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Teacher's saga in riots: ethnic unity prevails

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-08 21:47

URUMQI: Sporting a dark blue long-sleeved shirt, Zhao Mindong was reluctant to show his arms wounded at the deadly violence that erupted in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday.

"I'm OK," Zhao said in a mild voice, sitting at the meeting room on the fourth floor of the Snow Lotus Hotel in Urumqi, "they are just minor injuries."

Zhao, a 33-year-old maths teacher, traveled two days across more than 3,600 kilometers by train and arrived in Urumqi from Shanghai on July 2 to escort 320 Uygur students studying in Nanhui High School in east China's Shanghai City.

Zhao said he could hardly believe he would run into such violence, which ripped through the city Sunday night, during his first visit to the region.

"I sat with my students from Xinjiang on the train, talking day and night about the picturesque scenes and local customs," Zhao said, "I had thought to go to Altay, sightseeing with my wife, who flew to Urumqi to join me on July 4."

All the 78 students Zhao taught in two classes at Nanhui High School are of Uygur ethnic groups from across Xinjiang.

When Zhao and his wife left for the Great Bazaar, downtown areas mainly inhabited by ethnic minority groups in southern Urumqi, on Sunday night, they did not know that deadly violence was brewing.

"My wife and I took a taxi for the Great Bazaar, planning to buy some local specialties like raisins before leaving for Altay the next day," Zhao recollected, "our taxi driver was 30-something and of Uygur ethnicity, and we talked in a friendly way."

The taxi drove to Tuanjie Road at around 8:00 p.m. Sunday, but was unable to go further.

"My taxi driver knew something was happening ahead and he asked us to roll up the window," Zhao said, "Then about seven to eight rioters wielding wooden rods and rocks besieged our taxi. Our driver got out and tried to stop them, but failed."

The rioters pulled Zhao and his wife out of the taxi and beat them with wooden rods studded with pitons. Zhao's glasses were broken, his shirt was torn apart and his watch was stolen.

"A 40-something ordinary woman of Uygur ethnicity by the side came up and tried to stop the mob. She helped us up to the roadside and told us to 'run for it' in Mandarin Chinese," Zhao paused, then continued, "Another cluster of rioters ran at us again. Other Uygur compatriots at the roadside patted us on our shoulders and hinted quietly the direction of a safe lane for us to hide."

Zhao hid in the downstairs of a community building, which was home to Uygur ethnic groups and asked for help but he could not understand the Uygur dialect spoken by people around him.

With his mobile phone, Zhao called Ilharti Imin, one of his Uygur students in Aksu City, for help. Zhao and Imin last saw each other only three days before as the students went back home from Shanghai for summer holidays.

"Through the translation by Imin, a Uygur couple in their 20s opened the door and led my wife and I, along with two other frightened women of Han ethnicity, into their home on the sixth floor until the condition turned safe," Zhao recalled, "though I didn't understand the language they spoke and I was a stranger here, it will be easy for me to find the building and the doorplate."

Zhao and his wife were later saved by police and escorted to Urumqi City Hospital of Chinese Traditional Medicine for treatment.

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