Break the Babel Barrier

For the first few years after Abudullah Urashim left his hometown in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, “2 yuan for 50 grams” was the most fluent Standard Chinese sentence that he could say. He left Xinjiang to sell raisins in east China and used this phrase to answer all questions posed by his customers.

When he and his wife left Xinjiang in 1997, Abudullah could only speak his native Uygur language, but he was confident he’d be able to learn Standard Chinese in less than three years. However, as the couple moved around between cities in east China, financial burdens and unstable living arrangements did not give