A Uygur boy's hope

25-year-old Abdulla was waiting at the coach station in Urumqi. The bus to Yili would leave in two hours.

"My parents in Yili were worried about me after the riot and asked me to go back," said the man.

Abdulla worked in a travel agency. Due to the riot, tourists left Xinjiang and the agency gave them seven days off.

A graduate from the Xinjiang University, Abdulla said he never left Xinjiang for all his 25 years.

But the diligent boy managed to make friends with many Han people in his own way.

Abdulla started to work as a part-time tour guide when he was still a junior student in college. During holidays, he had to work to make money and couldn't go back home. But he missed his parents.

Then Abdulla had a good idea.

"I brought the tourists to my home and my parents cooked for them," he said.

He could still recall the happiness when he sat under the grape trellis, eating baked mutton and drinking milk tea.

Many tourists still maintained a good relationship with him. After the riot in Urumqi the Internet was cut, Abdulla asked a friend in Shenzhen to help him check his sister's entrance exam score. The man in Shenzhen Customs was one of his tourists in 2005.

In Abdulla's memory, Hans and Uygurs have always been on good terms since he was young.

"On the buses, the youngsters gave their seats to the elderly, whatever ethnic group they were from," he said.

Abdulla was not willing to talk much about the riot, because it left a scar in his heart.

"After the riot, I went out, seeing some Hans who normally appeared nice holding wooden clubs while looking at me differently, my heart was broken," he said.

Now that more shops and restaurants were opened, and more people went to streets, Abdulla said that he was feeling better every day.

He hopes that the riot could give people a lesson.

"We didn't know how precious peace, unity and social stability were, before the riot changed our life," he said.

"When it is over, I hope people could treasure more of what they had, and live in harmony," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2009)