原版文章由Gene A. Bunin撰写，于2017年8月7日在《卫报》上发表。
Gene A. Bunin过去18个月中走访中国各地维族餐馆，这些采访揭露了维族人如何终日生活在被逮捕，拘留和“再教育”的威胁中。
Gene A Bunin has spent the past 18 months talking to Uighur restaurant workers all over China. These conversations reveal how this Muslim minority feel the daily threat of arrest, detention and ‘re-education’
我第一次走进卡里姆的餐厅是差不多一年前，本打算把他写进我关于中国东部和南部–—中国内地的维族美食攻略。届时我已经花了十年的时间研究维吾尔族人——一个分布在中国西部新疆地区的穆斯林少数民族群体。美食项目是我平时从事的语言研究的一个有趣的衍生物。甚至可以把它看作是一个“寻宝”项目，鉴于维吾尔族餐馆在北上广这些中国内地城市并不那么多见，在这里维族人是移民，占中国90%人口的汉族占据主导地位。
It was about a year ago that I first walked into Karim’s restaurant, intending to write about it as part of the food guide I was putting together about ethnic Uighur restaurants in the traditionally Chinese “inner China” of the country’s east and south. Having already spent a decade researching the Uighurs – a largely Muslim ethnic minority group based mainly in the westernmost Xinjiang region, outside inner China – this food-guide project was intended as a fun spin-off from my usual linguistic studies. Or even a “treasure hunt”, you might say, given the rarity of Uighur restaurants in such major inner-China cities as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, where the Uighurs are migrants and where the Han Chinese, the dominant ethnic group that account for more than 90% of China’s population, are the great majority.
我为了写这个攻略走访了50多个城市的近200家餐馆，但卡里姆的故事一直在我脑海中挥之不去。 他的餐馆以常见的维族中亚菜为主——譬如抓饭和手工拉面，菜式非常可口。 但更让人流连忘返却是餐馆里那种社区般的温暖，这样的气氛让人想在店里一坐一两个小时。卡里姆是一个极好的主人，他和食客经常会坐在一桌面对面聊天；会谈及严肃的问题，但同时不失轻松和幽默。
While my travels for the guide would involve visiting almost 200 restaurants in more than 50 cities, Karim’s was particularly memorable. I found the usual pilau rice and hand-pulled laghmen noodles – central-Asian dishes that are staples of Uighur cuisine, and which Karim’s kitchen did very well. More important, though, were the sense of warmth and feeling of community, which made sitting there for an additional hour or two a real pleasure. Karim was a great host, and his diners would often chat with each other across the tables, touching upon serious issues while maintaining a certain levity and humour.
一次吃饭时，我们聊到维族人在这个汉族为主的大城市中所面临的歧视。 一些食客提到找酒店很困难，因为当地酒店经常以“没空房了”为借口拒收维吾尔族访客。有人笑称，就连维族警察也被酒店拒之门外过。卡里姆通晓多国语言，长得很像中东人；他去酒店有时会用英语跟前台讲话。前台以为他是外国人，会告诉他有空房；但是看到他身份证上写着维吾尔族之后又改口反悔。
During one of my visits, the conversation turned to the discrimination that Uighurs faced in this large, Han-majority city. Several diners mentioned the difficulty of finding accommodation, as local hotels frequently rejected Uighur visitors by claiming there were no rooms available. Even a Uighur policeman had been denied a room, someone pointed out with a laugh. Karim, a worldly polyglot who could have easily passed for a Middle Easterner, mentioned how he would sometimes go to a hotel and speak to the front-desk staff in English. Mistaking him for a foreigner, they would tell him that there were rooms available, and then backtrack after asking him for his documents and seeing the word Uighur on his Chinese identification card.
随后我发现，这种“温和”的歧视在维吾尔族人面临的问题中算最无关痛痒的。 我们那次聊天是2017年春季，那时他们的家乡新疆——超过1000万维族人的故乡——正在遭受中国政府对宗教极端主义和恐怖主义的所谓“全面攻势”。陈全国担任新疆党委书记之后不久，强硬政策就被他从西藏复制了新疆。政府把一些暴力事件当做使用武力的借口；但批评者认为这些措施真的用意是摧毁维族人的身份认同。
As would soon become clear, however, such “mild” discrimination was to be the least of the Uighurs’ problems. While the regulars at Karim’s were having this discussion in the spring of 2017, their home region of Xinjiang – home to more than 10 million ethnic Uighurs – was already being subjected to what the Chinese state described as an “all-out offensive” against religious extremism and terrorism. The hard-line policies started shortly after the appointment of Chen Quanguo as Xinjiang’s party secretary, a strongman who had previously pursued similar policies in Tibet. While the government has justified its use of force as a response to a number of violent incidents, critics have claimed the measures are aimed at destroying Uighur identity.
