was really a treat. I kind of went crazy for the bread salesman here taking a snap. Things were slow in the afternoon and here's women chatting in the sort of front porch area of their homes, which were, what would you call them? Cassie and you'd go, they were sort of interior atriums or corridors with rooms all around. So these women are out front and that's one of their cradles, their beautiful cradles. By the way the cradle you see is, you know, when the baby was born they used the cradle to put them kind of nicely tucked them in and then they can kind of, you know, you know, swing them around and go to sleep. And that's how I was like raised actually. Very cozy. So this is kind of a very traditional house and every real family once you go in from the outside door, they usually have the front, I would say front yard, but it's kind of enclosed and it has, they have most of the times they have grapes and, you know, not for wine making but just like really sweet grapes to eat as a fruit. Here's a grandmother and her grandbaby that we met on the road and two young dudes. It was the bell-bottom era and, you know, a little later than in the United States but they were, I have a photo later on of two young women and they just look really stylish compared to, you know, I think in Han China they were still under the influence of, you know, Maoism and everybody dressed very plainly and the women had these blunt cuts whereas, you know, I enjoyed the Uyghur, they seemed to, you know, take pride in how they dressed and how they looked and they looked really great like these two guys. Mother and baby and along the Oasis, maybe could you explain how water was transferred to Turfan? Oh yeah, as you know Turfan where she actually first, you know, took the bus, Turfan is actually in the, you know, if you look at the map it is the first city that majority of population there was Uyghurs compared to Han Chinese that you come to and Turfan is, you know, is a city where basically there's no, like, the only way to get water is to use the underground water and from far mountainous areas and our forefathers what they did is they dug the underground water tunnels and, you know, connected village by village and they built up so intricate water canals to bring water from far and far away and to make the Turfan is an Oasis place to live and then that air and that Turfan's hot air with the water coming from underground is just a right environment for grapes to grow and become like the raisin and Turfan's raisin was famous, like, you know, in my hometown, you know, when we eat raisins we all say we just buy Turfan's raisin because that's the best and the way they grow it at the same time the air, the dry air with the water only coming from like underneath tunnel and then the temperature in there is like very dry at the same time you can make it so that you can, you know, there's water coming from, not from above, but from under and that environment makes it as a just right place to, you know, dry the grapes, make a raisin and in Uruguay it's called Kariz, you know, when you say Kariz everybody knows in Uruguay it's underground water system. I'm going to try with my mask on because like I can understand Pasir and let me know if you'd prefer I take the mask off, just being careful. So up here is a woman with her baby with those beautiful little cradles. Can you hear me with my mask on? And the little kids in Turfan and in Kashgar they were they were just all running around. There were, you know, I don't remember any paved streets in Turfan or in Kashgar I don't think which is I looked at photos of Kashgar today and it was like oh my god highways and cars even I mean all we had was the donkey carts at that time and the kids just ran around in the streets a little gang having fun chasing the geese like in this photo so they they were pretty free I think. And here's a guy with his daughter piled high on top of the veggie whatever kind of vegetation that is probably on the weight of the market I think this beginning of the market shot. Yeah this is everybody sort of assembling for the market in Turfan which was smaller than the Kashgar one but it was still it was still fun. And that evening we had these performers come and they were just wonderful and Kassim recognizes. Yeah he's a very famous person this person is one of the famous you know a kind of a duet singer and a dancer and pretty famous guy so everybody recognizes this man. Yeah and he came to our little hotel. See that means star guests. Oh yeah oh from the south okay yeah they were very professional very talented and really into their roles. This guy was one of the best drummers I've ever seen heard. He was fantastic and you can in the photo you can sort of see the sweat on his brow he was really working hard. Do you know what that drum is called? It's a hand drum it's a snake skin hand drum. We say duck but it's right and he would toss it up in the air sometimes and catch it. Yeah it was a fantastic show. So you know once again you have a Chinese person I believe who's in the front just checking things out but they were pretty low-key back then at that time and then the next day there was another performance in our little hotel and these guys the dancing is so wonderful it kind of reminded me of Greek dancing so I you know maybe there's a sort of a silk road Middle Eastern influence in the style of dance. Really beautiful dancing and once again this guy playing but the hammer dulcimer was really good. I mean the talent was wonderful and I don't know what's happened musicians now but in in East Turkestan but back then it was possible to hear some really fantastic music. That guy was just great. So just as in a background you know when she's saying what has happened to musicians now it kind of reminds me that a lot of famous musicians were taken to concentration camps because the the music they they you know performed has somehow related to some sort of like anti-government kind of so so so if you from this you