It became rather painfully obvious midway through last week that our topic was still in a very preliminary phase. We had a decent idea of where we wanted to go – the focus still centered largely on women and associated minorities along the silk roads, and we knew we wanted to tie their experiences together under Islam. It was the location that was proving to be a bit of a challenge. We initially settled for the area around the Arabian Sea, but we quickly learned that the Arabian Sea is circled by a wide range of peoples and it would be difficult to make a cohesive project out of that.
\nAfter Eric recommended looking into the Uighur people of western China, things cleared up a bit. We’re all on board (as far as we’ve voiced) with making them our primary focus – I’m particularly down with the idea because they’re outside of the Han and Persian empires, which feel as if they’ve been researched quite a bit already. It’s weird, considering how difficult it’s been (and will likely continue to be) to find sources for my individual focus, that I’m so willing to dive into this. I don’t feel like I’m going to find many sources, and certainly not many academic ones. So far, I’ve only found two particularly useful websites.
\nDespite only finding those two sources, I’m really interested in the thread that seems to be falling out of them. Both pieces (a blog post and a personal essay) reference a gay bar in the city of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province, and from what I’ve been able to find it appears to be the only one in the area. What’s particularly interesting, however, is both pieces reference an ethnic divide between Uighur and Han men in the bar, the essay describing how Uighur men apparently sit on one side and Han men on the other. The most fascinating bit about all of this, though, is that the bar hosts drag shows – and the drag queens are all Uighur. The blog post that I found mentions this in reference to the apparent Han notion that the Uighurs are “exotic,” but only in entertainment – in the real world, so to speak, they’re just lesser.
\nThe gay community has always been rather problematic in matters of race and discrimination – in the west, there’s a running joke about guys who list “no fats, femmes, or asians” on their Grindr profiles, alongside other phrases such as “rice queen” – but it’s fascinating to see that manifest in a society where queer individuals can’t really afford to be so picky (for lack of a better word).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It became rather painfully obvious midway through last week that our topic was still in a very preliminary phase. We had a decent idea of where we wanted to go – the focus still centered largely on women and associated minorities along the silk roads, and we knew we wanted to tie their experiences together … Continue reading Getting off the ground~<\/span>