事情在接下来的一年中；新疆逐渐变得越来越像奥威尔书中的“警察国家”，成千上万的维吾尔族人被关进集中营里，政府称之为“再教育转化”。还有许多人被投入监狱，或者凭空消失。“再教育营”的亲历者披露了不卫生的生活条件，日常暴力、酷刑和洗脑行为。时年二月研究新疆三十年的学者詹姆斯·A·米尔沃德（James A Millward）在纽约时报撰稿称：“国家对新疆的镇压在2017年初达到前所未有的程度”。
Things would worsen considerably over the coming year, as Xinjiang was turned into an Orwellian police state and hundreds of thousands of Uighurs were gradually locked away in concentration camps for what the state calls “transformation through education”. Others have been thrown in prison or “disappeared”. Witness reports of life inside the camps and detention centres have told not only of unhealthy living conditions, but also of regular violence, torture and brainwashing. Writing in the New York Times in February, James A Millward, a scholar who has researched Xinjiang for three decades, argued that the “state repression in Xinjiang has never been as severe as it has become since early 2017”.
对许多人来说，去年春天是一系列失去的开始——失去权利，失去生计，失去身份；还有人失去了生命。卡里姆这样在穆斯林国家生活过的维族人尤其容易成为政府镇压对象。今年早些时候我回那一带，有人告诉我卡里姆被铐走丢进集中营；“经过长时间的繁重劳动后”，他死了。
For many, last spring would mark the start of a period of great loss – the loss of rights, livelihoods and identities. Some would also lose their lives. Karim was particularly vulnerable, as Uighurs like him, who have lived abroad in Muslim-majority countries, have been especially targeted in the government crackdown. When I returned to the neighbourhood earlier this year, I was told that Karim had been handcuffed, taken away and jailed – and that he had “died after prolonged heavy labour”.
这是较为体面的说法。也可以说，他被国家谋杀了。
At least, that’s the politically proper way of putting it. You could also say that he was murdered by the state.
从国家层面上，所有对在疆政策的批评都被遭到封杀。 今年年初，外交部发言人华春莹表示，对维吾尔族人受到虐待的担忧是“不合理的”，批评等于“干涉中国内政”。 在去年夏天一份“可圈可点”的声明中，新疆自治区委外宣办副主任艾力提•沙力也夫甚至暗示“世界上最幸福的穆斯林生活在新疆”。
The state, for its part, has shut down all criticism of its actions in Xinjiang. Earlier this year, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, declared that concerns about the mistreatment of the Uighurs were “unjustified” and criticism amounted to “interference in China’s internal affairs”. In a memorable statement last summer, Xinjiang’s deputy foreign publicity director, Ailiti Saliyev, went so far as to suggest that “the happiest Muslims in the world live in Xinjiang”.
幸福不幸福，还得维吾尔族人自己说了算；但是国家一系列致力于把新疆变成信息真空的举措让外界很难听到他们的声音。记者受到的审查尤其严格；几乎任何能找到的采访对象都不敢说实话。针对驻海外的维族记者的风险和报复更显著。今年二月，四名在美国自由亚洲电台工作的维吾尔族人了解到他们在新疆的一些近亲被拘留。 《华盛顿邮报》写道：“显然，这是对他们所写报导的恐吓或惩罚。”
While it is probably best to let the Uighurs speak for themselves regarding their happiness, hearing their voices has been difficult, given the state’s determined efforts to turn Xinjiang into an information vacuum. Journalists, in particular, have been under very heavy scrutiny, with anyone they have managed to interview often too scared to speak honestly. The risks and retributions have been significantly higher for Uighur journalists abroad. In February, four Uighurs working for Radio Free Asia in the US learned that some of their close relatives in Xinjiang had been detained. It was, wrote the Washington Post, “an apparent attempt to intimidate or punish them for their coverage”.
