The streets in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, were busy on Wednesday. Chinese and foreign tourists flooded the markets, bargaining with local sellers in different languages and accents.
But posters of wanted suspects on walls kept alive in people's minds the deadly riot one month previously, in which 197 people died.
The presence of armed police guarding major intersections with shields and guns shows hidden tension in which the northwestern city is healing its wounds with difficulty.
Endless waiting
After more than 20 days, Wang Liping from Kashgar finally found her 15-year-old son in Urumqi.
"I was so anxious during those days," the exhausted mother said. "I had DNA tests done at the police bureau, followed the rising death toll in the newspapers and posted many notices."
What she didn't know was that her son, afraid of being attacked outside, had hidden in Internet cafes most of the time.
The boy was found by a restaurant owner, who happened to see a notice left on a pole by the desperate mother.
Wang said she was lucky, as there were still people searching for their beloved ones, those they might never see again.
Wang Yonggang lost contact with his wife on July 5. The 34-year-old from Yining city, more than 700 kilometers away, said that his wife came to Urumqi several days before the riot looking for a house to open a shop.
"A friend told me he saw my wife in Yining. But if that was true, why didn't she call me?" he kept asking.
Healing the wound
One month is long enough for many people to recover physically, but too short to heal the wounds in their hearts.
Yang Zengli's head was injured in the riot and he had nine stitches inserted.
Touching his head - which still hurts every now and then - he said the scene where his wife, daughter and mother were chased and beaten still haunted his mind.
"One of my wife's sisters was killed, another was blinded," he said bitterly.
His wife, daughter and mother were injured, but are alive.
"If they had died, I would have gone with them, " he said.
Wang Liping, who was born and grew up in Xinjiang, said she had many Uygur friends and had been on good terms with the Uygurs before the riot.
"They still cared about me and prayed for me while I came to look for my son," she said, gratefully. "I don't understand why this happened."
"How I hope we could return to the harmony that we used to enjoy," she said.
Her aspiration was echoed by many Uygurs as well. Roxingul had a clothes stall in the Big Bazaar,which had been closed for half a month before reopening. The girl suffered great financial loss and for several days had no customers at all.
"But now it's becoming better and more customers are coming," she said.
Knowing her losses, many visitors from other parts of the country don't bargain with her while buying, comforting and encouraging her to believe tomorrow will be better.