can see everything is politicized to a point that you know if you you know if it doesn't sound right to them whoever the government and you're not allowed to perform and just as a background formation. There was a really famous let's see what's the name of the main instrument the guitar. Yeah very the most famous musician died in prison I think recently right. Rumored that he died. And the rumor spread that he will die and then the next day the government allowed him to speak but he's not performing anymore. But he can't perform. I think you you can hear him on YouTube right. Can you hear him? The previous performances you can watch but not the ones I talked about. Do you know his name do you remember? Abdulim. Abdulim Hayd yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah he's like the kind of think of it as in the U.S. which should I like the who's the guy who just recently passed away the Nash Johnny Nash. Johnny Cash. Think of it as Johnny Cash if we were you know like like really kind of you know man tough music and very like you know kind of in U.S. kind of Western culture kind of music but you know Abdul. Abdulim it is more like very down to earth extremely popular among you know we were the folks and that kind of music so he plays the guitar the instrument she's talking about. So let's see I'm just looking at my notes oh okay so um from Tour de Fond I took I don't know how I got there maybe a taxi or the one car I saw in Tour de Fond. Anyway I got a ride to the famous Bezeklik caves which were religious caves with Buddhist frescoes inside and this is the route on the way there. Yeah just to background like before Islam came or before Uyghurs became Muslim they were actually Buddhist and it was in historical notes even in Chinese historical records it shows that it's the buddhism's actually came from India along the Silk Road all the way to China and the Silk Road the famous Silk Road that you see is exactly what she visited actually from Tour de Fond to Kashgar all the way the Silk Road and that's where one of the area that it shows the buddhist heritage and that's what she's talking about here. So the mosaics a lot of them have been damaged but a lot of them are in excellent shape I think we weren't like allowed to go inside because I have no photos of the murals but a lot of them were moved to museums in Europe so you can see some of the museum mosaics in Europe actually. Yeah mostly in Germany and Sweden during the great game period between Russia I mean the Soviet Union and all the European powers England British Empire and at that time a lot of expedition came and took went there and carved up all the wall paintings and just you know took them to wherever they came from. So here are the entrances to the caves and this is on the way back and I came across some people farming in the fields and I wondered if they were you know was this a Han Chinese collected farm of some kind but you're you're you're very much on the point I mean at that time 1984 is the time that you know China has not opened up to the world to as you see today like all the policies that you have that was pre like real it's starting to but not really yet so this is more like a collective farm that everybody needs to come and work because government asks them to. Although you know the fact that we were able to go to East Turkestan meant that I would assume that Deng Xiaoping was you know wanted to open up more minority areas of the country to tourism and that's why he decided to open it up so it was part of part of that opening up that we benefited from so then I went to Yarkoto not sure I'm pronouncing it right but it's an ancient city from the second century to the 13th century and it was an important stop on the Silk Road until it was destroyed by none other than Genghis Khan so this is all that's left of it and there I am in the distance that's the only photo I have of me she's so humble she doesn't want to you know be seen in there and you can see the Buddhas in the top part the headless Buddhas here I am again even smaller oh now this okay this I think is the beginning of the slideshow I think this is the Taklamakan Desert and those are the mountainous which I didn't write the name down of the mountain the flaming mountains yeah the flaming mountain that's what they say yeah they were beautiful so this is the scenery I saw on my two-day bus drive to Turpan and this is one of the people I met a few working camels and if you I can see the the characters over there it says you know it's a it's it's a little hotel I would say motel and Kasim pointed out that the man who's holding the camel is a Kazakh because that's that's the kind of hat style is the style typical style there are a lot of Kazakhs in in East Turkestan and they're also being persecuted and this was an intersection to where did we we thought I thought maybe it was going to Qinghai province is that possible that is possible that's also that's also possible where it's you know it's it's it's actually the southern part of East Turkestan where you know in there's like three roads cross section one is to the south the other one is up north where you say Qinghai where the Tibetan is yeah so and this is where I spent the night I thought it was a caravan Sarai I was getting I was getting a little too romantic about it but apparently Kasim thinks it was just you know a motel built by the Chinese because it's a long way to East Turkestan anyway it was pretty primitive and these women wanted me to take pictures of their babies which were so cute this is a nice woman I met on the bus and the bus driver wanted his picture taken too so now I think okay so then I went into Tutorfan and then I took another bus I guess to Kashgar which was immediately felt busier and more active and fuller this is about the most paved road I remember seeing seeing there and this is near the downtown of Kashgar this is how it used to look is there any of this still standing now this kind of yeah you pretty much like what