我今年在新疆遇到的许多外国游客都有在火车上和城市交界处的检查站被盘问的经历。两位学者告诉我，曾经他们可以自由进出的城市无缘无故不再对他们开放进入。我曾经短暂住在新疆最西边的喀什市，一个离吉尔吉斯斯坦、塔吉克斯坦和巴基斯坦边境不远的沙漠绿洲小城；很快我就呆不下去了：我住的青年旅社会以“防火”为由突然关门大吉；任何一个可能落脚的地方都把我列入了黑名单。离开新疆后，我在5000公里之外的国际贸易中心义乌住了一个月，那里离上海不远；但即使在这里，我还是因为每天与当地维族人有接触引起了特别关注。有两次，当地警察警告我要“遵守中国法律”，“不要跟坏新疆人待一起” ——换句话说，就是不要跟维族人待在一起。
Many foreign tourists I have spoken to in Xinjiang this year have reported being interrogated on the train into the region, as well as at checkpoints between cities. Two academic scholars told me stories of being denied entry or transportation to towns that have traditionally been accessible, without being provided with any real reason. While residing in Xinjiang’s westernmost city of Kashgar, an oasis town not far from the borders with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, I was effectively chased out: the hostel where I was staying was suddenly closed for “fire safety” reasons, and I found myself blacklisted at every other place that could have offered me accommodation. After leaving Xinjiang, I spent a month in Yiwu, an international trade hub about 5,000km to the east, not far from Shanghai, but even here, my daily contact with the city’s Uighur population attracted special attention. On two occasions, the local police warned me to “obey Chinese law” and to “not go hanging out with any bad Xinjiang people” – a euphemism for Uighurs.
尽管如此，由于我一边做着语言学研究、一边做着美食指南，在过去的18个月里我时常和新疆和内地的“坏新疆人”待在一起。在那期间我与数百名维吾尔族人交谈，其中大多数是男性餐馆工作人员、商人、小贩、小吃摊摊主，以及他们的家人。大多数情况下我们对政治避口不谈。即便如此，我接触过的几乎每个人都受到了新疆镇压政策的影响。如果不说这个，有时候就无话可说；所以该说还得说。
But nevertheless, between my linguistic research and the food guide, I spent the best part of 18 months precisely among those “bad Xinjiang people”, both in Xinjiang itself, and in inner China. During that time, I spoke to hundreds of Uighurs, the majority of them male restaurant workers, businessmen, small-time traders and street-food cooks, as well as their families. In the vast majority of cases, we did not talk about politics. Even so, almost everyone I talked to was affected by the repression in Xinjiang, and sometimes the only alternative to talking about it would have been not talking at all – and so we talked.
在给我自己的观察作总结时，我意识到我终究不能代表人说话；这些故事当然应该由他们自己讲，在一个没有恐惧的环境中里自由地讲出来。不过，我希望我所描绘的景象，能让读者一睹在新疆和内地的维族人是如何面对现状的。
In synthesising what I have observed, I realise that I ultimately cannot speak for the Uighurs – that task should of course be left to the Uighurs themselves, in an environment that is free of fear. Still, I hope the image I present will allow the reader a glimpse of how the Uighurs in Xinjiang and the rest of China are reacting to the present situation.
在新疆的某条小巷里有一家我特别喜欢的小餐馆，有鸽肉烤串和可口的奶茶；只要在附近，我就尽可能来吃一顿。上一次去的时候，我为太久没有到访向主人道歉；老板不仅没有生气，还对我留=仍在新疆表示惊讶。 “我以为你早就回自己的国家了！”他告诉我。
On a certain alley in Xinjiang stands a diner I particularly like, popular for its pigeon shish kebab and milk tea. I would always try to stop there when I was in the neighbourhood. The last time I did, I came with apologies, having not visited for a long time. But, far from being angry, the owner was just surprised that I was still in the region. “I was sure that you had gone back to your country,” he told me.
那时候据我们再上次见面已近一年；时过境迁。他的大部分员工，差不多十几个人，都被送回了南疆；有的被“再教育”，有的被关在家乡。烤串、茶香和大部分客人全都烟消云散。老板说，现在会做维族菜的人很少了，想换新人都找不到。
Almost a year had passed since our previous meeting, and a lot had changed. Most of his staff, about 10 of them in all, had been forced to return to their hometowns in southern Xinjiang, either for “re-education” or for “hometown arrest”. Gone were the shish kebabs and the tea, together with most of the clientele. Uighur kitchen staff were extremely scarce now, the owner said, and it was almost impossible to find substitutes.
我问起老板的侄子，我的另一位老朋友。我问起他的近况，却被告知他因为在中东待过一年，现在已经入狱。 “我们都很心碎，”店主坦言道。
I asked him about his nephew – another old friend – but was told that he was in jail for having previously spent a year in a Middle Eastern country. “Our mood is shattered,” the owner admitted to me.
