For One Woman, ‘Uighur-Vietnamese Days’ in China
The New York Times, 30 May 2014
Thanhtu Dao was working for a Vietnamese company at a commercial exhibition in Shenzhen in mid-May as anti-Chinese rioting flared in Vietnam, in reaction to China’s deployment of a deep-sea oil rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea.
Relations with the Chinese around her immediately deteriorated, said Ms. Dao, letting her feel what she calls the “iceberg” relationship between China and Vietnam, which fought a brief border war in 1979.
“The tip of the iceberg is always quiet and peaceful. But the hidden part?” Ms. Dao wrote in an account she sent to The New York Times. “The East Sea (or South China Sea to the rest of the world) area and the Haiyang Shiyou 981 off-shore oil rig that China set up in the Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zone is lifting the hidden part of the iceberg out of the water.” And what came out was not pretty. She said she was berated by Chinese people at the exhibition who reminded her that China was big, and Vietnam small.
Ms. Dao came up with a novel formulation for the collective blame she and other Vietnamese felt as the Chinese identified them with the rampages in Vietnam, in which four people reportedly died: She refers to “Uighur-Vietnamese days,” drawing a parallel with the mostly Muslim Uighurs from the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where tensions with the Han, the dominant Chinese ethnic group, have erupted in deadly violence in recent years. As relations deteriorate, Uighurs have said they are discriminated against, excluded from jobs and, for example, finding it hard to book a hotel room in the Han parts of China.
More excerpts from Ms. Dao’s observations:
The sign above every stand at the exhibition sported the country’s flag and name, so it was easy to see that we were a Vietnamese stand. A man in his 60s pointed at me and said “YOU! You Vietnamese betrayed us Chinese.”
I didn’t really understand what was going on and just went back to work with an uncomfortable feeling. A few hours later, my Vietnamese boss got a phone call from his family. His aunt was working for a Taiwanese company in the Binh Duong industry zone, and said that the workers in her company were rioting and burning down the factory. They told him to sell all his stuff cheaply and come home as soon as possible. Bad news always spreads quickly.
That was the start for what I called the “Uighur-Vietnamese days.”
More and more people come to Vietnamese stands to just have a look and see what Vietnamese look like and say very strange things. A female customer came over and asked me: “Are you Vietnamese?” and gave me a puzzled look.
“Yes,” I said.
“Hmm, why do you look just like a Chinese and speak Chinese too?”
“I studied Chinese for five years.”
“Vietnamese people are bad, so bad, you dare to provoke a big country like us, China. You know, even the United States has respect for our country.”
Her voice started to sound angry and she looked around for support. The old man next to her seemed to get a part of that conversation and happily joined in. He started to relate his story about the Vietnam-China border war in 1979.
“I kicked a lot of Vietnamese soldiers’ ass. Do you know how much they are scared of me?”
As a Vietnamese, I really wanted to blurt out, “Did you know that China lost this war?” But I am a seller and they are my customers so I better keep quiet and didn’t want to waste my energy on such an argument anyway.
At the end of the day, I returned to my hotel and started to read Vietnamese social media, to find out what was happening. The violent protests were true and I was super angry and disappointed at what my people did.
I could tell those people were poorly educated and entertained stereotypes about Chinese. To strike and burn down everything reeking of China, just like shooting fish in a barrel. And because of what they have done, I had become a reactionary in the eyes of the Chinese.
The next day, after news had spread all over Chinese media, a man on WeChat even wanted to find Vietnamese people to take revenge. The WeChat message called on Chinese to take revenge on Vietnamese workers in Dongguan [an industrial city in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong].
I now totally understand the feeling of Uighurs in China after the Kunming knife attack event [when assailants, which the government said were from Xinjiang, slashed and killed 29 people in the railroad station in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province].
What is it makes me or other Vietnamese businessmen in China akin to those killers [referring to the protesters in Vietnam]?
What did we do? I am angry at their behavior too, but I don’t want that to affect the innocent workers in Dongguan or anywhere else in China, I don’t want a few of us to give all Vietnamese people a bad name internationally.
After the protest, many websites and many local TV channels informed on the damage, which only made people in China more angry. A few people came at my stand and said, “How dare you still do business in China!”
A few days after the protests, people were still getting angry at me and other Vietnamese. Some of them don’t allow friends or family to buy Vietnamese products etc. I now share the feeling of Uighur people I mentioned on my Facebook, how Chinese people blame someone personally for what their people has done.
On her Facebook page, Ms. Dao said a man at the Shenzhen exhibition was refused a stand because he was a Uighur:
I am so sad. Today one random man has came and begged me to help him find a stand at the international exhibition in Shenzhen. I had a Chinese friend who is selling an empty stand, not an ideal stand but super expensive, but the stranger wanted it badly and I introduce him to my friend. But after find out that guy is from Xinjiang, actually he is a Uighur from Sichuan, then my friend very decisively refused to sell that stand. I was very angry and don’t understand why. Hour later my friend came back and told me, this is a new rule from organization committee. NO UIGHUR. NO BURMESE. Nnnnnoooooo, again why? What did they all do? Damn it, I feel so so so sorry that I couldn’t help the Uighur guy. I still remember his disappointed look and he seems to know what is going on. Please, please, don’t do it. They are not all terrorists, they need to work and earn money to just live a normal life too.
And rounding off her note, she wrote:
But I also feel very sorry and ashamed of what narrow-minded Vietnamese have done in Binh Duong Province and want to apologize to all the Chinese businessmen for the damage to people and property during the Binh Duong protests.
I will try my best to present a more correct and positive image of China and to my people, to ultimately improve the image of Vietnam in the eyes of China and the world.