Leisure weekend life in Urumqi -- hope overwhelming fear
- Source: Xinhua
- [07:47 July 20 2009]
- Comments
In the Shengli Street several blocks away from Erdaoqiao, the Arman Supermarket, which is famous for selling local Uygur food and grocery, reopened on July 10. The closing time was rescheduled from 23:00 to 20:00.
The number of customers was no more than that of the supermarket workers in blue uniforms even on Sunday.
Mosques opened to prayers as usual. Shoes lined outside the gate of Baida Mosque in downtown Urumqi. Afternoon prayer has already started, but people kept trotting in.
In Hongshiyue community, one of the city's largest residential areas, old men were chatting under trees and kids were playing around.
In an internet caf opposite to the Hongshiyue community, TanJiding, a sales representative from a pharmaceutical company in Guangdong Province, was watching American soap opera Friends provided by the caf.
"Having no access to the internet here is really inconvenient. I cannot send e-mails to friends and customers or play online games," he said.
Text message service in Xinjiang was also intercepted. Tan said he cannot receive information from his company timely as most of the company notices were sent to him by text message.
"It seemed to me that I finally have enough time to watch the movies and TV series I had always wanted to watch," Tan said.
On a street still under traffic control, one pick-up was shuttling back and forth slowly with speakers repeatedly broadcasting a government appeal in mandarin and Uygur alternatively, calling for ethnic unity and social stability.
Outside the Tuanjie Huanyuan (Unity Garden) community, a notice issued by local authorities urging the public to report criminal suspects involved in the July 5 riot was pasted on a poster board side by side with an employment advertisement handwritten in Uygur.
Red banners with Chinese and Uygur slogans were seen everywhere, calling on the public to "exercise restraint and do not believe in rumors" and "remain sober minded and do not be misled by enemies."
As life gradually returned to normal in the city, those traumatized in the riot were struggling to walk out of the nightmare memory.
"I didn't sleep well in the first week. What happened then kept coming to my mind. Now it's getting better," said Wang Shouchun, who was taken to the No. 23 Hospital in downtown Urumqi on the night of July 5.
Forty three-year-old Wang was beaten by rioters with clubs and stones and had a broken rib and head and kidney injuries. "As I'm getting better day by day, I feel much more calm now," he said.
Experts said that over the past two weeks, victims had experienced dramatic emotional fluctuations.
"From being terrified, to numbness, anger, panic, insomnia and relative calmness.. The victims are getting better both physically and mentally," said Meng Xinzhen, a mental health expert.