Bringing sweetness to victims
Print Edition
ADIL Memettur spent more than 40 hours bumping along the road with 1,400 boxes of his traditional Xinjiang cake before he finally arrived at the epicenter of Sunday’s deadly earthquake in Yunnan Province.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long,” the young Uygur man said to residents of Longtoushan Town in Ludian County, after arriving on Thursday afternoon.
He does not tell them that he had traveled 1,200 kilometers from central China’s Hunan Province to Yunnan in southwest China, where the 6.5-magnitude earthquake killed at least 617 people and injured some 3,100.
“The Xinjiang nut cake is nutritious and easily preserved. It is also Muslim food that suits the ethnic minorities in Yunnan,” he said, adding that his 5,000 kilograms of cake can feed 50,000 people for a day.
Adil, 24, has become a popular figure for his online store selling Xinjiang snack qiegao — or marentang — a dense nougat made from nuts, candied fruits and malt syrup.
He has just graduated from Changsha University of Science and Technology in Hunan in equipment design and manufacturing.
Adil and his employees made, cut and packed the cakes overnight to donate to the quake-ravaged area. His store has had to delay all orders so that it can help the disaster victims.
“Most customers support me and also want to do something,” Adil said.
The cakes are worth 500,000 yuan (US$81,120). Adil has spent his funds and will have to borrow to buy more raw materials.
When he distributes the cake, Ma Guilan, an ethnic Hui, holds his arm and tells him to send several boxes to the relocation sites on the mountain, where many Hui people are.
“My home was destroyed by the quake and we had nothing to eat, but now rescuers and volunteers bring milk, instant noodles, porridge and delicious Xinjiang cake to us,” Cai Quan, a 19-year-old villager from Longtoushan. “I feel grateful to them.”
The story of Adil and his cake has been circulated on the Sina Weibo microblog, with some 50,000 netizens praising his actions.
Adil was born in Kashgar City in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The city has a marentang tradition, and as a child Adil learned how to make the snack.
He worries misunderstanding of Xinjiang will deepen due to recent terrorist attacks.
“I don’t want Xinjiang to lose the chance to be understood and loved. Through my cake, I hope people feel positive energy,” said Adil.
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