When Memetjan Semet first came to Urumchi he remembers being shocked at how isolated everyone felt from each other. For the first time in his life he didn’t have his family and childhood friends to lean on for support. He also noticed that he wasn’t alone in this condition. No one in the big city seemed to care about others around themselves. Instead, people kept their heads down. They focused on their smart phones, chatted with friends in the virtual world, and ignored the difficulties of people nearby. The problems of strangers were not something they felt they needed to be concerned with. One time while waiting for an elevator in a large office building in the Uyghur section of the city, he noticed a disabled woman hobbling down the hallway. No one held the doors for her. Everyone pushed her to the side while getting on and off of the elevator. Over the next few minutes he watched her grow more and more defeated. Eventually she gave up, and began the long painful process …