The uyghurs are very friendly, and I am making some progress on the language. Class is really frustrating because I rarely understand anything, but it's slowly getting better. UYghur has some really strange verb indirectness that is completely confusing. For example, there is a verb form that is used when you are retelling something someone said that is wrong. There are 3 tenses, but about 50 verb forms based on how reliable the information or your sources you are talking about is. It's hard to wrap my mind around.
I have not spent much time around Chinese folks so I have just picked up on a lot of the bitterness that Uyghurs have for Hans. You see some interesting things in the city--the first day there was an almost riot that I saw, and there are usually police marching around with machine guns. That is different from the other cities I've been in. I don't know--I haven't really seen anything else really crazy except some yelling bouts and such.
Culture shock-wise, I am doing okay. I'm sure it will be worse when I come back to America, but I am getting frustrated with everyone thinking that I need to teach them English. I mean, I am here to learn your language, so I"m trying to not speak english as much as possible. In fact,it's pretty hard not to speak english a lot of the time because some people just won't speak Uyghur when they have an opportunity to practice english. I have taught a couple times at the english corner, but it is tiring when I have 6 hours of class a day. Someone told me i was being selfish the other day when I said I didn't have enough time. That's probably the most "culture shock" I've experienced. It's just kind of frustrating. It's hard to find people to talk to with patience to teach. There are two girls I've met who are very helpful, and about 50 other people who want to be helpful, but aren't really so helpful. The guys generally are not so helpful. One of those females--Xadatgul--invited me to her cousin's circumcision celebration party on Sunday, so I went. So at weddings and other types of toy (the general celebration term) males and females are separated at different tables. So I sat with some random guys from her family and talked to them for a while. I managed to escape only drinking one shot of that awful white alcohol. I don't have a problem with saying no, but it just gets tiring when someone does so 100 times in a row. It was interesting. I danced with this guy who I talked to most of the time. Ussul (uyghur dance) I have learned a little bit of, but I asked somone to teach me. Hopefully I will be able to soon. Women dance very beautifully here. It's like every single one too. People at the party had no idea who I was, or what I was doing there. They thought I was Azerbaijani, or something. I can't pull off being Uyghur because I have blue eyes (and because I dress differently).
On saturday, I went to this SOS childrens home with the Uyghurs from the english corner. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but I still don't know what it was like. I couldn't understand most of the speaker, and there were about 3 kids there that we were able to talk to. Theywere somewhat absorbed in watching a dvd. There was an older guy there who looked kind of like an indie rockstar. Afterwards, we climbed some mountain and I could see the city from above for the first time. Got the first real glimpse of the mountains after being in a kind of dirty, smoggy city. We ate lunch and then climbed another mountain. It was nice and we had some kind of party on top by singing and dancing. Afterwards, the guy told me that I was going to stay at his home that night. I felt kind of strange about that, but I just went ahead with it. Many people have said that to me, and I wasn't really sure how to respond. But I called him that night and we went to his home and his wife cooked very oily polo for dinner. They had a 2 year old son who was cute. This other student came and stayed to. That guy snored so much that I couldn't sleep though. Kind of unfortunate. Uyghurs are very hospitable, though.
I gotta get to class so I will go. Sorry about the lack of updates. It's a pain to get to the internet sometimes, and I'm always dead tired.