you took in 1984 as a matter of fact it's it's only exists on pictures like this in our my memories and people's memories it's totally like like destroyed when I said totally destroyed I meant like these kind of areas residential area is gone no more it's all skyscrapers it's apartment buildings and that's you know people have like driven up to our house and given like oh okay we'll build an apartment for you and you know you can get that one one unit for this and things like that so it's that's that's the current situation at least 10 years ago when I got back home when I visited back home which at that time were allowed to I can't even recognize my my the building that I where I grow up I just can't see I lost the total sense of direction and where things are it's like a foreign place to me so basically my you know like like every way horse childhood memory and all of this it's just totally gone and here's Mal actually this was the only statue or graffiti or any kind or flag or any kind of evidence of Chinese dominance there they just have this statue which was sort of like a sore thumb in the midst of this wonderful traditional city and this statue of this statue of Chairman Mao still stands as of today it's in the heart of Koshkar there's one of the you know Koshkar is it being one of the important route on the Silk Road the center and that statue was still there it's actually the right in the heart of the city that like you can say people square so here's more of the you know walking along this residential streets of Koshkar and those are no more by the way just it's totally gone the quality of these photos is not great sometimes like this but it gives you an idea of what what the housing looks like then there was a tea shop down below where several gentlemen are having their afternoon tea and here are the famous fibrous trees yes fibrous trees Koshkar is an oasis city and it was just lovely it was really beautiful walking walking along these paths in between the cypresses whoops and now we're jumping around a little bit here's more of the residential area and here are some kids now this is in two of them oh well doesn't matter but anyway here's some kids playing along the oasis and this is in the central square yes so you know a donkey would never survive going through the central square of Koshkar now so on Saturday there was a big regional market and people from all around East Turkestan came including these women the women in Koshkar itself were less traditional and they were scarves but they didn't wear the burkas is that the correct word term for it burka yeah so those are like based you know those women with the full covered is usually a come from outside the Koshkar city for the sunday market to do uh sell their things and to do buying things like that so much more traditional mostly a very mostly likely it's from the countryside around the city and uh here I hopefully this is a series of shops that I really enjoyed walking by and having a look and Koshkar is known uh famous for handcrafts uh knife and all of the utensils and all of this handmade like very uh the name of itself Koshkar the name of itself kahishkar means the name the city of the clay so you will see soon that there's a lot of clay you know your utensils and clay uh you know tiles tiles and things like that yeah there's a brother and a sister and sort of a junkyard I guess and these boys are working in a shop that sells wedding chests those are wedding chests yeah you know you have to have the one of those if you want to get married otherwise a woman is not going to agree you know and it has to be filled up with clothes and beautiful nice gifts and jewelry and things like that and then you have to put it in a little lock and then the key has to be opened by the woman a nice shop or I guess they're bargaining oh sharpening a nice sharpening please thank you and this guy is man is very proud of his beautiful knives and saddles really beautiful ornate saddles another hardware store and in the middle is a group of young pioneers which is uh also you know Chinese influence there there were young pioneer groups in China I think also in Russia I think it's sort of a communist thing exactly that's how Chinese communists learned from Russia and with the whole you know marching band marching band and the red gotta have a red scarf red tie you had to um here with my favorite noodle shop I really I really liked the guy serving noodles and the noodles were great and the man was very handsome and we went there every day to get our noodles and this shop was kind of interesting because I think when I came there and took this picture I was it felt like you know how you come to a place and you feel like people are having a conversation and the conversation sort of stops when you arrive and I kind of you know I mean I think they people were already politically active and communicating about their situation of course ever since um East Turkestan was taken over and went was it in 49 yeah 1949 so you know obviously there was um concern and resentment and you know communication between people at that time and tea tea shops in China also are sort of a famous for places where people come together and they eventually start talking politics so so this is the beautiful mask in the center of it still stands today because this is one of the famous mask in the entire region actually um it's almost a century old almost and it come it go means the name of itself means you know place of um you know a celebration or place of festival you know hate you know hate right it's a god god means a place you know so okay a little out of order here's another shop this is my favorite shop it's um he's selling all sorts of herbalist yeah um apothecary and you can see the dried lizards and there's a dried bat yeah this guy can treat you for any kind of disease yeah any kind but his shop was so beautiful i this really beautiful shop and here's a call to prayer in front of a mosque and behind him are the tiles