Tunisa Maitiruz, Former Trainee of the Vocational Education and Training Center in Yingbagh Village, Tuohula Township, Moyu County, Hotan Prefecture

Recently, I read on the Internet that on January 19, Mike Pompeo sent out nearly 60 tweets in just two days, more than 40 of which were aimed at China. He falsely claimed that China has arbitrarily detained more than 1 million Uygurs and other ethnic groups; Restrictions on freedom of religion, expression and movement constitute "crimes against humanity" and "genocide". Being born and raised in Xinjiang, I can clearly say that he is mentally deranged and was talking nonsense and lies. I'm telling Mike Pompeo right now, with my own story, "Open your eyes and take a good look at our happy life!"

In 2013, I graduated from Moyu County Vocational High School. In school, I studied carpet making, but because the market was bad, I had nothing to do and got married before I was 20. I didn’t know when some extremist ideas started to take root in my mind. I became more and more isolated and rarely went out of my house. Whenever I met people of other nationalities on my way out, I would run after them and beat them. My family was worried when they found out I had gone bad. Later, I saw a few graduates of the vocational education and training center in our village come back home, and they became clean and energetic. People who had never spoken Mandarin could also speak Mandarin, and they mastered a lot of practical skills. After they came back, they could find a satisfactory job. In April 2018, my family sent me to the vocational education and training center to study.

After arriving at the training center, I found that, just as the students who had graduated said, food and accommodation were free, and all the learning materials were also free. What’s more, I could learn the national laws, regulations and the standard spoken and written Chinese language. And also I could learn a job skill. I saw that everyone was happy in school every day. They studied and participated in various recreational and sports activities happily. I like playing table tennis very much and I often played it with my male classmates. I got up at regular time every morning and took part in jogging and other morning exercises. Then, I had my class after breakfast. After lunch, I could take a nap. In the afternoon, I could continue to study and participate in recreational and sports activities that I was interested in. After class every day, the students began to do what they were interested in, such as playing basketball, table tennis, badminton and billiards, playing chess and go, singing, dancing and drawing. Everyone lived a regular and happy life. We cherished every day.

I am a girl enjoying beauty. Therefore, in the training center, I chose to learn beauty salons. After graduation, I wanted to open a hair salon, but at that time I did not have the money to open a salon. The head of our village, Aiyibibai Yusupu, was delighted with my idea and was eager to help me. She found a salon for me and applied for subsidies for women's entrepreneurship and employment for me in the Women's Federation. On the day of the opening, I invited the band and people who play the suona and drums. They made the scene very lively and people around me looked at me with envy. The name of my salon is "Meilier", which means to make all the customers who come in my salon look beautiful and smile. My business is booming. The sisters who went out of my salon were very happy and said that I had made them beautiful with my good haircut. I make 6,000 yuan a month now, and I've got two girls as apprentices. They concentrate on their studies and make rapid progress. In the future, I'll hire more people and make the salon bigger.

The last thing I want to say, Mike Pompeo, please keep your eyes wide open and take a good look at our happy life! We ourselves know the best and have the right to say whether we Uygurs live well in Xinjiang and in China. We don't need you to worry about it and tell us what to do. We don't need your ulterior motives to discredit us. And also, We don't need you to make things up!