Peripatetic

Posted on January 29, 2017 by d4vid

Stacks of camel saddles in the marketplace around the Id Kah Mosque.

My grandparents had a passion for travel.  They went all over the world, often with my father, aunts, uncle, and then, later, grandchildren in tow.  Their house was filled with items they had brought back from their globetrotting adventures.  As a child, I was always particularly fascinated by the camel saddles in the living room.

Stumbling upon these — after living in China for over two years and traveling alone, here to the very heart of Eurasia — I was filled with a sense of both being part of the Young clan and being myself.

 

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Minarets II

Posted on January 29, 2017 by d4vid

At the heart of Kashgar is the Id Kah Mosque, the largest mosque in China (although I actually found it less impressive than the mosque in Xining.)

Yet another caravan of camel statues.  That little kid standing on the far left in red & blue was actually wearing a Spiderman outfit.  I wish I had been quick enough to capture of shot of him riding one of the camels.  It would have been the perfect complement to the Captain America on a Chinese tank photo!Two head of cattle.  (See, they aren’t mandatory like in Chinese but English does have some measure words.)  The area around the mosque is a bustling marketplace.

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Façade

Posted on January 29, 2017 by d4vid

I visited Kashgar’s “Old Town” area, perched atop a small hill.

Early on a Sunday morning, it had that empty feeling of a studio backlot.
This ramp running up above the city wall led to a shrine of some sort, one of the only nods to Chinese architecture & design.  I keep finding myself amused by the juxtaposition of camels and snow, like this stone caravan.

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Dusted

Posted on January 29, 2017 by d4vid

Looking south across the dead growth of Donghu Park at the old stone buildings of Kashgar, all dusted with snow.

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Wood II

Posted on January 28, 2017 by d4vid

I love Xinjiang cuisine and Altun Orda was supposed to have some of the best in town.  Like Kashgar, the restaurant’s architecture & decor showed Middle Eastern, Russian, and Victorian influences.

There was metal detector just behind these beautiful wooden doors, so I didn’t feel comfortable taking photos inside.  And especially not after drawing the whole restaurant’s attention when I clocked myself on an absurdly low-hanging wooden design element at the top of the grand staircase inside.  (No, it did not make the pleasing sound of the beam in Kyoto.)

I had tea, pomegranate juice, rice pilaf with mutton, raisins, & yogurt, and mutton kebabs.  Good, but I still preferred my Wolverine kebabs.

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Oasis

Posted on January 28, 2017 by d4vid

I’ve finally made it to Kashgar, the oasis city at the far western end of the Silk Road near the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  Over the crossroad city’s two thousand year history, it has been variously under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol, and Tibetan empires.  Its strategic location also made it important in the Russian and British empires’ so-called Great Game.

Of Kashgar’s 500,000 population, 80% are Uyghurs.

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Bourgeois II

Posted on January 28, 2017 by d4vid

Ürümqi airport’s first class lounge was chintzy and very, very Chinese.  Still, better than Tianjin airport’s lounge.

I have opinions.

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Comfy III

Posted on January 28, 2017 by d4vid

This is a ream of paper being used as a booster seat on one of the chairs in the Ürümqi airport sales desk.  差不多, as the Chinese say.  “Close enough.”

I was here to buy an upgrade for my return ticket to Xi’an because I did not want to suffer in economy again.

I brought all of my Mandarin to bear.  I explained I was too tall.  I explained I was willing to pay any price.  I explained it was the first leg of a two plane trip back to Shanghai, but the second leg was already First Class.  I explained Business or First Class didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t Economy Class again.  But communication broke down.  I wasn’t able to understand what they were trying to tell me.  I waited five or ten minutes until they could get an English speaking representative on the phone.

The ticket was already First Class.

Apparently, only the to ticket from Xi’an to Ürümqi was Economy.  The other tickets were all First Class.  (I’m sure that’s why I didn’t notice the mistake in the first place.)

I finally understand what was going on when the woman said in English, “There is no higher class for this flight!”  I had been arguing in poor Chinese for half an hour to upgrade my First Class ticket to First Class.

I am an idiot.

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Gunpowder IV

Posted on January 28, 2017 by d4vid

I may have spoken too soon about Amsterdam.  Shanghai has banned fireworks at Chinese New Year (since a huge number of the city’s firefighters go back to their hometowns to be with their families.)  Apparently, fires are no concern in snow-covered Xinjiang.  I could see fireworks in every direction out my hotel window.  The deafening sound of firecrackers went on for days.

