Market girl in Urumqi

At the night market in Urumqi in Xinjiang Province of western China, this Uyghur (ethnic minority) girl looked at me with incredulity--as if to say, who is this strange-looking fair-haired American woman with a camera, and what is she doing in my neighborhood?

Most of these people had never seen Americans before. Some asked if we were Russian. They were also totally fascinated with our digital cameras and loved seeing their own image on the screen on the back of the camera.

The Uyghur people are an oppressed ethnic minority group in China who practice the Muslim faith and speak a Turkic language.