1.

Though I didn’t know about the discrimination the Uyghur people face in China, I wasn’t
surprised to hear about it, because being from Taiwan, I have been very familiar with the
knowledge that China’s government is very control-centric. I suppose I was a little
surprised at how easy it seemed for Byler to get these informations and stories, because
you’d think that the government would be intent on hushing it up. I think Byler writes this
for the rest of the world outside of China to be aware of what’s going on, since this is
easily something that is overlooked. Byler’s intention isn’t to point fingers at China or to
portray them as immediately evil, but I think he does want to bring to attention how how
sketchy this is. He actually cautions against reducing the Uyghur people to victims and
the Han people to villains.
2. I think Byler’s presentation mostly just made me really sad about what was happening.
Mostly because the message given about what was happening is so easily twisted and
covered up, and I can imagine it happening almost anywhere and being disguised as
patriotism. I also felt a lot more informed about what was happening.
3. I think the photos he took comparing the mosques before and after the government’s
involvement really made a statement on how distressing this situation was for the
Uyghur people. His quote from one of his informants that later went missing was also
extremely powerful in demonstrating how urgent the situation was.
4. As far as ethnography as a topic, I really learned about how dangerous it could be for
not only the informant, but the informed. Byler is risking a lot to tell these people’s
stories, and that’s super brave of him but also very risky.
5. Byler thought it was really important not to point fingers or to portray this as a good vs.
evil thing, and he it acknowledged that it was much more complex than that. That’s
particularly important to my autoethnography because I’m really trying hard to remain
neutral as I do this.
6. N/A.
7. Yes.