这种明显消沉的负面情绪在我接触到的维族小生意人中清晰可见。一般来说，维族人认为闲聊时抱怨私人生活是很不体面的做法；但最近每当我问起他们过的怎么样时，听到的回答往往是“不太好”，“生意不行”。去年我碰见一位以前的导游，我说他比起之前消瘦了很多，；他说，“我们大家这一年都瘦了不少。”
This sense of gloom was also evident in the frank negativity I started to notice in many Uighur business-owners. While Uighurs generally consider it bad etiquette to complain when asked how they are doing, more and more often in recent times, I heard people telling me that things were “not that great” because “business was horrible”. When I ran into a tour guide acquaintance last year, I remarked to him that he had got really thin since I had last seen him. “We’ve all got really thin this past year,” he told me.
恐惧感无处不在，如影随形。在喀什某天晚上，我看着五六个警察问都没问就当着他妻儿的面从街上拖走一个醉汉，只因为他在公众场合挥舞胳膊。在内地餐馆打工的年轻维吾尔族人可能前一天还无忧无虑，第二天就愁容满面：警察已经通知他们必须立刻离开，他们即将踏上三四天之久的回乡列车。
Equally pervasive was the constant sense of fear. On one evening in Kashgar, I watched five or six police snatch a drunken man off the streets just for waving his arms, without asking any questions, and even though he was with his wife and son. In inner China, young restaurant workers could seem relaxed one day and then visibly worried the next: it would emerge that the police had given them orders to go back to their hometowns in Xinjiang immediately – a three- or four-day train journey for most.
还有一种恐惧是害怕遭到监控。有一次，我在中国东部一家餐厅和经理坐下聊天，不可避免地谈到这个话题，我对他描述了新疆如今的压迫有多么严重，我告诉他我一个朋友因为持有“错误”书籍而被判处十年监禁。我刚提到“监狱”一词，经理的头就对着我们背后桌子的方向小幅度摆动。“那里坐了个警察！”他低声说道，然后就站起来走开了。
There was also the fear of always being watched. Once I sat down with a manager of a restaurant in eastern China and, unable to avoid the topic, spoke to him about how oppressive things had become in Xinjiang, telling him about a friend who had been sentenced to a decade in jail for owning the “wrong” books. No sooner did I say the word “jail” than the manager’s head began to twitch in the direction of the table behind ours. “There’s a policeman here!” he whispered, before standing up and walking away.
出于对自身安全的担忧，很多维吾尔族人删除了中国（受严密监控的）微信应用上的所有外国联系人。去年某一天，我尝试见一个把我删了的新疆朋友，我通过一个中间人进行联系，然后再面谈。现在回想起来，我真希望自己没有这么做。我们一起吃的午饭沉默且尴尬。有很多话可以说，但感觉每件事都会触碰禁忌，有好几分钟我们都是完全沉默地坐在那里。似乎没有人在监视我们，但我的朋友看起来还是很担心。当我递给他一本我正在写的书的样稿时，他瞥了一眼但没有翻看。当我问他我们双方都认识的朋友是否还在时，他告诉我他已经“不认识”那个人了，然后补了一句：“我现在甚至都不认识你了。”
Concerned for their safety, many Uighurs have deleted all foreign contacts on China’s (highly monitored) WeChat app. At one point last year, I made an effort to see a friend in Xinjiang who had deleted me, by first getting in touch through a proxy, and then meeting in person. In retrospect, I almost wish I hadn’t. Our lunch together was silent and awkward. There was so much to say, but everything felt taboo, and there were whole minutes when we just sat there in silence. It didn’t seem like anyone was monitoring us, but my friend looked worried all the same. When I passed him samples of a book I was working on, he cast them a glance but didn’t flip through the pages. When I asked him if a mutual acquaintance of ours was still around, he told me that he “didn’t know” that person anymore, before adding: “Right now, I don’t even know you.”
在谈到新疆的状况时，通常要用委婉语。目前为止最常用的词是“yoq”，意思是“消失”或者“不在了”。“你能明白我的意思吗？”一位朋友曾经问我，我当时想搞清楚他和我提到的某个人发生了什么。“那人yoq了。他现在有了另外一个家。”
When talking about the situation in Xinjiang, it is standard to use euphemisms. The most common by far is the word yoq, which means “gone” or “not around”. “Do you get what I’m saying?” a friend asked me once, as I tried to figure out what had happened to a person he was telling me about. “That guy is yoq. He’s got another home now.”
“Adem yoq ”（“所有人都不在了”）是我过去一年听到最多的一个词。它通常用来形容员工、客户或是其他人的缺席。当谈到那些被迫返乡的人（在家乡被逮捕、关进集中营或是更糟），通常会说他们“回家了”。
The phrase adem yoq (“everybody’s gone”) is the one I’ve heard the most this past year. It has been used to describe the absence of staff, clients and people in general. When referring to people who have been forced to return to their hometowns (for hometown arrest, camp or worse), it is typical to say that they “went back home”.
