They had been living in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for years. But their peaceful life was suddenly disturbed by the riot on July 5, which, they fear, would cast a shadow in their future.

To protect the interviewees, we decided not to use their real names, but the accounts are authentic.

Worry of a Han and his friends

Hu Junqiang graduated from the Lanzhou University in northwest China's Gansu Province in 2003 and landed a job in Xinjiang.

"At first I thought I would just work for a few years and return to my hometown in Gansu," he recalled. Like many people, he had a stereotyped idea about Xinjiang at that time: a remote, less-developed region with a strange climate and unstable social order.

Two years later, however, Hu's view changed and he found himself unwilling to leave.

"It was more developed than Gansu, and local people are polite, warm-hearted and loyal to their parents," he said.

An example he gave was how locals behaved when they met strangers.

"In many big cities inland, people meet in the neighborhood but don't even look at each other, and nodding to strangers was considered silly," he said. "But in Urumqi, if you meet someone in your neighborhood, you would nod at him, he would smile and sometimes say hello to you."

"When you buy something from a peddler, no matter Uygur or Han, you can joke with him," he added.

Hu's job required him to communicate with strangers frequently.

"It was very easy to knock open their doors," he said. Unlike in some inland places where people tend to be more cautious with strangers, he felt welcome in Xinjiang.

That was why later Hu gave up several chances to transfer to inland provinces.

He got married with a local girl in 2007 in Urumqi, and was preparing to have a baby.

The riot on Sunday came as a bolt from the blue, and Hu felt that his world collapsed and he just wanted to cry.

When he called his Uygur friend asking her to be careful, she asked him "can we still be friends?"

"Can we still have a party with our Han friends, go shopping or to the cinema with them like before?" asked the girl.

Another of Hu's friends, 42-year-old accountant He Guangxin, was born and grew up in Urumqi.

"I saw the violence of rioters, and I knew at that moment, a shadow was cast upon the relationship between ethnic minorities. It will take years or even longer for people to heal the wounds in their hearts," he said.