Are you a foreigner or are you Chinese? I'm curious as I naively assumed that due to the unrest\resistance that even tourism in Urumqi was difficult to do legally, and therefore residence\work would be out of the question or nigh on impossible

I'm Chinese, but I am from minority. I am a developer so it is quite painful to live with this network.

I'm looking to ride through west china this summer. Would I be able to send you an email / IM to ask a few logistical questions? :)

Sure. I am happy to help . I can access Gmail with SOCKS proxy, so you can mail me at a p h a w k.