集中营自然也不会被叫做“集中营”。据说那里的人们忙于“学习”（oqushta/öginishte）或是“教育”(terbiyileshte)，或者有时候可以说是“在上学”（mektepte）。
The concentration camps are not referred to as “concentration camps”, naturally. Instead, the people there are said to be occupied with “studying” (oqushta/öginishte) or “education” (terbiyileshte), or sometimes may be said to be “at school” (mektepte).
与之类似，人们在谈论新疆的整体形势时，也不会使用“压迫”这样的词汇。而是倾向于说“weziyet yaxshi emes”（形势不好），或是描述新疆很“ching”（“严”、“紧”）。
Likewise, people do not use words like “oppression” when talking about the overall situation in Xinjiang. Rather, they tend to say “weziyet yaxshi emes” (“the situation isn’t good”), or describe Xinjiang as being very “ching” (“strict”, “tight”).
即便用了委婉语，我们还是无法逃避实际发生的事情。当我和一位中国内地的老朋友聊天时，我意识到想要避免这个话题是多么难，我尽可能避免讨论政治，而是聊一些普通甚至是平淡的事情。但事实证明这并不可能。我问他那天早些时候都做了些什么时，他提到那个城市所有维吾尔族人都必须参加的政治会议。当我问他业余时间是否还尝试读书时，他告诉我警方也在打击这种行为，读任何书都会引起不必要的注意。当我问他对未来的期望时，他告诉我，理想情况下，他想成为一名土耳其菜厨师，开一家自己的餐馆，但不幸的是，哪怕是这样的行为也会让他在新疆入狱，因为这个国家正在持续打击和摧毁任何维吾尔族与海外其他突厥语和穆斯林人们之间的联系。
Despite the euphemisms, there is no getting away from what is actually happening. It hit me just how unavoidable the topic was when, while chatting with an old friend in inner China, I made a genuine effort to avoid politics and talk about more normal or even mundane things. It proved impossible. When I asked him what he had done earlier that day, he brought up a political meeting that all the Uighurs in that city had to attend. When I asked him if he still tried to read books in his spare time, he told me that the police had cracked down on that, too, and that reading any book would invite unwanted attention. When I asked him about his aspirations for the future, he told me that, ideally, he would love to become a chef of Turkish food and open up his own restaurant, but, unfortunately, that act alone would get him jailed in Xinjiang, as the state continues to discourage and destroy all contact between the Uighurs and other Turkic and Muslim peoples abroad.
有好几次，我遇到的人似乎已经走到了绝望的境地，只想把一切都说出来。第一次经历这种情况是去年秋天在喀什，一位身穿制服的公安人员——南疆级别最低、穿制服的官员多是维族人——在一家茶馆中邀请我坐在他对面。他当天下午没有执勤，之前刚刚做完体检。
On a few occasions, I encountered people who seemed to have reached a degree of desperation, and just wanted to let everything out. The first such time was in Kashgar, in autumn last year, when a uniformed public-security worker – the mostly Uighur, lowest-rank uniformed authority in southern Xinjiang – invited me to sit across from him at a table in a teahouse. He was off duty that afternoon, having just returned from a medical checkup.
接下来的谈话让人提心吊胆。他问我对维吾尔族的历史了解多少，又问我对维吾尔族作为一个民族的看法。后一个问题我在新疆生活的几年中曾被多次问到，这种问题经常让我觉得是一种试图通过寻找某种外部证据来验证维吾尔族身份认同的方式。我不知如何回答，试图糊弄过去：“维吾尔族和其他民族一样，有好有坏。”
The conversation that followed was tense. He asked me what I knew of Uighur history, and then asked me what I thought of the Uighurs as a people. The latter question is one I have been asked several times during my years in Xinjiang, and has often struck me as a way of searching for some sort of outside verification of Uighurs’ identity. Unsure of how to reply, I tried to be noncommittal: “The Uighurs are a people like any other, with their good and bad.”
“你隐瞒了自己的真实想法，”他对我直言，“看看你周围。你自己（在喀什）看到了。我们这个民族被摧毁了。”
“You’re hiding what you really think,” he confronted me. “Just look all around you. You’ve seen it yourself [here in Kashgar]. We’re a people destroyed.”
因为我对中国穿制服的人普遍不信任，我当时不想分享任何政治观点，但我后来意识到我们之间的对话是一个真正绝望的时刻。我相信他说的话是真诚的。他执勤的岗位距离喀什夜市很近，但在我们见面之后的几天，我再也没在那里见过他，也没有在别的地方见过他，再也没有。
Given my general distrust of uniformed people in China, I wasn’t ready to share any political views at the time, but have since come to see our conversation as a true moment of desperation. His words, I believe, were genuine. His post was close to Kashgar’s night market, but as of a few days after our meeting, I never saw him there, or anywhere else, ever again.