the famous kashkari tiles that kassim was talking about yeah this is one of the another famous mosque it's called apacoja mosque and this is also considered one of the places that we would visit even though the history is a lot of you know during the apacoja time a lot of bloodshed happen and people majority of them know that it's not a proud history but a lot of people still do believe that he's some kind of a holy saint man and still visits i mean at that time 1984 but not now so here we are back in central kashkari with the eat calm mosque yeah this is a beautiful picture i like that and uh a man preparing to pray this is inside actually this is inside eat calm mosque people are doing i don't think i was supposed to be in there uh travelers are allowed as long as they don't disturb yeah and now yeah they're beginning to pray and these gentlemen hung out in front of the mosque probably every day right sorry yeah yeah they've grown up together actually last time when we showed this for we were local we were community they came here uh some of them recognized them said oh i know this person i know this guy he was there every saturday he was like yeah i know i i see maybe saturday friday or something friday now we're back to the other yeah the apacoja mosque again i it's a little further out of town right and these are these are apacoja mosque that you saw the the door the tile beautiful bluish tile thing you saw you just it's there it's a cemetery it's a cemetery near the apacoja mosque and so family each family would purchase or have made one of these beehive shaped yeah it's it's called a family uh burial so what they do is generational and after like new generation they still reuse the place they put their bones a little bit inside and then they reuse it uh that's uh you know if you look a little if you see a little kind of cone like it's it's for a family extended family members yeah this is a tile and uh back in town there was a a group of musicians selling their instruments and uh actually i bought this guitar or one of one of his guitars and then at at the last showing i gave it to a we were musicians yes from from here because it was just sitting in my house and what's what's the point you know so i was really happy to give it to someone who would play and enjoy it this guy played beautiful beautifully now i'm forgetting the name row up row up row up beautiful row player so here are the little kids in kashkar all you know a little gang of them always sort of hanging out together and i love the little uh cart that the the little baby is in this wonderful put together handmade cart so these these were the guys and two little girls and uh at at a certain point i i attracted a lot of attention so that's what sort of i i can't i'm really amazed that i raised my camera to take a picture of people because it was sort of an uncomfortable situation but i think they were more curious about my camera which was a big old Nikon you know the old-fashioned Nikon yeah imagine 1984 this is just just the beginning to open up uh to allow visitor come and visit and they have never seen right like somebody with the camera are taking pictures and for them it's like whoa what is that here's some some other men hanging out together by the way as a context right now you cannot wear this kind of traditional clothes and you cannot grow a beard uh as well just you can't you you have to shave here are the kids again running around i i like the guy who's who's saluting me and and then the little boy in front has that sort of shy but smart but grinning but kind of shy about it look on his face and he is so tiny oh my gosh and there they are chasing after trucks but the last time i presented it to the Uyghur families several of the men were laughing because they had they remembered doing that when they were a little boy you did too yeah getting a ride from the truck and here's another type of hammock cradle yeah best hammock ever oh yeah so here is the march into kashkar for the saturday market and here's the parking lot it's very true that's how we used to go to market with the donkey cart you know we just park it there and and there are people who like say okay you put it here and then we charge charge you like a few cents in a dollar so it was very crowded compared to the to the fun market it was just packed with people as you will see and here's a country woman selling some various hardware and barbers all working on these three men and then one two three so change the photo there down all at the same time they may be racing who can be fast so here are some of the things that were set for sale in the market these are goats yeah animal market yeah it was the animal market and this man had a goat for sale and they all they also sold horses which they would you know dress up in beautiful blankets and and then calcine said they would ride them around yeah they they usually have a section of the animal market where they sell horses and they have a kind of horse track that you can just take our for a ride and then you know test drive it test drive it and sort of show off how beautiful and strong the the horses so that's what this guy is doing camels finding out how old the horse is by checking his teeth and even pigeons they sold and you know maybe you could explain what's going on here with the third man what is the role of the man in the middle yeah like in a in a market like this especially you know if the item is you know kind of big ticket items like you know they usually have a people who makes deals you know kind of talks to both sides and you know come to like have them to come to a deal somewhere like meeting the middle and things like that so that person is talking to the both sides like you know you need to come down a little bit or you need to go up a little bit and then it makes a deal that's how they make their own money you know at the end of the day after the deal is made better than we'll give you and like okay here you go thank you for making