The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – A Stone Is Most Precious Where it Belongs: A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival by Gulchehra Hoja

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

A Stone Is Most Precious Where it Belongs: A Memoir of Uyghur Exile, Hope, and Survival by Gulchehra Hoja This extraordinary memoir shares an insight into the lives of the Uyghurs, a people and culture being systematically destroyed by China—and a woman who gave up everything to help her people. In February 2018, twenty-four members of Gulchehra Hoja's family disappeared overnight. Her crime – and thus that of her family – was her award-winning investigations on the plight of her people, the Uyghurs, whose existence and culture is being systematically destroyed by the Chinese government. A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs is Gulchehra’s stunning memoir, taking us into the everyday world of life under Chinese rule in East Turkestan (more formally known as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China), from her idyllic childhood to its modern nightmare. The grandchild of a renowned musician and the daughter of an esteemed archaeologist, Gulchehra grew up with her people’s culture and history running through her veins. She showed her gifts early on as a dancer, actress, and storyteller, putting her on a path to success as a major television star. Slowly though, she began to understand what China was doing to her people, as well as her own complicity as a journalist. As her rising fame and growing political awakening coincided, she made it her mission to expose the crimes Beijing is committing in the far reaches of its nation, no matter the cost. Reveling in the beauty of East Turkestan and its people – its music, its culture, its heritage, and above all its emphasis on community and family – this groundbreaking memoir gives us a glimpse beyond what the Chinese state wants us to see, showcasing a woman who was willing to risk not just her own life, but also that of everyone she loves, to expose her people’s story to the world.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the the big show we certainly appreciate you guys being here thanks for tuning in as always well we've got an amazing author on the show and she's a woman who's

going to tell us quite an interesting journey and help us understand what's going on over in china and with uh her group that's over there of people that are suffering through some of the concentration camps and re-education camps unfortunately they call them and and uh some of the concentration camps and re-education camps, unfortunately they call them, and some of the suffrages that are going on there as well, and stories about her family, a memoir of her exile, hope, and survival. The book is entitled A Stone is Most Precious Where It Belongs, a memoir of Uyghur exile, hope, and survival. She joins us on the show today, and she's said to, I can call her by her nickname, Goo. So we'll do that on the show.

And it just came out February 21st, 2023. I've always been curious about this topic. I hope you are as well, because there seems to be a whole new thing going on of a repression of people and putting them into camps and everything else. And I thought we'd overthrown stuff like this in the 40, in the World War II. But the horrors of oppressing people seem to keep returning. So we're going to talk to her about her book and her memoir and everything else today. She is a journalist based in the United States and has earned honors such as the 2019 Magnitsky Human Rights Award.

I know how to say Magnitsky. The Magnitsky Human Rights Award, the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation in 2020, recognition of one of the most 500 influential Muslims in the world every year since 2016, and an appearance in the 2020 Oslo Freedom Forum. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, Financial Times, and many other publications. Welcome, Shogu. How are you? Hi, Chris. Thank you for having me. I'm such an honor to be here. And it's an honor to have you as well.

Congratulations. And give me the full pronunciation of your name as it is. Gulchehra Hoja. There you go. There you go. I love that you say that. You say it more beautifully than I do. Thank you.

Just call me Gul. It's more comfortable for me and for you too. Sounds good. Sounds good. So give us the dot coms, websites, social media accounts, wherever you want people to follow you on the interwebs, please. Yeah, just my name, Gulceh Rahoja, at Twitter, also Facebook.

There you go. And so what motivated you to want to write this book? It seems obvious but People like to hear it from the author themselves You know We Uyghurs About more than 20 Millions of

People actually We believe that a number China use Is not correct. So more than 20 million Uyghur people living in Uyghur region, which is China called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. We prefer call our, you know, the country name as East Turkestan. Our country occupied by CCP in 1949. Since then, we lost our freedom.

So recently, because of the concentration camp and the genocide going on in my country that's why the whole world actually media start to paying attention to the atrocity going on in my land so but unfortunately only sees us weur people as a victim of genocide. So being a Uyghur, it's a, how can I say, it's it's like shame for us. Of course we are living in that country thousands of years and we are very proud of who we are actually, our culture history everything about Uyghur so I am also grown up such a family taught me a lot to be honored and be grateful for who you are, who your real identity is. So being a Uyghur is such a beautiful and an honour thing for me. Also today we wrote the book from my experience, my perspective.

