Discover Obstacles that Uyghurs Wrestle with daily申请“短平快” 的艰难过程

(Names of people and villages are substituted with the first letter in the names to protect privacy and prevent anyone getting into trouble)名字使用首字母代替真正姓名以保护当事人隐私

虽说脑子里有了申请资金的计划可是真正实施起来却面临很多困难。

Although I knew that it was possible to obtain the federal financial aid for M’s family workshop because one family in B village had received it for their cashmere workshop, I had not expected the process to be filled with obstacles.

先前在布亚买提村委会里聊天时，知道了驻村工作组这一政策在南疆的实施在各地部署了大量的干部 “把忠诚镌刻在大漠戈壁，把真情播撒在天山南北，把大爱奉献在广袤边疆” 【新闻联播腔...（并不...】 目的是帮助人民群众脱贫 带动村内经济发展 了解基层的一些困难等等。这些驻村干部来自全疆各个部门大多都要在村里带上一年之久，中途允许短暂回家四次。办公环境、对象、语言、食物的迥然不同对于驻村干部的工作与精神上都是一种很大的挑战。在布亚买提驻村的一位叔叔谈到 他想为村民省下理发的钱便主动向村民提出免费理发的提议 被村民否决 认为汉族人理发是“不清真的”。对于如何衡量清真与不清真，我也从未深刻的探究过，但这件小事情也足以反映出，文化、语言、宗教、习惯等差异 为驻村干部的工作又增添了难度。虽说不是非常了解驻村工作组是如何和村委协调，但是至少他们的付出还是有成效的：村里的小学有了下水，当地的羊绒纺织厂也拿到了政府的补贴和乌市企业的捐赠，村里甚至还打算建起小型的工业园区解决村里的就业问题。

When I was chatting with Han officers in the village committee at Buyamaiti, I was told that state officers were assigned to villages across the whole Xinjiang province to implement anti-poverty projects in rural southern Xinjiang and to “spread the love of the communist party.”(what the state TV would say) To me, I do think that it is helpful for the officers to be down-to-earth and get to know the people whom they vow to serve. I was told that these Han officers at Buyamaiti used to all work in Urumqi and they were only allowed to go back to Urumqi four times a year for a short duration with their families. For them, the drastic changes in environment, language, people they encounter each day, culture, food are all challenging barricades to overcome. One of the Han officers told me that he wanted to save some money for the one villager so he offered to do haircuts for him. But he refused because a haircut done by Han people is not considered “halal.”Even though I have been living in Xinjiang for 11 years, I am never quite sure how exactly people draw the line between “halal” and “non-halal” for daily actions. But this incident indeed shows that the differences in language, culture, religion, and tradition deepen the gap between the villagers and those Han officers. Even as good intentioned as offering a free haircut can lead to rejection because of the cultural difference. From my conversations with these Han officers, I realized that even though they didn’t interact with villagers as frequent as I imagined, their accomplishments were undeniable: they built sewage pipes for the elementary school in the village to replace the dry latrine; they helped a textile workshop(the one I mentioned in the first paragraph) apply for federal grants and obtained donations from big textile companies in inland China. They were even planning on developing a small industrial park near the village to alleviate the unemployment issue.

M家在翁艾日克村，于是抱着试着询问一下政策的心态便和M一起走去村里的村委会。村委会离的并不远，走之前M的爸爸用断续的汉语说 他也在知道隔壁村的纺织厂后询问过驻村工作人员，但是工作组都把们关起来睡觉，并不帮助他。虽然有过不顺利的前例，但是还是和米合日一同去了。果然上了村委会的楼，走廊里的门都紧闭着，从其中一个烟雾缭绕的屋子里走出来一个维吾尔族大叔坐在椅子上盘问我们：“你们什么目的？做什么的？” 在一阵沟通后，一些汉族干部也从房间里出来，向我们解释道他们不是不想帮助，只是他们相较于邻村，认识的人少，关系少，“无权无钱”自然无法帮助。言语中流露出一种无力感。

M lives in Wengairike village which is across a dry riverbed from Buyamaiti village. Inspired by all the good news I heard from the village committee in Buyamaiti, I decided to visit the village committee at Wengairike with M and asked for more information about the grant and maybe some assistance from the committee. Right before we left house to walk to the committee which was a mile away from M’s house, M’s father told me that he had been to the committee before but they said they didn’t have the resource to help. I still decided to go and see if having someone who can speak Mandarin well would convince the officers to help. Walking up the steps, the building was extremely quiet with all the doors slammed shut in the hallway. A Uyghur officer walked out from a smoky room and sat in front of us with a lit cigarette in his fingers: “what’s your purpose? What do you want?” While I was trying to explain my “purpose,” some Han officers walked out from their rooms and told me that they wanted to help but they simply didn’t have the resource to help. They told me that compared to the committee in Buyamaiti, they lacked the “guanxi” which means connections and resources to get the grant for M’s family.

