Living inside an evolving Xinjiang: My 2025 in Urumqi

By Luke Johnston 

I live in Saybag District, a part of Urumqi where daily life feels practical and local. You’re close enough to the mountains that the air can flip quickly, and close enough to the city center that you still feel the pulse of whatever Urumqi is doing this year. And in 2025, the city is doing a lot: celebrating loudly, programming culture more intentionally, making transport easier, and quietly weaving AI into the background of everyday life.

Celebrations

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and Urumqi is marking it in a way you can’t miss. On big roads, near public buildings, and across busy intersections, national flags and anniversary-themed displays have become part of the city’s everyday scenery. Even normal errands feel like you’re walking through a city that’s dressed for an occasion.

It creates a particular mood that is more public and more collective. Whether you’re on your way to work, heading to a mall, or just buying snacks downstairs, there’s a sense that the city is emphasizing togetherness and shared identity this year. It’s not subtle, but it’s effective: Urumqi in 2025 feels like it’s speaking with its outside voice.

One of the things that makes Urumqi special is that you can feel a cultural calendar that doesn’t match the rest of China’s rhythm exactly.

Take Nowruz, the Persian New Year. I’ve seen places like Wanke Mall lean into it with small cultural elements, decorations and special foods for it. It’s the kind of thing that makes you pause mid-shopping and remember: this city doesn’t just have many cultures; it lets them be visible.

Then there’s Eid, where the celebration energy shifts from “mall-friendly” to “street alive.” At the Grand Bazaar, you can find nights where dancing breaks out and the atmosphere becomes half celebration, half community gathering. You don’t need to be an expert to feel what’s happening, people are enjoying the moment, and the city becomes a stage.

The Eid festival is celebrated in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 2025. (Photo by Luke Johnston)

On top of these lived festivals, 2025 also feels like a year of organized cultural programming. The 3rd Xinjiang Cultural Arts Festival opened in Urumqi in April, and even the theme tells you what kind of year this is: it’s explicitly framed around welcoming the 70th anniversary, with large-scale performances, exhibitions, and activities across regions. This really made me feel the unity of Xinjiang, everyone together, celebrating the past whilst also celebrating how the place has changed and developed. It really made me feel lucky, honestly, to witness a place celebrating itself with this much confidence. As someone who arrived as an outsider, I could feel the gap shrinking: fewer questions in my head, more familiarity in my steps, and a growing sense that I’m not just passing through.

If you want one change that sounds almost too perfect for Xinjiang, it’s this: Urumqi introduced its first official “snow vacation” for students. From Dec. 1 to Dec. 5, it’s the first place in China to have such a week. What I like about it is that it treats winter as something the city can use, not just endure. It also changes the atmosphere in December: ski fields and ice activities feel more “planned into life,” not just something for tourists. And importantly, it’s not framed as “more time off for nothing,” reporting around the snow vacation emphasizes participation in sports, cultural activities, and family travel as part of the point.

For me it was a great chance to travel the world, especially because during Chinese national holidays the flight tickets can be astronomically expensive as everyone travels at the same time, but this time it was just Urumqi, so I managed to get a pair of cheap tickets to Japan. The same as the other local holidays here, it’s the perfect time to travel, all whilst saving money.

Transport upgrades

Urumqi’s upgrades aren’t only cultural; they’re practical. This year, new pure electric BRT buses have been rolling out. The details matter: low-entry design, modern interiors, and that subtle feeling that public transport is being treated as something worth investing in. Also, one of the most human changes is the BRT5 “age-friendly” line launched on April 15, 2025. It’s not just a label: the design includes low-floor boarding, better handrails, and features aimed at seniors and passengers with mobility needs.

This is the kind of modernisation that doesn’t just look good, it changes how a city treats people who move more slowly.

AI

The biggest shift that isn’t physical is how often AI now sits in the background of public life.

The most practical example is Urumqi’s 12345 government hotline. I called this hotline with a policy question and expected the usual vague answer. But in 2025 the operator explained it in a surprisingly clear, step-by-step way, like they already had a clean summary ready. Later I learned Urumqi’s 12345 had integrated DeepSeek, so instead of staff digging through pages of policy text, the system can generate the key points and turn complicated clauses into a simple guide. which integrated the DeepSeek large model.

What’s important is this: it’s not mainly about replacing humans with robots. Reporting describes human operators still handling calls, but with a DeepSeek-assisted system that can analyse requests, generate handling suggestions, and help route cases more accurately.

Officially reported numbers are striking: after the system went live, average waiting time was reported to drop from 8 minutes to 2 minutes, and night service capacity was reported to increase significantly.

And AI isn’t only on the hotline. In the new library space at the Culture Center, I’ve personally seen a smart guide “robot” kiosk that can help direct you, down to locating where your book should be, and what impressed me was that it could do it in English, too. That’s the kind of small feature that makes a city feel truly international and modern: not a slogan, just a tool that works when you need it.

The author is a PhD graduate in AI from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The views do not necessarily reflect those of ECNS.