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A precocious child who read insatiably, Wuer often visited his grandparents in Xinjiang, near the Soviet border, to learn Uighur. But he spent most of his boyhood and school years in Beijing in an apartment adorned by a portrait of Mao put there by his father.
In 1984 the family moved to Urumqi in Xinjiang. On Wuer's bedroom wall hung a portrait of the ancient poet Qu Yuan. Wuer began to write poetry, and took part in school affairs. He helped edit the school newspaper, an experience friends believe developed his interest in freedom of the press. In the summers he went on school field trips into the mountains to stay with the cossack herdsmen. That too left an impression. "He could tell the difference between the life of the ordinary people and the life of the leaders, and he got ideas from these people," said a friend. In 1988 he entered Beijing Normal University. He told friends he wanted to study Chinese literature but felt compelled to pursue an education degree because the Uighurs were in dire need of teachers.
Last January his ideas seemed to flower into activism. He wrote a friend that inflation was "robbing the country," and he worried about its impact on workers. His political views grew out of his own experiences, not Western influence; he never went abroad, but his voracious reading exposed him to all sorts of modern concepts, Chinese and foreign. "He believed," said a friend, "the Chinese expression that the leaders should serve the people."
During the pro-democracy demonstrations, Wuer headed the banned independent union of students, where his sophisticated ideas and brash irreverence won him considerable celebrity. But it was less easy for those who knew him well to think of him on a hunger strike. Since childhood he had suffered acute stomach trouble, and only a few days into the fast he collapsed and was carried to the hospital. His mother crossed the country from Xinjiang to plead with him not to resume his fast. He persisted.
Said a friend: "He fears nothing; he was always like that." But now, with his face on wanted posters across the country, Wuer Kaixi has all China to fear.