Bearing witness to a changing Xinjiang

Zhao Yanhua, 76, lives in the Xudong community of Urumqi.[Photo by Xu Wei /China Daily]

Zhao Yanhua, 76, lives in the Xudong community of Urumqi. She was a former procuratorate officer at the 10th Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which was stationed in Beitun city of Altay prefecture.

In 1955, when she was 16 years old, Zhao boarded a train to Wuwei, Gansu province from her hometown in Tangshan, Hebei province along with more than 1000 peers from the province as the country recruited youths nationwide to join the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

They rode trucks to Urumqi where they received training for a few months before being dispatched to different areas across Xinjiang.

"I requested to be sent to the most difficult areas, but my family all objected. My mother broke down in tears," she said.

Over the years, she said she had lived in pit houses in deserts and thatched shacks. They even tried to raise hens in their bedrooms as there were no markets in the areas they lived in.

"Even when I was pregnant, I had to carry water to our place, and once, I slipped and fell to the ground," she said.

Zhao retired in 1991 and moved to Urumqi in 1994 to live in the same city as her daughter and two sons. Her husband, a former People's Liberation Army soldier, died in 2009.

"I never regretted my choice even during the most difficult times. In our times, the Party's demands were the ultimate call and I still believe they were the right calls," she said.

"I only hope for a good health so that I can see more of the world in the future," she said.