Kashgar Part 2
I'm back in Harbin now, and in no mood to do homework, so here I am! I still have more to say about Kashgar and the tour we took...
Like I said before, our tour guide was incredibly obliging, and did his best to answer every question I put to him. He took us first to Yengisar, a town famous for knife production. There isn't much to see there, apparently, besides knife factories, but the work they do in those shops is beautiful. They use very simple tools to produce their knives, but these knives are famous throughout China for both their appearance and their quality. Most Uighur men, it seems, own at least one.
After that we continued on through seemingly endless expanses of desert to Yarkand, another ancient Silk Road through-city. There much of the old Uighur craftsmanship is still alive, and I even had a chance to see the handmade Uighur string instruments that I'd seen on the Discovery Channel last fall, and which got me interested in Xinjiang in the first place. We also visited the tombs of a couple of khans that once ruled this part of Central Asia. One of them, Abakh Hoja Khan, was a very popular ruler, and the site is now a pilgrimage destination for many of the faithful. The tomb is also incidentally the burial site of XiangFei, one of China's four great beauties (I think-Posy will have to confirm!) and a beloved concubine of a Qing dynasty ruler. This Abdul did not find interesting enough to tell me, and so this information is pieced together from the Lonely Planet and from four older ladies I met on the train, and who, incidentally, happened to be historical archivists on their way back to Urumqi from a meeting in Kashgar.
According to Abdul, most of the people in Xinjiang are Shiite Muslims (In fact, in Yarkand, I was privileged enough to see an imam riding a bike. Not that I thought that was outside of the realm of possibility, but that just wasn't my image of an imam...). I'd guessed Sunni, but I was wrong. Apparently there are in fact Sunnis living there, but Abdul says that unlike in Iraq, there are no conflicts. He said that the terrorists are the Sufis, who are well-represented in Yarkand. He vehemently condemned violence n the name of Islam (as has every Muslim I've chanced to meet in or out of the US) and cited a violent attack that occurred not long ago outside of Kashgar that killed many innocent people. The language barrier wouldn't permit anymore details than that, but he insisted the Sufis were behind it. I had thought Sufis were harmless mystics, but I guess things are different from place to place.
After leaving Yarkand, we set off on the next leg of our journey, an hour long trip to the edge of the desert. We'd passed plenty of desert already, but hadn't yet seen the "shifting sands." The terrain is really interested aong the way, especially as you get closer to the Taklimakan. Fields growing cotton and vegetables alternate with patches of sand and barren land, making me wonder how on earth they manage to prevent the desert from taking over entirely. Speaking of cotton, Abdul said it is one of the main crops not only in Kashgar, but in much of Xinjiang's drier areas. Makes sense, as it's probably one of the few plants that could tolerate the climate and soil. If Abdul understood my question, the cotton grown in Xinjiang (and other similar places, like Shaanxi) almost completely meets the needs of China's textile industry. I think he said that none was imported at all, but I think we may have run into a misunderstanding when I started talking about imports. Something to investigate.
Along the way I also asked about the hats they wear in Xinjiang-many different kinds, but most predominant is an attractive multi-colored four pointed little one they perch on the tops of their heads. I was theorizing from my oh-so-educated standpoint about the different explanations that might be behind the different colors-green for those who'd been to Mecca, white for maybe a different sect, fur for...old guys? grin. But Abdul set me straight. Fur is for winter, white is for simplicity's sake, and color is up to the wearer. Did that ever burst my bubble. He also told me that depending on where in Xinjiang you are from might mean you don't even where one. Abdul, who was from Ili, does not wear one.
We did finally make it to the desert, which was fascinating in and of itself. Didn't live up to my expectations of vast expanses of burnt sienna (the crayon color I could never figure out as a child) colored sand, like in Aladdin, and there were too many patches of crabgrass, but it was still interesting to see rolling hills of nothing but sand stretching off into the distance. I'm putting a trek through the Sahara by camel on my list of things to do in life now.
I ran into a bunch of other interesting facts along the way as well, for instance, there are Tajiks living in China. We passed a settlement in the middle of nowhere that looked like a pretty prison camp (for CET students, think Acheng) and when I asked, Abdul said it was for Tajiks. I at first thougt they were actual foreign national refugees, but as it turns out they're mostly from Tashkurgan, but the Chinese government determined that their living conditions were too dangerous/impoverished/etc, and moved them here.
The Uighurs also used to use an English script, Abdul said they had used it for centuries (I think we understood each other, though I found that startling) but within the last couple decades, the Chinese government changed it to Arabic. Abdul said that the English script was much better, made it easier to learn English (funny, echoed exactly what the Lonely Planet said about the switch!), but that China made the rules. I tried to use that to lead into an inquiry about how he felt about the Chinese presence in Xinjiang, but I was unsurprisingly artfully deflected, and decided it wouldn't be prudent to push the question. He was however very proud to say every time we went through a remote city that it was nearly all Uighur, with very few Han Chinese.
Well, I suppose that even if I'm not interested in my homework, I should at least try to give some order to the chaos that rules my bed after I exploded my backpack on it after coming home this morning...