This picture sums up my Chinese New Year in Ürümqi:  firecracker debris in the snow.

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Snikt

Posted on January 27, 2017 by d4vid

I assume this is how Logan eats mutton.

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Suicide

Posted on January 27, 2017 by d4vid

Why would a snowman — a man made of snow — wear warm winter clothes?  Why?  WHY?

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Texas

Posted on January 26, 2017 by d4vid

I was watching too much CNN coverage of the Trump administration in my hotel room, so I reached out for comfort food.  I discovered Ürümqi has one Tex-Mex restaurant, so I made a pilgrimage.

It was closed.

I immediately thought “Of course it’s closed.  This is the night before Chinese New Year.”  For the Chinese, it’s like Christmas Eve & New Year’s Eve put together.  Everyone is huddled at home with their families.

And then I had the chilling realization that I wasn’t going to be able to find a taxi back to the hotel.  I wandered for blocks and blocks in the freezing cold and had a genuine pang of fear that I might freeze to death.

Finally, I found a guy getting out of a taxi and I lept in before the cabbie could refuse to take me.  We had a nice chat about America, China, and Trump.

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Viticulture

Posted on January 26, 2017 by d4vid

Xinjiang is known for a burgeoning wine industry, especially around a city called Turpan on the Northern Silk Road between Ürümqi, where I am now, and Jiayuguan, the “western edge of Chinese civilization” I visited a few months ago.
I’ve had some pretty horrendous Chinese wine over the years — I’m looking at you, Shaanxi province — but quite liked these bottles from Turpan.

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Mummies

Posted on January 26, 2017 by d4vid

The “Mortals of Last Millennium” exhibit — aside from having been named by H.P. Lovecraft, apparently — was devoted to mummies.

It was creepy.

My first walk through the exhibit, I refrained from taking any pictures because I thought it might be disrespectful.  And because there might be a curse or something.  But then I thought there might be a Tom Cruise movie tie-in and walked through a second time.
The dry Xinjiang climate in the deserts helped dessicate these corpses in their graves.  This old woman was found in a tomb dated to 800 B.C.E.  She shows — and I’m just quoting the English translation of the placard here — a mix of “Europoid and Mongoloid traits.”  She wore her hair in four plaits and her long robe was meticulously sewn.  Maybe she was a person of some importance.
But all of these people were important to someone.  All of these people had friends and family that wept at their passing.  This infant didn’t live to be one year old.  That was 2800 years ago.This baby was buried carefully wrapped in a blanket from head to foot with only its face visible.You could make out the facial features and beard of this man with disturbing clarity.
I’m a little ashamed to admit that one of the things I kept thinking of, over and over and over as I walked from body to body, was Robin Williams whispering “Carpe Diem.”  The exhibit was quiet, as the cliche goes, as a tomb.  That made the diorama interspersed between the bodies all the more unnerving.
  
  

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Ethnic

Posted on January 26, 2017 by d4vid

Braved the falling snow to visit the Xinjiang Museum.
Started with the “Memory of the History of the Western Regions” exhibit.  But the guard — I’ve never seen so many guards at a museum! every room! — shooed me away from what was obviously intended as the main entrance and toward a smaller doorway.  I was forced to walk through the exhibit in reverse chronological order. Qing Dynasty dress and chainmail, which I thought was cool.
These smiling camel & horse statues must have been the Cheech & Chong of their day.  Some nightmare fuel…
Yet another pala, as I’ve seen all over Asia.  But I liked this one because he seemed to be standing on a demon’s balls.These are copper eye covers with tiny little pinpricks to see through.  I assume they’re for Silk Road sandstorms or something.  They seemed very Mad Max to me.
The next exhibit was a celebration of the huge number of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.  It was nice textiles & housewares complement to the ethnic minorities “intangible culture” exhibit in neighboring Qinghai province’s regional museum.    In addition to having China’s highest percentage of Uyghurs, Xinjiang has a huge mix of ethnicities including Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui, Tajiks, Mongols, Manchus (mostly later generations of the officers & soldiers of the Manchu Eight Banners who defended the Qing Dynasty‘s northeastern border), Russians, and an increasing number of Han.
A camel hair coat. The inside of a yurt revealed (which I realize sounds like the worst clickbait title for an article ever.)
More copper eye protection, although this one looks more Dune than Mad Max.  And more nightmare fuel!  What the fuck are these things?
The one thing I learned about intangible culture, however, was a poem called the Epic of Manas which was written down in the 18th century but which they Kyrgyz claim is a thousand years old.

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