Good afternoon, my name is Crystal Zhou. As some of you may know, I come from Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, a place bordering Russia and Kazakhstan, a place far away from all the familiar cities you’ve heard of, a place plagued by terrorism. When I returned home in the summer after my sophomore year, I was dumbstruck. SWAT teams were stationed at every block; military tanks permeated the downtown area, and security checks appeared at the entrances of every building. In just a year, my vibrant city of Urumqi, my hometown, had transformed into a police state. In the province I grew up in, Uyghurs, a minority group, outnumber Han people, the major ethnic group in China to which I belong. After several terrorist attacks employed by Uyghurs took place across China, Urumqi, the provincial city and target of many attacks, was quickly militarized. Fear propagated and many came to see Uyghurs as violent, attacking Han people at will. Although I am a Han person, I have grown up beside many Uyghur friends. Driven by curiosity, I eventually decided to visit southern Xinjiang myself, to experience the area where attacks happen most frequently, to experience the lives of Uyghurs who face these potential threats daily. Divided by a continuous mountain range, the north and the south of my province look like two different countries. Firewood piled up high beside the roads; mosques in well-crafted brick; …everything looked unfamiliar. Introduced by the village committee, I stepped into a mud house and was warmly welcomed by a Uyghur family. As the sky darkened, the family invited me to spend the night. I couldn’t resist their cordial invitation and slept together with the four sisters on a giant brick bed. Without the drone of air conditioning, the serene night hummed with soft snores and buzzing cicadas. But the glaring no-signal sign on my cell phone unsettled me. Once I lay down, the grisly pictures of recent terrorist attacks rushed, uncontrollably, into my head. I slept uneasily that night. When I awoke to an empty room, my stomach started to twist. I started to regret my impulsive decision to travel alone and spend a night with a family who I didn’t know and could possibly be Uyghur terrorists. The utterance of an unfamiliar language from the living room, and all distressing possibilities that I could face, chilled me. Cautiously, I tiptoed to and pulled back the dusty curtain. There I saw everyone in the family—elders, adults, and teenagers—kneeling down on rugs and praying with their heads tilted down and palms facing up. The soft morning sunlight made the whole scene misty and incandescent. My cheeks flushed pink. I was embarrassed by myself when I realized that I had internalized negative stereotypes against them. Terrorism wounds us by creating not only immediate injuries and deaths of innocent victims, but also fear and hatred that have far-reaching impacts. Engulfed by all the horrific reports about Uyghur terrorists in the media, I realized how impressionable and vulnerable I was as a reader and how easy and dangerous it is to blindly generalize and assign one single perception to a whole group. Stories indeed alter our perceptions in an unnoticeable way, inculcating seeds of distrust in even the most compassionate minds. Although admitting one’s own bias is uncomfortable, extinguishing the spread of stereotypes starts with this act of frank recognition, and advances with real-life actions. As I joined the daily routine of the family, making naans for breakfast, weeding in the vineyard, and feeding the ewes, we exchanged stories, delighting in the similarities between our seemingly disparate lives. In an era of explosive news, I chose to share this very personal, even embarrassing moment with you all to encourage the critical examination of the entrenched notions we carry in our minds, and to prevent prejudice from swaying our judgments. During my four years at Greensboro Day School, I wasn’t completely immune from being judged based on stereotypes but such an experience only reinforced my belief that stereotypes are not necessarily incorrect but they are certainly incomplete stories. As some of us go off to college, into a more diverse environment, I encourage us all to be mindful of the danger of one story, to step outside our comfort zones, to communicate and interact, and to piece together a full image void of preconception about ourselves and others. t Crystal Zhou ’17 During the Cum Laude Society Induction Ceremony each year, seniors share speeches with the audience. GDS Magazine | 49