So it was once to helping people to more understand the Uyghurs. There you go. And I think this is important because more people and more light needs to be shined on what's going on over there in China. More concern and I don't know what more can be done. That's beyond my pay grade. But definitely we need to have more outcry and more understanding of what goes on. You entitled the book, A Stone is Most Precious Where It Belongs. What's the origin of that? You know, this proverb, right?

A stone is most precious where it belongs. We usually use this word to describe about the people who forcefully separate with their countries and their homeland, their birthplace. So this is another point that has greatly inspired me to begin to writing this book because of my exile life. I really lived through the deep values of this proverb. So I picked that name. I like it. Yeah, and it has a very beautiful story about this proverb, how it inspired me because my father used to use this word a lot. And also he sent me, when he sent me first box from home,

he actually put one stone, this stone, the very random stone from our neighborhood. He put that in that gift box. And when I opened it, I saw one dopa, it's Uyghur hat inside, and one letter from my parents, and one homemade bread bread which is my mom handmade bread and then this stone together and i was wondering okay they they think about yeah I may very miss, you know, about the nun, the bread, homemade bread. And this Dopa presents we were cultured.

They want to, you know, keep up our traditional life. But I couldn't understand why they put the stone inside. So I was thinking because my father usually just give us message or deep meaning of stuff with his act, something he doesn't directly tell you. He wants to think and deeply understand. That's why I naturally thinking about why he put this stone in that box. And I just think all related with stone, right? So I immediately, you know, the proverb, which is, come to my mind and I called my dad I said thank you for your gifts

it's very beautiful but you sent me a stone also is that the mean a stone is most precious where it belongs and my father was so happy

to see it i deeply understand that that's why i keep that stone with me i already moved seven times in the united states but the stone for me is the part of my home part of my homeland that's why I keep that with me all the time. And when I move, I'm afraid of losing that, you know. So it's actually in this 22 years, it's the most precious stuff for me in my entire exile life. So it's also sits in my behind it also sits behind my bookshelf. When I miss my family, miss my home,

I hold it and I will smell it. It still has that smell from home. There you go. Well, that's a beautiful story. And what a wise father. I like the father who makes people think. He's always like that. Yeah.

Because my dad would just tell me things. And I'd just be like, yeah, whatever, Dad. But the whole thinking through it and the beauty of it. And he probably knew that having a part of your country to always have with you uh and things so tell us just a little bit about how you ended up in america in exile but what's what's the life journey in in some of the stuff you put in your memoir yeah i grew up in the uh urunchi city which is the capital of our country, East Turkestan. And in my early beginning with TV life, career, actually, in state-run TV called Xinjiang TV in Uyghur region. And I was pretty, you know, just like star

because I create the first ever Uyghur children show in Uyghur TV and very quickly become a star who everyone knows. After five years working as a journalist and a TV host in Xinjiang TV, I witnessed so many propaganda because I deeply understand we don't have actually freedom of speech, freedom of express in China. All the media is tool of propaganda for CCP to use to brainwash people. Also, including my children program from 2020 they changed the education system for just using Han Chinese to reduce the Uyghur language teaching in all the school and they also order us to propaganda about if your child learning Han Chinese, their future will be bright, you know, so those kind of stuff. And when when you loved by your

people, you earn their trust after you brainwash their kids. It's for me like burden. it's hurting. I work with very heavy like guilty feeling since then. Then during that hard time, I had the opportunity went to Europe. That's the first time I had a freedom to explore the internet. So I searching up what's going on outside of Uyghur region, what the exile Uyghurs doing. So I search and I search up the Radio Free Asia website and I listen to their news reports. It's totally different from what I was working, you know. I feel like I am not the journalist, actually.

They are journalists. So I want to speak the truth. I want to I because I love my job. But I if I go back, I forcefully could do more to for the Chinese government propaganda. So I was was you know changed my mind by the time i i feel like no i cannot go back so i applied to radio free asia and they happily and very fastly uh um you know uh accept me because they know me. And also, they were very happy. But during, you know, just about to go to the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, the boom, the September 11th happened.