the deal for us and you know things like that and you just to sell our fire never look for this guy just just show off you yeah if you have that ability if you have the ability just go to the market and then you could make few bucks and you know things like he's paying such close attention though i love the way look paying so much careful attention to what each one is saying and they're very dramatic sort of like italians you know they're bargaining and listening in people listening in carefully to the negotiations and a deal is made a deal is made you know handshake and here's another bargaining session happening two lookers on i i said at this remind i i looked through some of my photos of european art to it because it kind of reminded me of some of the like 17th century artists like velazquez or something you know where they show the simple shepherd worshiping that jesus or whatever it's sort of reminded me of that anyway it was lunch time and everybody was eating samsa which you can see by the man bringing a a handful of samsa out and they're really delicious and well why don't you talk about samsa you have more experience yeah i mean i samsa is the only food that you cannot find anywhere outside east turkistan and that's why every time when i see samsa or talk about samsa i feel like you know just i really want to have them yeah we have oh you have some but it's not the same don't get don't get but this center is made in tandoori yeah i told them this is tandoori yes it is tandoori oh okay oh okay oh interesting yeah once again the silt road all this communication and sharing i loved the women's beautiful long scarves they were kind of dressed up it's a sunday market yeah and this man offered me a melon some melon now this man is making or boy is making what lakman lakman and it is it is a noodle it's we hold noodle it's a way the handful noodles you know and that's how you do it like you keep you know making it you keep making it like you know twirling twirling around and then the you know the dowl will become really really nice and kind of resilient and then you can start making like spaghetti noodles yeah they it was you know he's looping it so it would loop around around and around oh there we go you know like that it was great all right and this is making samsa and the two men would take turns putting the samsa in the clay oven so they go up and down back and forth yeah this is what i'm talking about you cannot you we don't have it here you know i mean yeah but what is there something that makes it hard different so now he's comes up and the other guy goes down and then so after lunch we came back to the main area and it was just packed we were really stunned at how many people were in this one place all discussing and debating you know negotiating and socializing and there's some bargaining going on in the middle of this scene and um he is about to they've just come to an agreement the two men in the center i think so and then i looked down and here was staring up at me the whole time i was madly taking pictures i really liked the kids there so um we were lucky enough to be invited to a wedding which was just so nice i mean it was it wasn't the wedding itself it was a celebration afterwards and this is the um oh god what is it i'm blanking on it roll up that i purchased and that i gave to your friend here and this guy was a wonderful performer was performing it there and there was a little orchestra playing it was getting dark so the and dancing i mean different men took turns dancing in this small area and then they had a feast and here are my two friends american friends that i was with and i really like this picture i think this woman is beautiful i mean her fur hat is so beautiful and her scarf would line with pearls and her grandsons listening carefully to her yeah that's how like when i was growing up and i'm sure a lot of we were here growing up you know our grandmothers trust me exactly like this you know like uh spoiled the grandkids yeah yeah was a fashion at that time i didn't know it should be a fashion again i think it's so nice and you know i think about her and she she was able to live her traditional life all her life another little girl oh well we're sort of out of order but anyway here's a field of wheat i paint yes outside of kashkar oh and here's okay we're jumping to the airport this is the airport in kashkar which doesn't look like this now and i don't think they allow flocks of goats on the runway anymore yeah right right yeah it was late spring so good and here's a crowd of people who i were not waiting for an airplane because there are too many of them and the airplane was very small but i think just came out to see the relatives arrive or just to see see the airplane's land and take off most likely the airplane because that's just probably just the beginning of you know that you know something is flying in or airplane they probably this i've seen planes for the first time in their life okay this is the first photo in to turfan i wanted to sort of introduce the idea that uh donkey carts were the main types of transportation so here here it is the doc the classic donkey cart and a donkey cart gone off the road to drink water now here's another i got the entrance yep it's a masjid and i think it's in tor one of the masjid and torfan i think it's in kashkar but i'm not sure we're jumping around now photos are out of order but anyway i thought it was small and beautiful and this is again in kashkar right and these are sort of more elaborate family burial yeah yeah these are for like for example you know in a neighborhood or any you know if there's like a bigger family who is the imam of masjid or or like some respected elders and whatnot they usually have this sort of uh you know structure two little girls in to the fun and here's a here's a shot i uh i wanted to show earlier but anyway it's uh i was impressed with the you know i was talking about how nicely dressed the way were i even with their simple