另一段让我铭记的对话发生在中国内地，当时我去了一家之前去过几次的餐馆。除了一名服务员，其他老员工都不见了。那名服务员一见到我，就放下手头的一切坐来下和我聊天。我告诉他我被从喀什赶出来的事情似乎刺激了他，他后来跟我说了很多那里的情况，几乎所有的内容都属于禁忌。
The other conversation that will always stay with me took place in inner China, while visiting a restaurant I had been to a few times before. With the exception of a single waiter, all of the old staff were gone. As soon as that waiter saw me, he dropped everything to sit down and chat. My telling him that I had been kicked out of Kashgar seemed to trigger him, and he would go on to say many things about the situation there, virtually all of them taboo.
他告诉我，“数百万维吾尔族人”被关押在集中营里，他们在那里吃着15年前的陈米，遭受殴打。（确切数字很难核实，但是目击者的证词确认了集中营内存在营养不良和暴力。）他说，在这个中国内地城市的维吾尔族人如今必须要参加政治会议，他们可能很快就要参加政治科目测试，考查十九大等内容。没有通过的人会被送回新疆。
“Millions of Uighurs” were being held in camps, he told me, where they were being fed 15-year-old leftover rice and subjected to beatings. (Precise numbers are hard to verify, but witness testimonies have confirmed both poor nutrition and violence in the camps.) He said that the Uighurs in this inner-China city now had to attend political meetings, and that they might soon have to take a test on political subjects such as the 19th party congress. Those who didn’t pass would be sent back to Xinjiang.
“警察和我们交谈的时候，”他说，“他们对什么都充满怀疑：‘你抽烟吗？你喝酒吗？’如果你不抽烟、不喝酒，他们会问为什么。他们会问你是否祈祷。他们会问你想不想出国，或者你有没有申请或者持有过护照。如果你看着警察，他会问你看他干什么；如果你看着地面，他会问你为什么总低头看地。我们每次坐火车，都得先去一个单独的房间里检查证件、问话，然后才能出站。”
“When the police talk to us,” he said, “they are suspicious about everything: ‘Do you smoke? Do you drink?’ If you don’t, they’ll ask you why not. They’ll ask you if you pray. They’ll ask you if you want to go abroad, or if you’ve previously applied for or had a passport. If you look at the policeman, he’ll ask you what you’re looking at him for; if you look down at the floor, he’ll ask you why you’re looking down at the floor. Whenever we take a train, there’s always a separate room that we have to go through before we’re allowed to leave the station, where they check our documents and question us.”
我对他如此开诚布公地与我交谈有些担心，但是他似乎明白其中的风险，又或者他已经得出了结论，无论怎样迟早会被带走。一周之后，当另一次镇压行动席卷这个城市的大量维吾尔族年轻人时，他就会被迫离开。 “回到他的家乡去。”
I worried about him talking to me so openly, but it seemed he understood the risks, or perhaps had already concluded that he was going to be taken soon anyway. When another crackdown came a week later, sweeping a good chunk of the city’s Uighur youth with it, he would be among those forced to leave. “Back to his hometown.”
我偶尔也真的遇到过那些对眼下情况有相对正面评价的人。尽管可能是我把主观判断当做事实，在我看来，这类评论绝大多数都是认知失调、斯德哥尔摩综合症和自我妄想的混合——通常表现为自相矛盾和言语背后明显缺乏信念。
Occasionally, I did encounter people who had more positive things to say about the situation. At the risk of passing off my subjectivity as fact, the vast majority of these comments struck me as marked by a mix of cognitive dissonance, Stockholm syndrome and self-delusion – often evidenced by self-contradiction and an apparent lack of conviction behind the words.
在艰难地消化着新疆的新现实之际，我和一位在新疆旅游局工作的维族朋友见了一面，这次经历是我最无法忘怀的“艰难觉醒”时刻之一。聊了一会儿之后，我提到这个城市越来越严格的安保措施，暗示我觉得这些措施有点太过头了。他也对这个新系统略有微词，他说有时候电动车才骑两三公里就会被拦下查七次证件。但是他马上补充道：“但是现在人民觉得非常安全。以前我还会担心让我的女儿自己去上学，现在我就不用担心了。”
At a time when I was still absorbing Xinjiang’s new reality, one of the hardest “rude awakening” moments came while catching up with a Uighur friend who worked in Xinjiang’s tourism industry. After chatting for a bit, I remarked on the city’s increasingly intense security procedures, in a manner that suggested that I found it all over the top. He, too, had his complaints about the new system, saying how he would be forced to stop and have his ID checked seven times while travelling just 2-3km on his electric scooter. Still, he was quick to add: “But the people all feel really safe now. Before, I used to worry about letting my daughter go to school alone, but now I don’t have to worry.”
