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China Elevator Stories
“Are you Uighur?”
I chat with a pharmacist in Siping.
04/08/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
I take my children to a pharmacy in Siping where I talk to the pharmacist.
In the pharmacy, I buy some more plasters because we had used up the ones we had at home. The pharmacist asks me:
“Are you Uighur?”
“No, I’m European.”
“I see. Your Chinese sounded so great, I thought you were from Xinjiang.”
“I see.”
“Where are you from exactly?”
“Austria.”
“I see. That’s a very famous country.”
Have you ever been mistaken for Uighur?
This is part of the series ‘Conversations with Locals in China,’ where I share conversations with Chinese people on my blog.