clothes and uh you know they're not expensive materials or anything but they knew how to put them together you know jean bell bottom jeans a nice skirt and a jacket and little high heels they just looked really great bye i think that's the end of the show that's the end of the show all right well we'll start the q&a now and if uh i wanted to raise your hand i'll bring them up to you so they answered all your questions coming to you hi everybody um i'm wondering how much of what we just saw in those photographs still remains is it like almost nothing or half or does anyone have any sense of today if we were to look at these places what would they look like in terms of the traditional Uyghur architecture and the mosques and the cemeteries no i think you know as a matter of fact like what you've seen in there consider it from if you say one to ten consider it probably nine of them are gone one of them probably one percent left uh well the reason why i say so is a one percent is i can see the eight-gar mosque is the only structure that is standing in there that's from what i know but all the other places that you've seen all of the like fields country sites all the mud brick houses all of this is is totally it's it's redone to uh with a cement structure skyscrapers and uh you know apartment buildings and whatnot and roads and things like that so think of it just like nine of them is no more so if you like for example for someone who grew up here like me ten years ago i couldn't even recognize my neighborhood like let alone it ten years ago i can't recognize my neighborhood you know i can't find the roads and i feel like i'm in a film man so does that mean that the majority of people who live there now are han or is it still primarily uh Uyghur so this is the area where you know it's really hard for us to come up with the number and all the numbers the government publishes are not i don't know how do we verify it or trust it or not but i'm just going to quote there what they say in their papers uh in 1939 uh and in in china's official paper the uh the the number the percent of a chinese population in east of kistan is six percent six percent but in i think i saw that data in um i think 10 years ago it's uh it's not a up to date there but 10 years ago they said now the chinese percentage is 46 percent so think about it it's uh you know it's in in in like a half a century uh the number has gone to from six percent to 46 percent and that's what the china's government says in the official paper paper and documentation uh but right now you know who knows uh we have no way to know hi there uh first of all thank you for having this event um uh came to know it through basura and we're appreciate uh inviting us so i actually to be very honest was very ignorant about um the Uyghur community and and their their history i've learned quite a bit today um and reading on the website so thank you for those photos uh i'm just curious from a cultural perspective do how do you how does the Uyghur community here continue to thrive and and maintain that heritage because it's kind of an interesting cross-section of the turkic culture islamic culture the mountainous culture and then now with some of course a bit of the east asian chinese influence how do you maintain that culture and then is how many people are left around the world of that origin well that's a good question i mean i've been here for um honestly for 20 more 20 or so years and uh our community has grown from a few families to uh maybe around a few dozen families over the 20 years or so um but we're just trying to come to grips with the reality that you know our culture is back home is uh almost in the verge of being wiped out and uh is continuous getting the situation is getting worse um but at the same time that gives us a some sort of a you know that gives us a um a kind of understanding that what we had is not as bad as they claim it is um because a lot of chinese going like the Uyghur people have grown up as as as much as the chinese people growing up in china brainwashed to a point where tradition uh religion um uh your heritage is is like an opium like you know the it is something that you you it's bad the the the thing that is good are the things that communists always believe that is good uh most of the time they they what they indoctrinate you is like government is like your parents and take care of you whatever they say you need to believe it and trust it and things like that but we wish to come here uh now what actually uh you know the more we hear that they are suppressing our religion culture and language actually rivers around the world including this day area like the small community with the help of peoples like you organizations like this uh we've been able to have children schools for kids teach our language practice our religion and uh in whatever way that we can to preserve our culture and religion that's what we have been struggling right now but beyond that one of the interesting things that we're facing is we're facing a situation where one of the strongest force in the in the world is against a small minority they saw it as a culture they see it as a uh as a blocking thing in their in their plan to expand like one road one belt initiative of the Chinese government what they have done is one of the reasons I see is they see we lose this threat to their future development and when they see it as a state threat and that's what they have been doing they have been suppressing they have been you know uh brainwashing they have been like uh really treating them harshly since 1949 but since 2017 they took it to another level to a point where now we have the power we have the money we have the resources and the world is not going to do anything about us because we're strong nobody is going to say anything and now we started to do whatever the plan continuation the plan that we can and they run it up about officially their their own official paper they said about a million people in concentration