鉴于我们只是面对面交谈，那些几乎听起来像提前排练好的说辞让我震惊。他接着说，这一切都是为了保护人民免受恐怖主义之害，而且只要俄罗斯和美国抓紧打败ISIS（伊斯兰国），一切就都会结束。但是当我说我认为这些措施对打击恐怖主义没什么帮助的时候，他又立刻表示同意。
Those words – which almost sounded prepared – stunned me, given that we were just speaking one-on-one. He then went on to say that this was all to protect the people from terrorism, and that as soon as Russia and the US hurried up and defeated Isis, all of this would be over. However, when I said that I didn’t think that terrorism could be defeated with force like this, he was quick to agree with that as well.
另一个城市的一位朋友向我抱怨当地警察对维吾尔族人如何任意检查。我还记得他当时很是气愤，说这些警察们表现得好像他们本身就是法律一样。但是他还是补充说，大部分政府高层还是好的。
Another friend in another city complained to me about the arbitrary inspections that the local police carried out with regard to the Uighurs. I still remember how angry he got as he talked – saying that the individual policemen acted like they were the law – but nevertheless added that the upper layers of the government were good.
去年十月份十九大召开期间，网上出现了一个奇怪的现象，我许多普通话都不怎么会说的维吾尔族朋友突然开始用流利的普通话发长帖，表扬习近平和党代会。几个月之后，我听说有一款微信应用，用户把自己的名字嵌在一个提前写好的中文或者维语声明中，以此“发声亮剑”（“表明一个态度; 坚定一种立场”，或者更直接的翻译就是：“大胆发言并拔出利剑”）。声明中承诺忠于共产党及其领导人，并表达了他们坚持“民族和谐”和反对恐怖主义的立场。 他们可以通过这个应用将生成的图像轻松地发布在社交网络上以示忠诚。
A curious phenomenon took place online at the time of the 19th party congress last October, when Uighur friends who hardly spoke any Mandarin suddenly started posting long messages in fluent Mandarin praising Xi Jinping and the congress. A few months later, I heard about a WeChat app that allowed users to “fasheng liangjian” (“to clearly demonstrate one’s stance” or, literally, “to speak forth and flash one’s sword”), by plugging their name into a prepared Mandarin- or Uighur-language statement. The statement pledged their loyalty to the Communist party and its leaders, and expressed, among other things, their determination in upholding “ethnic harmony” and standing opposed to terrorism. The generated image file could then be readily posted on their social network of choice as a show of loyalty.
在我去过的许多中国内地餐馆里，这种忠诚往往不是口头表达的，而是非常直观的。 我维吾尔族餐馆通常是整条街道上唯一覆盖着中国国旗的餐馆，偶尔还有红色横幅宣告打击恐怖主义的决心。 有时，室内装饰也会有小国旗，还有习近平的照片或带有他图像的装饰性盘子，或者“民族和谐”的口号，比如那些呼吁中国各民族“像石榴籽一样紧紧抱在一起”的口号。 一些餐馆的前台上甚至摆放着关于习近平和党的维吾尔语书籍。 我从未问过这些展示是自愿的还是法律规定的，但是我怀疑就像中国整个审查系统一样，这也是两者混合，一部分是出于自发，一部分是被迫。
In many of the inner-China restaurants I visited, this loyalty was much more visual than verbal. As a rule, Uighur restaurants would be the only ones on their street covered with Chinese flags and, occasionally, red banners proclaiming a determined struggle against terrorism. Sometimes, the interiors too would have little flags, as well as photos of Xi or plates bearing his image, or “ethnic harmony” slogans such as those calling for all of China’s ethnic groups to be “as tight as seeds in a pomegranate”. Some restaurants even had Uighur-language books about Xi and the party at the front counter. I never asked if such demonstrations were voluntary or mandated by the law, but suspect that, like China’s censorship in general, they were a mix of the two – some being anticipatory, some being forced.
顺从和妥协看起来也确实让一些人避免了被关进集中营、坐牢的遭遇。还有其他一些因素尽管不能打包票，但也多少有用，比如财富、人际关系、汉族伴侣和接受过中文教育。除此之外，很多人跟我说他们曾经通过贿赂警察和官员来避免护照被没收，避免被遣送回乡。这是这个几乎铁板一块的系统上的一条裂缝。
Obedience and appeasement appear to have saved some people from the camps and prisons. Other factors – money, connections, Han-Chinese spouses and a formal Chinese education – although never an ironclad guarantee, appear to help also. Beyond that, bribing police or officials to avoid having one’s passport confiscated or being sent back to one’s hometown is an option that several people I spoke to had taken – a crack in a system that often feels hopelessly inescapable.
