By GAI ZAO and HAN HUA
Religious Correspondents
URUMQI (China Daily Show) — A Uyghur teen’s open letter to her missing family, citing a dislike of having to get up every day at 4am and help erase her own culture, has gone viral on social media, sparking renewed concerns about re-education camps in western China’s Xinjiang region.
Kahar Hassan’s note, pleading not to attend any more sessions of indoctrination and ethnic cleansing during the forthcoming summer vacation, was published last week on BuzzFeed, forcing millions of millennials to briefly skim the headline.
“This Uyghur Kid Wrote a Letter Saying She Doesn’t Want to Go to Concentration Summer Camp Any More, And It’s Everything,” the site declared, citing the teen’s desperate note, which was first sneaked over the border, and published on a Turkmenistan human-rights site, before getting pinched by BuzzFeed.
“I know everyone think it’s summer camp, and that’s just what all the other parents are forced to do, and other families literally have no choice except to attend camp, and all that,” wrote 15-year-old Kahar Hassan. “But I’d rather just work on rebuilding my own identity and having my values disabused at home. Not back there. Please. Not back there again.”
Chinese authorities first whisked Kahar away on a surprise eight-month desert retreat last year, where she and her classmates attended mandatory lessons on why every aspect of her religion and culture were a hideous abomination to Chinese society.
Kahar is just one of thousands of young Chinese-Uighurs separated from their parents, and sent to obscure locations to enjoy years of indoctrination, BuzzFeed informed its bored readers.
Many never return, and neighbouring Islamic governments have so far refused to acknowledge the purpose or existence of such establishments. Nevertheless, Kahar hopes that some kind Xinjiang official, with arbitrary powers over Uyghur teens, might think twice in future before sending others to so-called “Chinese summer camps” in future.
“Next year, I’d prefer it if my parents — if they are ever allowed to return from wherever the Chinese government has kindly placed them — send me to stay in some wood cabin near a lake, perhaps run by vindictive bullies or haunted by a vengeful spirit, next year. I might learn to lose my adolescent hopes and dreams the normal way: under intense peer pressure.
“I just want to show some burgeoning emotional interest toward an unattainable member of the opposite sex, who later publicly rejects me at the end-of-holiday dance,” Kahar wrote. “I want to endure counselors getting it on with each other, while they incessantly encourage their teenage charges to participate in an array of activities that few have any real interest in: Archery, the discus, debate club, even improv.”
The missive concludes with a haunting plea for acceptance of traditional teenage pursuits, as opposed to spending more time in a Xinjiang summer school.
“I wouldn’t even mind if there’s some creepy guy lurking in the forest nearby, wearing a mask, maybe toting a machete. Please, please — I just want to have a normal fucked-up adolescence, like all the Han Chinese kids.”
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