And I was stuck in the Vienna one month. And that time all, uh, us embassies shut down because of the war. And, um, after one month, finally I came to United States. Uh, it was 20, uh, 2001. Um, in October I start, uh start my new career as a real journalist in the RFA since then. Wow. And so you've never been able to return to your country? No.

Since then. And that's kind of challenging. It is. It is hard. And, you know, but my father used to teach us, you know, for the freedom, everything you can. How can I translate that? Nothing is valuable without freedom. He always said that. That's why I was, you know, achieving my dream.

But it was, we paid a lot. Yes, I reached my freedom of speech, my freedom in the United States, but for that my family members are paying tremendous price since then. And Chinese government, you know, immediately announced red notes after me at that time, and they erase all my records. That time I had many TV shows, and movies and some commercials also playing China's TV. They stop all and actually remove all my pictures and my voices from their data. And especially my family targeted by Chinese government. And, yeah. Wow. That's unfortunate and and uh you know it's it's it's really an interesting um

not sure if interesting is the proper word but it's an interesting relationship that the united states has with china where we have this sort of kosher trade agreement but then there's these uh horrors going on in China. There's repressing people like your people. And then, you know, we have this sort of detente of war. It's kind of weird. It's a really complex sort of situation. So tell us a little bit more, for people that don't understand,

who the Uyghur people are. Why haven't most Americans heard of them? Why aren't we better educated? What's their religious background, etc., etc.? As I told you, more than 20 million people living in far west in China. It's in Central Asia. We are close to neighbor with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, also here's Tibet, Mongolia, like eight, nine countries around us including China. So since after our country occupied by Chinese government, they renamed our country as the Xinjiang Uyghur Aftonam region. But in our country, other than Uyghurs, we have Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, other Turkic speaking minorities, also Muslim. We Uyghurs

convert to Islam about 1000 years. So our culture is mixed with Islamic culture also. It's a very rich Turkic background. So it's rich of the oil, natural resources. And that's why Chinese government, you know, using all our natural resources, maybe many years, never the benefit to the local people. And they lack of, you know, development many years. They just beginning really developed this region after 1990. But for the migrant

Chinese people to comfortably live there. So they use the migrant policy from 1990 very frequently moved many millions of Chinese people. So our population before that is like 80-90%. We were living there right now, you can see is like same like 40 something we were 40 something chinese and including other minorities there and that they cracked down we was using different different tools um different names you know they also using like um uh anti-terrorists, you know, to punish Uyghur because we are Muslim, but we never had terrorism in our region. And they even doesn't allow Uyghurs to really practice their religion because, you know, the CCP is atheist, communist country. They hate all the religious, afraid of, you know, people to obey the CCP.

That's why they punish all Uyghur people. But we have very strong connection and the lineage with our religion. So somehow people survive with their religion and their culture until in 2016, Xi Jinping used no mercy policy toward Uyghurs to start the re-education program and many other, the law to correct on Uyghur language. So we actually are focusing on those issues in Radio Free Asia, in our daily news, we publish about those. That's why not only me, my My colleagues, family members back home also targeted. So some of them also sentenced many years. So the situation is very bad. For me, I heard first my brother, my younger brother, arrested because of my work. Yeah, in 2017, finally we speak with the first

camp survivor who willing to speak to the media, who is Umar Bek Ali, half Kazakh, half Uyghur. He was released from the camp, went to Almaty. And I interview him from, phone interview him from the Almaty, Kazakhstan. And I released that news, I believe it's January 28. from a phone interview him from the Almaty, Kazakhstan. And I released that news, I believe it's January 28th. That's the shocking news because he detailed, described the camps actually, camps.

And he is actually a Kazakh citizen also, or Chinese citizen, dual citizenship. That's why Kazakh government helped him to escape from the camp. So he gave us very detailed information after we released that news. I assume because of that news. And then my all parents and siblings and cousins all together arrested in February 1st in the one night. So after my brother arrested, also I lost all my family members in one night. That's why from that day I stood up to speak out and telling my own story to the world, to the old media. There you go.

And that's very brave. Do you know where any of them are now? Yeah, because I testified in front of Congress shortly, and they released my mom. And because of my aunt also developmental health problem in the camp. They released her after two years and released my brother recently, like about a year. My father in that time was really sick because of stroke. He had the half body paralyzed. He was in the hospital in intensive room, but they couldn't move him to the camp because they don't have proper, you know, health stuff to keep him alive. Maybe that's why they keep him in the hospital like hostage and and after that they're home but just like hostage at home they

cannot go anywhere without the government issue some kind of paper letting them to even go to sick, you know, because they are very sick, they need to go to the doctor. Even that, they cannot go freely. Wow. They're all at home, three of them. Thank God they're alive. Yeah, that's good.