然而，对于大多数人来说，拘留和对拘留的恐惧已成为日常生活中不可避免的事实。 可以说大多数人只是在忍受并且“蹒跚而行”。 尽管亲戚失踪，财务受损，以及担心有一天可能轮到他们，我的许多朋友和熟人还是尽可能只专注于如何谋生，并继续只专注于此。 对许多人来说，现在最重要的是他们孩子的未来。 那些没有孩子的人则关注更简单和更具体的目标，比如从大学毕业，找工作或者买房子。
For the majority, however, the detentions and the fear of detention have become an unavoidable fact of daily life. Most, I would say, cope by simply enduring and “plodding along”. Despite the missing relatives, the financial losses and the fear that one day soon it could be their turn to go, many of my friends and acquaintances have done their best to focus on how they earn their livelihood, and to continue doing just that. For many, what seems most important now is their children’s future. Those without children are focusing on simpler and more concrete goals, such as graduating from university, finding a job or buying an apartment.
我一位朋友在中国内地开一家小商店，最近当地警方以“没有中文标签”为由没收了好几柜子的进口商品。他告诉警方自己不舒服，要提前关店，这才阻止了他们没有没收更多东西。 由于一半的货架空置而且业务急剧下滑，他相信商店不久以后也只能关门大吉了。
One friend manages a small shop in inner China where local police have recently confiscated entire shelves of import products for “not having Chinese labels”. He was able to stop them from confiscating more, he says, by telling them that he wasn’t feeling well and had to close the shop. With half the shelves empty and business having seen a sharp decline, he believes that it won’t be long now before the store is closed.
但是，尽管他描述着这个国家如何开始不分青红皂白地针对年轻维吾尔族男人，他还是说他不害怕。 “我在生活中已经经历了很多。 如果他们要来抓我 ，那就来吧。 该发生的总会发生。”
But, even as he describes how the state has started to target young Uighur men indiscriminately, he says he is not afraid. “I’ve already experienced a lot in life. So if they come and arrest me – fine. Whatever happens, happens.”
在谈到眼下的大环境的时候，他采取了一种更宽广、更宏大的视角。 “这是对穆斯林世界的考验，”他说。 “如果你看一下叙利亚或其它地方正在发生的事情，就会发现整个穆斯林世界正在接受考验。 但是真主知道正在发生的一切。 我们只需要度过考验。“由于现在祈祷已经基本被完全禁止，他找到了一些不会被政府注意到的方式，比如坐在椅子上偷偷地祈祷，或者在人行道边的树下祈祷。
When talking of the situation in general, he takes a broader, grander view. “This is a trial for the Muslim world right now,” he says. “If you look at what’s happening in Syria, or in other places, the Muslim world as a whole is undergoing a test. But Allah knows everything that’s happening. We just have to get through this.” With praying all but forbidden for the Uighurs, he has found ways that the authorities won’t notice, such as praying covertly while sitting in a chair, or praying under one of the trees that line the sidewalk.
对于其他人来说，希望只是存在于必然之中。许多维吾尔族人告诉我“事情会很快好起来”，却没有给出任何理由为什么相信这一点。 有些人似乎认为朋友或亲戚将在不久的将来就会被释放，“因为他们已经被关押了这么多月”。 还有的人似乎认为，一旦“恐怖主义被打败”，就会恢复正常。 在那些已经失去了大部分员工的中国内地维吾尔餐厅，我被告知员工会“在完成学业后很快回来”。
For others, hope exists simply by necessity, and many Uighurs have told me that “things will get better soon” without offering any reason for believing this. Some seem to think that a friend or relative will be released in the near future “because they’ve been held for so many months already”. Others seem to think that the situation will revert to normal “once terrorism is defeated”. In some of the conversations I have had in inner China’s Uighur restaurants – which, again, have lost huge portions of their staff – I have been told that the staff would “come back soon after finishing their education”.
然而时间对这些乐观的声音无疑是残酷的。几个月变成了一年，甚至更久，而被拘禁的人们还被拘禁着，那些餐馆员工和客人仍然在不断流失，情况仍在继续恶化。
But time has been cruel to these optimistic voices. As the months have turned into a year, and more, the people interned are still interned, the restaurants are losing ever more staff and clients, and the situation only continues to worsen.