camp it's in their paper but now we say it is about three million people originally they government uh even didn't recognize that existence of those camps but they called it so-called re-education centers training centers and we have seen people who graduate the training centers a majority of the people who are able to escape are people who are married to foreign nationals who have foreign ties or who are citizens of another country like Kazakhstan these are the people we're knowing the extent to which what they're doing to weverse we have never seen one we were who have no ties whatsoever with outside world well it are able to get out and tell their story not single one if you see all of this in the forum media on all of this all of them have somehow tied to some foreign countries canada australia germany uh us uh kazakhstan they are the people who came out and telling this story and based on what we're hearing it is just unimaginable and uh i i'm sorry oh okay so how are you working with i mean the global powers that are allowing refugees and is there an effort or initiative in underway are you collaborating with other nations or peoples that feel the similar challenge i mean this is not um this is not something that um is i won't say it's not that's not unique but i'm i come from the Sikh community so i can very much relate to what you're speaking about and so i know there's many people around the world that could relate so i'm just curious how are you working with those communities to build bridges to help rescue these these folks is it are the Uyghur community recognized are they being supported yeah i mean we're communities recognize this they're very supportive as we speak there's an over tribunal international tribunal going on in uk uh has been witnesses being called upon experts called upon to testify and gather information to um you know have uh you know those cases documented uh so that you know truth be known and uh and then or perpetrators are are you know uh uh investigating what not there are a lot of ongoing uh efforts going on not only the community like the grassroots community level but at the same time uh in washington dc we have a center there we were strong organizations uh they're working with uh you know the people in the government to bring up this issue up and united states are very well aware of what's going on and they have been actually the forefront of supporting Uyghur causes and recently they banned a lot of products made in the concentration camps like cotton products and whatnot in the news and there are a lot of things going on i mean not that we're just you know as a matter of fact 20 years ago when i say Uyghur nobody knows i have to explain it to them in a lengthy way but now if i talk to 10 people that i'm i'm say i'm Uyghur eight of them knows and that's that's that is to a point and i feel like yes i mean the world is noticing it you know even though as bad as all the media social media is bringing all the bad things to us but at the same time it is actually helping you know a lot a lot of positive way to make this kind of situation known among people governments uh you know organizations and yes we are definitely because this is not only like you said this is this is not only Uyghur problem you know this is a problem of humanity at the end of the day the chinese people i have a lot of chinese friends i told them you you guys and uh actually they they say we were in the worst situation i said yes i i i can see because but i can i tell them you guys in an even worse that situation than me because you guys didn't even know that that's the problem you know we recognize it's a problem and we're trying to do something about it but the chinese people brainwash to a point but they don't know it's a problem and i bet you in a few years time the chinese people will wake up and say enough is enough you know you cannot brainwash it to a point that we lose our humanity we're human right you know no matter what you say you know we were so human i want them to leave in peace and that's what we've been trying to do i mean 9 11 one of the i mean 9 11 just passed one of the horrible event as a matter of fact 9 11 we were suffered to a extent to a point where china used 9 11 to totally crush we were totally and that's the time when the u.s government president bush which i have no respect at all in a way he agreed to the chinese government that we characterize certain sets of the we lose who happened to be outside china was trying to do something about the injustice they agreed to characterize them as a terrorist organization and then and that way they brought 25 of we were innocent we were from pakistan they rounded them up pakistan in pakistan they brought them guantanamo and there's like 27 we lose our health in the guantanamo prison all because of 9 11 and we lose all the one ours our situation start the worst nightmare for we were started at 9 11 and now now if you see like chinese government go around and to muslim world and say hey there are terrorist people you don't want to help them you know we have terrorist problems that's not a but for we lose is just we just want to live in peace we've been living in peace for centuries with chinese centuries you know we've been sometimes we're invading them sometimes they invade us but we're believing as a neighbor i mean and that's what we wanted to continue to live in peace and but now we become the obstacle of the chinese superpower of a one-board one-road initiative and we're somehow became kind of backward and not forward looking and now they're trying to eliminate the culture and and as an example when i speak if if i can i'm not able to directly call my mom but if i am able to call my mom and say asalaamu alaykum they they will take her to the camp i can't even say that right now i mean that's to the point it's kind of ridiculous point right i mean when i say this people say how can that be you're lying it's impossible i said i i hope it is impossible i