Have you been able to communicate with them? Are you able to call them in any way, shape, or form? Yeah, I can call them because of, thank you for, I'm very grateful for lawmakers who make it happen. Several of them wrote the letter to the Chinese embassy and then the Chinese government to ask about my parents well-being and because of their demands so they allowed us to communicate just use by just use phone so I can have phone conversations only with my mother once a while, like one, two times a month, just for asking, you know, how they are.

Oh, that's good. That's good that you can, you know, you should be able to communicate with them at will. At least I know where they are and how they are. Yeah, I'm very grateful for that but um as you know right now in exile every uighur have uh their parents or siblings uh in the concentration camp you can say and they lost contact since 2016 with back home so it's very painful it's the most painful you, the feeling if you don't know about their, you know, alive or not. And the feeling of guiltiness, you know. arresting them because they have children went to other countries to study or work. So, who is living in Abra

today, the exile Uyghurs, all have the same pain. I consider myself as luckier one. Yeah. This is the largest scale detention of an ethnic and religious minority since World War II. They estimate since 2017 some 16,000 mosques, churches, technically, have been razed or damaged. Hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their mothers

and sent to boarding schools. It's quite the atrocity. I mean, they're trying to reprogram men, they call it, in concentration camps. They've made it so that, basically, sterilize women so they can't have children. It's horrific when you hear a lot of the human rights abuses and things that are going on,

ethnic and religious abuses that are going on by the Communist Party. Unfortunately, this atrocity, genocide, is still going on. You can count from the 2017, the six years pass so the 21st century genocide is happening in front of our eyes wow and and uh yeah but the good part is is you're writing a book you're speaking out you i've seen uh many interviews that you've given on this and you're drawing a lot of, you're drawing a lot of light onto the subject and getting people aware of it, which I think is the important part of your book as well. Not only is telling your story, but you know, and this is a journey of exile, hope and survival.

What do you hope is the future for the Uyghur people. You know, we still feel we are not doing enough. And the world didn't do enough, especially the leader of all those democratic countries, Islamic countries. They didn't really try to stop this genocide and um you know and also for this uh individual like me uh exile we were um taken away from their homeland and their people, language and the cultural environment. They still fighting for the existence, you know, because in homeland all Uyghurs and and other Turkic ethnicity, entire people facing existence. So it's like our duty to keep our dignity, our culture, our hope alive. This is at least we can do right now. By writing this book, I also intend to tell I say, the sad time in the history.

And should have sense genocide because you know we are just like flowers in earth earth we can say in the garden we are just different flowers to make this world more beautiful together and um in order to make it even beautiful we need to live and devote ourselves like flower so you may remember or tell others what i have briefly said here i hope it will shine beauty and the hope into you and others as well there There you go. There you go. And the beautiful story about your life and your journey and the challenges that you go through. And I hope someday that somehow this can be fixed, what's going on in China. I don't know how, I don't know, you know, this is to power

us much bigger than I, but hopefully it will. And hopefully you will bring more awareness and more people that will stand up and say, hey, this is BS. We shouldn't be allowing this to happen and all that good stuff. So thank you very much for coming

on the show, Gu. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you. Give us your dot coms or wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs as well. Also, you can search up rfa.org to Uyghur news. Much more you can learn from that our website also we have english uh translated uh news about uighurs uh what's going on in my country right now in china and uighur region and uh at facebook and twitter as well there you you go. There you go.

So, folks, order up the book wherever fine books are sold. A stone is most precious where it belongs. You can order it wherever fine books are sold. February 21st, 2023, A Story of Exile, Hope, and Survival.

It's really important to understand this story, what's going on over there. I mean, the largest, largest scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. important to understand this story, what's going on over there. I mean, the largest largest scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II. I mean, this is this is larger than the horror that

was done to the Jews. You know, this is something we need to call out and try and support and support human rights. So thank you very much, Gu, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thanks to Anish for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, FortressCrestFoss,

YouTube.com, FortressCrestFoss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good readers. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.