As the train pulled up to the station in Xin He, I marveled at the changes that a couple of years had wrought in Xin Jiang. It was the summer of 1999 and I had just graduated from High School. I was on a trip with my mother to Xin Jiang, the northwestern-est province in China, to visit friends and family. Since my trip to Xin Jiang in 1995, so much had changed and some areas were virtually unrecognizable.
             My family is not originally from Xin Jiang. My mother's family moved there from He Nan during the 1960's because it became increasingly difficult for them to make a living on their farm. Moving to Xin Jiang promised more opportunities and a better life. My grandfather was a skilled carpenter, and he managed to make a good living in Xin Jiang because it was still largely undeveloped, and skilled craftsmen were hard to come by. Since then, my mother's family has lived in Xin He, a small town in the southern area of Xin Jiang.
             My father also ended up there, but his story is much more interesting. My Grandfather was a high-ranking officer for the Nationalist army during the Chinese civil war. When the Communists were winning the war, he left my dad with his grandmother in Beijing, hoping to go and retrieve him during more stable times. However, once my grandfather left to Taiwan, the borders were closed off and he couldn't get my dad back. My dad grew up with different relatives, always being passed around until he was a teenager. During the Cultural Revolution, he was always on the move throughout the country, working odd jobs and living on the streets. He was unable to remain in one place because he had relations in Taiwan, and by then, America, and would have been persecuted because of that. Gradually, his travels led him to Xin Jiang. It was less structured there, and there were a lot of places where he could live and work without being "found out". He mixed with the native Urguy...