mean i really hope so but if if you if you hear people you know being taken to the camp just because they probably prayed or they fasted or maybe they said asalaamu alaykum to someone i mean that's just something he meant to me and i call like this is not only with a problem like i said it's it's a humanitarian problem all the chinese brothers and sisters back in china one billion of them they have the most responsibility because they didn't they need to know that is inhumane they need to hold their government responsible just like in the u.s when in the u.s when we see something about the government we take to the streets we do whatever we can to help them in responsible that's it that only happens in democratic government like this but in china it's not the case and i hope someday it happens right um actually it's a little bit addition to what khasankam said about uh about your second question so well um we have a few organizations and group of people in dc they've been trying like everything they can like we are screaming as loud as we can but uh so it's just like you didn't get enough attention so we know what happened in syria a lot of people suffered and like when that happens countries like germany united states a lot of countries like except thousands of people and in united states there are less than 1000 acres and some of their application status has been suspended for seven or eight years and it's never resolved and other companies like coca cola nike uh they've been publicly supporting china when we asked them to stop forced labor and nike even said oh nike is uh i think what i said was nike is a company of china for china and uh coca cola the same thing and the visa like american company haven't been doing the same thing and the facebook um kind of like censor veegers on behalf of china and google youtube kind of like does the same thing and sometimes it's just hard to believe there is humanity left in the world thank you thank you for sharing such a powerful image it's my um i have a question for you um so it seems like it's spendable three weeks there quite a while ago is there i'm sure there's a lot of experiences a lot of memories but is there one that stands out probably seared in your memory that you would like to care to share with us oh boy wow so many nice memories i don't know maybe maybe those musicians in to the fun that night i heard them and the drummer you know music is very powerful communicator and uh it was it and their culture is so rich was so rich and still and still is and i i think maybe that night of hearing that fantastic music was you know an unforgettable moment i mean i had a lot of unforgettable moments which reminds me in terms of the other woman's question about uh cultural survival i was hunting around in the internet it discovered there is an international network of Uyghur musicians who perform and share and communicate with each other and you know put together concerts before covid anyway and um are you know young young musicians that are working hard to maintain their culture and doing really interesting things with traditional new weaker music but making it you know with a sort of a modern twist so it's really nice to see that happening if you look online you can find this group international group all over the world hello how are you hello my name is el must go check america gilding the alexander system which is i want i want the one thing can i have my uh breath she's asking if you have pictures of uglja that's where she's from the northern part of the district and she's asking about that she said you missed my town she came here i'm sorry i miss you i wish i am happy she's one of the earliest uh weighers hello thank you for showing us these photos they're amazing i'm curious uh at the time you were there there may have been more progress by china on this front in to bet and if you heard anything about that or noticed anything in your travels at that time that gave you some foreshadowing of what was to come you know interesting i went to to bet two years later i just you know i love that part of the world and um actually i had gone all the way across the middle middle east and through you know turkey around afghanistan pakistan and into india before so but um to bet opened up you know as part of this opening up campaign by deng xiao peng to allow tourists i think purely for the tourism money not for any other reason he had opened to bet up to foreigners in like maybe 1985 and i went in 1986 and it was the chinese presence there was more obvious and more oppressive but they really cracked down the year after i was there in 87 i think when it's when you saw pictures of soldiers beating monks in lasa and uh you know the real crackdown happened a year later but it was you know they're suffering the same thing that the tibetans the rigors the hong kong is you know all around the periphery of china and i don't know what that portends but uh anyway that that's about all i know uh we're almost at 6 30 so if there's one last question no we can thank you let's let's give a round of applause thank you so much thank you so much for attending so before we go to the banquet hall maybe custom can explain to us what we'll be enjoying the desserts that are out there if you're familiar with it or uh somebody oh let me let me just hand the mic over to whomever prepared it so she can explain to us what it is okay hi everyone thank you so much for coming for this special event today so uh with the help of you we were community members here we prepared some sweets and savory and uh while we were just packing it and we noticed that a lot of stuff are was gluten and of course we eat a lot of nuts so there are a lot of nuts in there so um like we saw earlier so we do have our friend was there i made some some so you can try it out and then uh some of the other regular desserts so you're more than welcome to grab a box or two on the way out thank you thank you for coming and we'll see you out in the banquet hall