Kashgar: Last outpost of the Silk Road
My hotmail's not working on this virus-laden computer, so in a fit of sheer desperation to communicate (after it showed me I had eleven messages, then closed the window for the fourth time) I'm going to make a blog.
I'll start by briefly introducing Kashgar. Kashgar in and of itself is a fairly tame place, though it was once an important stop along the Silk Road, as a desert oasis where caravans could resupply and where a significant ammount of trade took place. We arrived here on Tuesday after a grueling bus ride that was supposed to be 24 hours but ended up being 32. We are taking the train back to Urumqi.
Our trip actually happened to coincide with Bodrum, the "sugar festival" that comes after Ramadan, if I remember correctly. So on Tuesday there were all kinds of festivities, singing and dancing in the square near the mosque, and lights and fireworks. People are still on holiday now, but there is little sign of it except than many workshops are closed.
Kashgar is about 70 to 80% Uighur, one of the highest percentages in Xinjiang. As a result, most people here speak extremely basic Chinese. As I laughingly commented to Vince, this is the first place in China where my Chinese is better than that of the Chinese. A very comforting reality. In fact, the language is really fascinating. I've been on a mission to discover exactly how similar it is to Turkish, and it was right away apparent that the numbers are the same, as are grammar particles like "yok" "var" "siz" etc. etc. Our tour guide from today humored me as I threw Turkish words at him for about fifteen minutes, and I was pleased to come to the conclusion that there are enough similarities to make the languages mutually intelligible, with a few vocabulary departures or variations on basic root words. For example, salt in Turkish is tuz, in Uighur it's something like tuzlorp (terribly butchered). I also asked him if he'd ever had a Turk come to Kashgar, and he said yes, once, and that they had managed to communicate fairly well. Fascinating how far spread out this language family is....
Today was an action-packed day in Xinjiang. I gave up the chance to be an extra in the Mark Forster-directed movie "Kite Runner" (an amazing book, I couldn't believe it when I saw they were filming in Kashgar-can't wait for that to come out!) and booked a tour upon arriving at this hotel yesterday to go check out the second largest shifting sand desert in the world after the Sahara (that was the tagline)-the Taklimakan Desert. We were promised camels as well, and I guess I'll give away the end: there were no camels for us to ride, at least not at the desert part. But it blew my mind to see camel after camel after camel pulling carts of Ghengis Khan's descendants to and fro between the villages that looked like they had been constructed after the style of times immemorial, the color of the desert and shaded by rows of poplar trees.
This trip was truly one of the most fascinating experiences I've had in China. Once we got out of Kashgar, which has definitely been changed by the arrival of the Han Chinese immigrant flood starting after 1949ish, the entire atmosphere shifted. Cars disappeared from the streets, to be replaced by hundreds of donkey-pulled carts and three-wheeled motorized vehicles piled with people. I plied our guide with question after question and...it's really late and I'm about to be kicked out of the internet cafe, so I guess I'll finish this another time...I have so much to tell!
I'll start by briefly introducing Kashgar. Kashgar in and of itself is a fairly tame place, though it was once an important stop along the Silk Road, as a desert oasis where caravans could resupply and where a significant ammount of trade took place. We arrived here on Tuesday after a grueling bus ride that was supposed to be 24 hours but ended up being 32. We are taking the train back to Urumqi.
Our trip actually happened to coincide with Bodrum, the "sugar festival" that comes after Ramadan, if I remember correctly. So on Tuesday there were all kinds of festivities, singing and dancing in the square near the mosque, and lights and fireworks. People are still on holiday now, but there is little sign of it except than many workshops are closed.
Kashgar is about 70 to 80% Uighur, one of the highest percentages in Xinjiang. As a result, most people here speak extremely basic Chinese. As I laughingly commented to Vince, this is the first place in China where my Chinese is better than that of the Chinese. A very comforting reality. In fact, the language is really fascinating. I've been on a mission to discover exactly how similar it is to Turkish, and it was right away apparent that the numbers are the same, as are grammar particles like "yok" "var" "siz" etc. etc. Our tour guide from today humored me as I threw Turkish words at him for about fifteen minutes, and I was pleased to come to the conclusion that there are enough similarities to make the languages mutually intelligible, with a few vocabulary departures or variations on basic root words. For example, salt in Turkish is tuz, in Uighur it's something like tuzlorp (terribly butchered). I also asked him if he'd ever had a Turk come to Kashgar, and he said yes, once, and that they had managed to communicate fairly well. Fascinating how far spread out this language family is....
Today was an action-packed day in Xinjiang. I gave up the chance to be an extra in the Mark Forster-directed movie "Kite Runner" (an amazing book, I couldn't believe it when I saw they were filming in Kashgar-can't wait for that to come out!) and booked a tour upon arriving at this hotel yesterday to go check out the second largest shifting sand desert in the world after the Sahara (that was the tagline)-the Taklimakan Desert. We were promised camels as well, and I guess I'll give away the end: there were no camels for us to ride, at least not at the desert part. But it blew my mind to see camel after camel after camel pulling carts of Ghengis Khan's descendants to and fro between the villages that looked like they had been constructed after the style of times immemorial, the color of the desert and shaded by rows of poplar trees.
This trip was truly one of the most fascinating experiences I've had in China. Once we got out of Kashgar, which has definitely been changed by the arrival of the Han Chinese immigrant flood starting after 1949ish, the entire atmosphere shifted. Cars disappeared from the streets, to be replaced by hundreds of donkey-pulled carts and three-wheeled motorized vehicles piled with people. I plied our guide with question after question and...it's really late and I'm about to be kicked out of the internet cafe, so I guess I'll finish this another time...I have so much to tell!
posted by Timbre | 8:44 AM
2 Comments:
Hey Tamber, it is really fun to read your descriptions about my home state. I am from Hotan. have you been there. It is located a little southeast of Kashker.
I am going to school in Washington State University, and Seattle is my favorite place.
one more thing . I have a very good friend here , Andy, who just returned from Harbin after having learned Chinese for one year. Probably you have heard of him.
Four years too late...i never pay attention to this blog! So glad to hear you liked it:) And yes, Andy is a very good friend of mine!!!
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