6:20 pm. I ask Akbar how he was able to learn the game in just a few months. “Baseball is very hard,” he says, but explains that, like many of the Uighurs on the team, he grew up familiar with the mechanics of batting and fielding, having played shatop, a traditional sport much like cricket.
“And were you good?” I inquired.
“Very good,” he says, in complete seriousness.
After the game, I walk over to the catcher, 22-year-old Zheng. To him, baseball is more than just a game of athleticism. “I like it because you need to use your head,” he says.
He’s also enjoyed getting to know the Uighurs on the team, and says that they even “hang out” after practices, perhaps to shoot some hoops at the always-crowded courts nearby or watch a MLB game online back in their dorm. And if the conversation ever falls short, they have one bedrock bond in common: they’re all devoted followers of the New York Yankees.
7:15 pm. Over generous bowls of lang mien, a spicy noodle dish popular here, a half dozen of the Uighur ballplayers, still in their white and blue uniforms, patiently explain the art of rabbit hunting to me.
Parhat Ablat, the 21-year-old captain of the team, snaps his wrist to illustrate how a wooden sling could hurl a whittled javelin at fatal speed; he began hunting rabbits-“a good afternoon snack”-when he was ten. It does not take much to deduce how he developed his pitcher’s arm.
We’re at Sister Naidu’s Restaurant, one of the unspoken Uighurs-only eateries on campus, where two other teammates are busy comparing tactics between baseball and popis, a Uighur sport akin to field hockey. Although Xinjiang, with its rural pace of life and cloistered culture, may be the last place you’ll expect baseball to turn up, the Uighurs’ outdoorsy upbringing-hunting rabbits, shepherding sheep, tending crop-have shaped them into nimble, if not polished, ballplayers.
Of course, many of the parents have yet to fully grasp their sons’ newfound life in the big city, let alone this curious game of wooden sticks, untranslatable terminology, and men in tight pants. Rufo says that when he visited Ablat’s village, 900 miles outside of Urumqi, his family treated Ablat like a “superstar,” just for making it out of the sleepy outpost which has only in the last few years become wired for electricity.
10:00 pm. The fluorescent glow of a 70′ flat-screen illuminates our booth here at Fubar. By chance, this sports bar, in one of the many Han districts, is broadcasting a Blue Jays – Yankees game. (There are no Uighurs here except for Ablat and a teammate.)
But I’m too busy listening to Rufo, the 24-year-old wunderkind filmmaker (he has his own travel show on PBS), and what he has to say about filming in notoriously sealed-off Xinjiang.
He recounts growing a mustache and traveling in disguise to villages strictly off-limits to foreigners, following players on dates and doctor’s visits, and waiting outside countless dorms and classrooms. “Doing a documentary in cinéma vérité style is an exercise in patience,” he says.
His documentary, Diamonds in the Dunes, traces the highs and lows of this Uighur-Han baseball team during the past season. “At the beginning, they were uncomfortable with each other,” he says. “There are still so many differences, but the game has brought them closer together than they’ve ever been in their life.”
3:30 am. We have the streets of Urumqi to ourselves. No honks, beeps, blares for a few more blissful hours. Flashes of lights interrupt our peaceful amble. A police cruiser pulls up to our group of four. The driver leans over, looks me in the eye, points to the two Uighurs, and says, “Are they causing trouble? What are they doing out now?”
Only when the policemen see their ID cards-a bit incredulous that these trouble-makers were in fact top students at Xinjiang’s best university-do they let us go.
Afterwards, Ablat shrugs it off. “If you’re Uighur, you cross bad things every day,” he says.
6:00 am. I’m back on the same plane; it is 8 am Beijing time, yet I, my fellow passengers, even the crew, do not seem ready for the new day. Before I drift off to a four-hour nap, I tell myself to reset my watch when we land.
Do-it-yourself Xinjing
- Most importantly, give yourself more than 16 hours. Plan at least a week, preferably two. Even better is if this is part of a Silk Road itinerary
- Flight from Beijing will take four hours and cost about $200 one-way.
- Hotels are easy to book in Urumqi; high season is in late summer with snow starting in October (and winters are tough out here)
- Traveling within Xinjiang is often by bus; prepare to spend 20 hours at a stretch. Flights are possible, but expensive and far apart.