Like I said before, our tour guide was incredibly obliging, and did his best to answer every question I put to him. He took us first to Yengisar, a town famous for knife production. There isn't much to see there, apparently, besides knife factories, but the work they do in those shops is beautiful. They use very simple tools to produce their knives, but these knives are famous throughout China for both their appearance and their quality. Most Uighur men, it seems, own at least one.
After that we continued on through seemingly endless expanses of desert to Yarkand, another ancient Silk Road through-city. There much of the old Uighur craftsmanship is still alive, and I even had a chance to see the handmade Uighur string instruments that I'd seen on the Discovery Channel last fall, and which got me interested in Xinjiang in the first place. We also visited the tombs of a couple of khans that once ruled this part of Central Asia. One of them, Abakh Hoja Khan, was a very popular ruler, and the site is now a pilgrimage destination for many of the faithful. The tomb is also incidentally the burial site of XiangFei, one of China's four great beauties (I think-Posy will have to confirm!) and a beloved concubine of a Qing dynasty ruler. This Abdul did not find interesting enough to tell me, and so this information is pieced together from the Lonely Planet and from four older ladies I met on the train, and who, incidentally, happened to be historical archivists on their way back to Urumqi from a meeting in Kashgar.
According to Abdul, most of the people in Xinjiang are Shiite Muslims (In fact, in Yarkand, I was privileged enough to see an imam riding a bike. Not that I thought that was outside of the realm of possibility, but that just wasn't my image of an imam...). I'd guessed Sunni, but I was wrong. Apparently there are in fact Sunnis living there, but Abdul says that unlike in Iraq, there are no conflicts. He said that the terrorists are the Sufis, who are well-represented in Yarkand. He vehemently condemned violence n the name of Islam (as has every Muslim I've chanced to meet in or out of the US) and cited a violent attack that occurred not long ago outside of Kashgar that killed many innocent people. The language barrier wouldn't permit anymore details than that, but he insisted the Sufis were behind it. I had thought Sufis were harmless mystics, but I guess things are different from place to place.
After leaving Yarkand, we set off on the next leg of our journey, an hour long trip to the edge of the desert. We'd passed plenty of desert already, but hadn't yet seen the "shifting sands." The terrain is really interested aong the way, especially as you get closer to the Taklimakan. Fields growing cotton and vegetables alternate with patches of sand and barren land, making me wonder how on earth they manage to prevent the desert from taking over entirely. Speaking of cotton, Abdul said it is one of the main crops not only in Kashgar, but in much of Xinjiang's drier areas. Makes sense, as it's probably one of the few plants that could tolerate the climate and soil. If Abdul understood my question, the cotton grown in Xinjiang (and other similar places, like Shaanxi) almost completely meets the needs of China's textile industry. I think he said that none was imported at all, but I think we may have run into a misunderstanding when I started talking about imports. Something to investigate.
Along the way I also asked about the hats they wear in Xinjiang-many different kinds, but most predominant is an attractive multi-colored four pointed little one they perch on the tops of their heads. I was theorizing from my oh-so-educated standpoint about the different explanations that might be behind the different colors-green for those who'd been to Mecca, white for maybe a different sect, fur for...old guys? grin. But Abdul set me straight. Fur is for winter, white is for simplicity's sake, and color is up to the wearer. Did that ever burst my bubble. He also told me that depending on where in Xinjiang you are from might mean you don't even where one. Abdul, who was from Ili, does not wear one.
We did finally make it to the desert, which was fascinating in and of itself. Didn't live up to my expectations of vast expanses of burnt sienna (the crayon color I could never figure out as a child) colored sand, like in Aladdin, and there were too many patches of crabgrass, but it was still interesting to see rolling hills of nothing but sand stretching off into the distance. I'm putting a trek through the Sahara by camel on my list of things to do in life now.
I ran into a bunch of other interesting facts along the way as well, for instance, there are Tajiks living in China. We passed a settlement in the middle of nowhere that looked like a pretty prison camp (for CET students, think Acheng) and when I asked, Abdul said it was for Tajiks. I at first thougt they were actual foreign national refugees, but as it turns out they're mostly from Tashkurgan, but the Chinese government determined that their living conditions were too dangerous/impoverished/etc, and moved them here.
The Uighurs also used to use an English script, Abdul said they had used it for centuries (I think we understood each other, though I found that startling) but within the last couple decades, the Chinese government changed it to Arabic. Abdul said that the English script was much better, made it easier to learn English (funny, echoed exactly what the Lonely Planet said about the switch!), but that China made the rules. I tried to use that to lead into an inquiry about how he felt about the Chinese presence in Xinjiang, but I was unsurprisingly artfully deflected, and decided it wouldn't be prudent to push the question. He was however very proud to say every time we went through a remote city that it was nearly all Uighur, with very few Han Chinese.
Well, I suppose that even if I'm not interested in my homework, I should at least try to give some order to the chaos that rules my bed after I exploded my backpack on it after coming home this morning...
posted by Timbre | 1:49 AM
1 Comments:
That's an amazing trip, I'm so jealous. I'm thinking of heading out there next summer. any suggestions?
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