The Chinese word for “concubine” is 妃子 (fēizi). Eli & I only learned this because it comes up so often in Chinese soap operas. There is a famous story from the Qing Dynasty about one of Emperor Qianlong‘s consorts who was known as 香妃 (Xiāng Fēi, literally meaning “Fragrant Concubine.”) The story goes that she was a Uyghur, the daughter of a local leader in Kashgar named Afaq Khoja. She was famous for having a naturally pleasing body scent and was given to the emperor by her father as a gift(!?) and bathed in camel’s milk every day on her journey to Beijing. Disconsolate and homesick, the emperor went to absurd lengths to recreate her distant home — a mosque, an oasis, a bazaar, finally a jujube tree — trying to win her love, which he eventually did. (I’m a little surprised the patriarchy hasn’t handed down her name to us in legend as the “High Maintenance Concubine.”) The emperor loved her until her death and her body was sent back to Kashgar.
I visited the Afaq Khoja family mausoleum where the Fragrant Concubine is buried.
The family school.
Elaborately carved wooden pillars, each unique.
The sign out front poetically referred to the complex as lying “between the poplar trees and Heaven.” I loved that, especially since the Chinese translation for the surname “Young” is 杨 (Yáng meaning “poplar”!)
This is the mausoleum where the Fragrant Concubine and her family are buried.
The mausoleum was covered with elaborate tile work.
Pictures inside were forbidden, but there were more graves just outside the building itself. 
Such obviously Arabic-influence architecture & design makes it hard to remember that, technically, this is all still China. 
Xiang Fei Park stretches out in front of the mausoleum. 
It was particularly melancholy in the winter.
Back inside the building complex, I saw this solitary camel. Standing patiently. Thinking. Plotting? “Soon.” 