To address briefly your questions re: sapa: yes, indeed, I hear people use it all the time in more or less the same ways that Mandarin speakers use suzhi (and I cannot recall anyone ever having code-switched suzhi for sapa, though I’m sure it happens): “Uning mädäniyät sapasi töwän” (n.b. the second ‘a’ is long and there is no vowel reduction when adding suffixes to ‘sapa’), “uning sapasi yoq,” and the like. Offhand–without going back through transcripts and notes to look for specific instances–I think it seems to have come up most in situations in which I’ve discussed with Uyghurs 1) education in general, 2) interesting things I’ve heard/seen/experienced in the poor places of southern Xinjiang (like a 19-year-old taxi driver in Khotan who did not know what “kutupxana” meant until I told him), and 3) the general state of/problems in contemporary Uyghur society (these discussions always focus on poorness and low education levels, Uyghurs as “déhqan xälq,” and the like). It comes up quite a bit. Sapa among Uyghurs, in my understanding, is marked by a sense of cosmopolitanism, by “proper” command of “pure” Uyghur language, and by being well-versed in Uyghur literature and arts, among other things. The employees of university departments and cultural bureaus and other socially “high” workplaces are often said to have sapa (even when I personally would argue that some of them don’t!), in contrast to people who speak “kocha tili” and are in the lowest qatlam-s of society. My sense is that, yes, anyone within the “Chinese context” would likely recognize sapa as equivalent to suzhi.

To be clear, yes, I think your inclusion of ‘suzhi’ in your original post was relevant, but in your writing you could perhaps have made it more clear that the concept was part of *your* take on–rather than an original part of–David’s text.

Regarding my discussion of suzhi: the anthropologist Andrew Kipnis (2011) has demonstrated that one of (or perhaps “the”) dominant goal/s of Chinese education is obtaining suzhi (or “attained quality” as opposed to zhiliang or “ascribed quality”) in order to attain or maintain high social positions in Chinese society. In addition Emily Yeh (2013) in conversation with Yan Hairong (2008) and Ann Anagnost (2004) has demonstrated that suzhi is distributed differently based on one’s location within the nation. Developed places are places of suzhi; places at the center of Chinese knowledge production is where suzhi takes place. My sense is that David’s longing for Uyghur education is in direct relation to this discourse of suzhi.

Sapa may or may not be taking part in this conceptual discourse – I would love to know more about how you hear sapa being used. Do people say for instance “her cultural sapa is really low” when referring to someone who they view as less sophisticated? What constitutes high Uyghur cultural sapa and how is it exchanged for distinction and economic status? Would someone positioned outside the Uyghur social field but within the Chinese context recognize Uyghur sapa as suzhi?

Further Reading
Anagnost, A. (2004). The corporeal politics of quality (suzhi). Public culture,16(2), 189-208.
Kipnis, A. (2011). Governing Educational Desire: Culture, Politics and Schooling in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Yan, H. (2008) New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development and Women Workers in China. Duke University Press.
Yeh, E. T. (2013). Taming Tibet: landscape transformation and the gift of Chinese development. Cornell University Press.

That post by David is something else–thanks for highlighting it. I’m curious: is there a particular reason why you chose to introduce and then use suzhi in this piece? It’s somewhat misleading, and even a little jarring to me, since 1) it’s not anywhere in David’s post (though it’s obviously related to the bit about the numbers of educated Tibetans and Mongols vis-a-vis Uyghurs), and 2) there *is* a word, sapa, that Uyghurs use to express the same concept.

Have some thoughts on some elisions in the translation, as well, but I’ll just send those to you privately if you’re interested.

-Billllll