Looking like an uighur

[ai_ya]

Hi, I just read the post about the police in some province looking for uighurs causing trouble in the region - and I have a slight concern. I kind of look uighur [black hair, black eyebrows, short, tanned skin] etc, because my dad's side has middle-eastern heritage I suppose, but in China I was mistaken for an uighur or someone from Xinjiang 70% of the time [other uighurs would actually wave at me and start speaking to me] which was good in a way, but also bad because people didn't want to talk to me or thought I was a thief or something. Now I was wondering, could this cause problems because of the tightening on visas etc? I'm considering renewing my passport because I look nothing like that anymore. Was just wondering if anybody has any similar experiences or stories to share about funny treatment because of appearances?

Thanks!

[Entropy_Rising]

Looking like an Uyghur won't cause any troubles for you from an official document standpoint. You're not a Chinese citizen and your name probably doesn't look like a Uyghur name. The fact that you get mistaken for a Uyghur all the time is just one of those funny latent racisms of most Han that automatically ascribe non-Han and non-Western (i.e. blond hair blue eyes) as Uyghurs or Xinjiangren. In my time in China I've been with many Americans or Westerners with pale skin and completely non-Central Asian features who get accused of being Uyghurs and Xinjiang people because they don't have blond hair and blue eyes and aren't tall like all Westerners are supposed to have. "Xinjiangren" has become the default category for all obviously non-Han people in China who also don't fit into the simplistic expectations about what Westerners are supposed to look like.

(Disclaimer: I've spent my time in China usually away from the more internationally accustomed centers of the East Coast)

But yeah, it won't be a problem. Or rather, given the state of visa restrictions right now, it won't ADD to the the problems.

[roddy]

You don't have any visa hassles as such, but in the current pre-Olympics paranoia I wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself getting stopped and asked to account for yourself. But as long as you have your passport handy and everything is in order it'll be more of an annoyance than anything else.

[Entropy_Rising]

Oh yeah, also: I've lived in Xinjiang for a while. I'm of Southeast Asian background so my physical appearance rests between the more racially indistinct Han Chinese and the more Sinified looking Uyghurs (Uyghurs have a really broad range of appearances, I've seen several Uyghurs in the most Uyghur neighborhoods who could pass completely as Chinese, and I've also seen Chinese who could easily disguise themselves as Uyghurs).

During my time in Xinjiang people would mistake me both for a Uyghur and for a Chinese person (when the latter happened people would guess I was from Guangdong or Fujian). I thought about it for a while and I eventually realized how people would make decisions about my ethnicity, despite the fact that physically I'm middle of the road: it's the clothes. It's all in the clothes. Uyghurs both in Xinjiang and throughout China often tend to dress in this sort of pseudo-Soviet style with dark colored slacks, snappy, polished black shoes, matching suit jackets or blazers, and either a flat cap, fedora, or doppa (here's the first example I culled from Flickr). Chinese people in their 20s and 30s tend to wear Western style (or, as was often the case in Xinjiang, really poor imitation of Western styles, or extremely retro styles that were popular in the 80s). So, whenever I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, which was far more often, I would also be labeled as a Chinese, whereas the few times in the winter I hauled out my Soviet looking trenchcoat or decided to go a little more formal with a flat cap I purchased, I would be spoken to in Uyghur.

In the East, or wherever you live, if there's going to be any sort of racial profiling going on based on whether or not one looks like a Uyghur, clothes will play a role. Most Uyghurs from the countryside and more culturally conservative young Uyghurs dress in the Soviet style I described above. Less "threatening" (in the eyes of the guo an bu) minkaohan Uyghurs will be decked out like L.A. rappers. As for you, I think if you're not wearing a doppa or if you don't have an affinity for Soviet styles of dressing, then you won't find yourself bothered alot.

[muyongshi]

I don't look anything like a person from xinjiang yet people ask if I am all the time. For me it has to do with the fact that I speak Chinese but it's not perfect (By any means or stretch of the imagination) and so in their words I speak like a xinjiang person (which I doubt is actually true) but to them it's the only logical explanation.

[gougou]

Don't quite understand, do you actually look Uighur (like you say in the beginning of your post) or not (like you say towards the end)? And are you afraid of being harrassed in China, or just of not getting a visa based on your passport picture?

[ai_ya]

Hi, sorry for not being clearer, what I meant was I don't like my passport photo anymore [but I still look like an uyghur], I was just wondering if there is more likely to be even more hassle about this because of the olympics.

[Luobot]

I don't like my passport photo anymore

I guess you mean you don't *look* like your photo, in which case, consider updating it so that you can eliminate one potential area of misunderstanding with the authorities, and keep your passport handy at all times.

As to whether you might be racially profiled in China, I can't say, but it exists almost everywhere else in the world, regardless of whether there are laws to the contrary, so I wouldn't rule it out from happening in China.

Edited July 21, 2008 at 12:31 AM by Luobot
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