也许是我少不更事，我认为没有人脉是一方面，但也并非什么工作都做不了。在询问申请资金需要什么资料时我和M得知 申请补贴要提供公司简介，环评，失业证明（全部资料必须用汉语填写）等等。这些资料恐怕村民们自己准备起来会感觉第一无从下手，第二他们缺少相应的语言能力与运用电脑的条件。想必驻村工作组存在的第一目的就是帮助村民们准备这些脱贫的资料，走上致富路。工作组的几个人抱怨道M的爸爸已经来过，但是他们认为“这钱是没办法随便从天上掉下来的。”

It could be because I have little experience pertaining to government affairs in China but I do think that having no connections or “Guanxi” does not necessarily equal to offering no help at all. I asked for more information about the types of grant that would suit the workshop and subsidies applicable to the employees as well. Apparently, all materials have to be filled out in Mandarin, typed out, printed out and submitted to the local government. Not only do we need to prepare a company profile but also an “environmental assessment”that is normally twenty pages long and done by experts. For a second I felt extremely hopeless not because of the workload but because these materials set such a high barrier for Uyghur villagers. M’s family probably speaks the best Mandarin in the village and still M is the only one who is fluent. But she still lacks the ability to write formally and compile all these materials by herself. I would suppose that the one of the intentions of assigning Han officers to different villages is to help villagers to fill out different forms need for subsidies and lend them a land to break the cycle of poverty. One of the officers complained to me that M’s father had talked to them multiple times and they had told him that “money wouldn’t just appear in the air” meaning that it would be almost impossible to get the grant.

我个人觉得驻村工作组能做的东西远不止他们已经做得--提供一些申请基金需要什么资料--甚至他们比邻村更加有条件，因为工作组有可以说双语的维吾尔族同志。借助“没有人脉”当做挡箭牌在我看来，即便是事实也非常无力。没有外界的帮助，我觉得这些专门为“援助南疆”而设置的一个个补助和小贷，力量非常薄弱--在一个村子里只有一两个汉语说的好的年轻人的情况下，政府怎么能期待这些补助能真正帮助到需要的人呢？ 究竟是政府不知道汉语普及度如此之低还是故意为之，我不得而知。但是此次到访村委会 让我觉得援疆工作，还远没有新闻里面报道的如此有力度。如此基本的错误，对于南疆的村民们是致命的。在人均年收入6000人民币的情况下，普通家庭如何负担的起置购缝纫机都是一个基本问题。我感觉自己被掐住了咽喉，不仅此刻让我感觉我作为一个汉族一个dominant group优势群体 在社会上占有的优势太多而都已视而不见了。只有深入到维吾尔族同胞们的生活中去，才能发现点点滴滴 因为语言而带来的各种挑战。

I personally felt like the “zhucun” (assigned to the village) officers could certainly contribute more than they already did--providing information about grants--and they even had more advantage than the officers in Buyamaiti because they had a Uyghur officer who can speak fluent Mandarin whereas all the officers in Buyamaiti are Han. Using “no connection” as an excuse to me seems very irresponsible even though it could be true. Without any help from outside, Uyghur villagers can’t even start on these applications because of the language barrier. These grants/subsidies/financial packages/micro finance that claim to specifically target southern Xinjiang to me are only superficially beneficial yet inside they are filled with flaws that are fatal to the villagers who are in urgent need to these grants. Unlike what the state-media claimed about these anti-poverty projects, my visit to the Wengairike village committee exposes that they have not yet put their mind into helping these villagers. In a village where the average annual income is 6000 yuan (around 920 dollars), a small textile workshop is far from possible for the average family. When I went with M’s family to Kashgar to purchase sewing machines, I witnessed how the family fought for even ten dollars when they were bargaining. A small amount for me but for most Han people in Xinjiang it is a big difference. I felt suffocated at the moment. The hidden privileges of being part of a dominant group means detrimental disadvantages for minority groups like the Uyghurs. Only after I live with them and become one of them could I see the challenges they face daily.

扶贫如何扶？依靠内地一把把的钱来建造人民都负担不起的商业街只怕是最表面而忽略了最基本的问题。
How could we help these villagers break the cycle of poverty? Digging down to the root problem is far more important than just throwing money that doesn’t even fall in the hands of people that it is supposed to aid.