spirit of kashgar

8/6/2019 Spirit of Kashgar

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July 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk

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WENTY-FOUR HOURS of meandering

road away, behind the hulk of the Tien

Shan, the charismatic antique Islam/

modern China dichotomy of Kashgar

awaits. But rst you must endure the

worlds worst bus journey, prone to delays as

passengers load whole cherry orchards into the

belly of the vehicle, bribes, pauses for prayer,

inordinately long Chinese lunches, and the im-

probable developing of coughs in the customs

queue at peak swine u season. I daresay its

worth it though. Kashgar makes for a passion-

ate technicolour quickie after the grey, grinding

stay-together-for-the-kids of Bishkek.

The Silk Routes rich history of trade, con-

quest and civilization spills into Kashgars

present, but you had better visit soon; China is

holding the brush that threatens to sweep the

distinctive Uighur culture into the desert. It has

one of the most pronounced dissociative dis-

orders of any Chinese city: the modern towers,

wide roads, and confused capitalism have en-

circled and in some cases intertwined with the

dense adobe warrens of Kashgars traditional

dwellings.

My couchsurfer host informs me that this has

created de facto apartheid, and now the govern-

ments plan to demolish the adobe houses andre-accommodate the Uighur in modern high-

rises threatens to ghettoise them. Examples of

the traditional architecture will be preserved,

The very word Kashgar carries an inimi-

table ring. As an oasis stirring amidst the

sands of the Tarim Desert, Silk Road travel-

lers regarded its limits as a salvation follow-

ing exhausting journeys over empty ex-

panses. Yet as is the case in much of Chinas

subdued West, the original version is being

threatened by a utilitarian new town. Evan

Harrisvisits a millennia-old city under siege.

T

SpiritKashgar

EVAN HARRIS

but as one of the soulless UNESCO restorations

that aict the Silk Routes historic settlements.

Without romanticizing the melancholy aesthetic

of dusty Turkic poverty, it is impossible not to

notice that the Chinese government seems un-

interested in the plurality of approaches to ur-

ban housing policy, preferring its slash and burn

method which conveniently erases all but token

traces of the ethnic culture which once stood at

the heart of its cities.

Kashgar has been settled since 300BC and

has been ruled by Huns, Turks, Arabs, Mon-

gols and now Chinese. The true ethnography

and etymology of the Uighurs is shifting in the

quagmire of academic debate, but Uighur tribes

seem to have settled in the Tarim basin (in which

Kashgar sits) at the beginning of the 8th century,

having split from the disintegrating Uighur em-

pire which originated in present-day Mongolia.

The Chinese soon entered into a tense

and uctuant relationship with their northern

neighbours. Fantastic warriors and horsemen,

the Tang emperors recognized them as the bar-

barians that could keep other barbarians at the

gate. But when they werent acting as defenders

of the frontier, marrying Chinese noblewomen

as tribute for their troubles, the subjects of the

Uighur kaghans were raining a chaos down onwestward-bound caravans of silk, devouring

travelling merchants in a melee of sharpened

metal and beating hooves.

of

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www.thespektator.co.uk July 2010 The Spektator

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Top left An Uighur waitress watches the worldgo by from a restaurant balcony (all photos

Evan Harris)

Above Heavy-laden donkeys still trot around

Kashgars Old City, hawking bicycles, sheeps

wool and other goods

Kashgars host province Xinjiang is home

to a number of Turkic groups including the Kyr-

gyz; it was formerly known as Eastern Turkestan,

representing one half of an eective division

between cultural overlords Russia, to the west,

and China, to the east. Fascinatingly you can see

the abrupt nature of this

separation as you drive

from Osh to Kashgar.

In Kyrgyzstan, your

bus lurches along pot-

holed dirt-tracks, past

pastures of yurta andmen in their distinctive

kalpaks. Torturously, you

cross the border, going

through a Kyrgyz cus-

toms shack before heading over no mans land

in the direction of a white tiled Chinese complex

replete with basketball courts to distract the

nervous military boys.

Out the other side and your bus glides along

smooth tarmac, past pastures ofyurta and men

in their distinctive kalpaks, except now road signs

are not in Kyrgyz or Russian, but Arabic and Chi-

nese. With delays at the border, fteen hours can

separate one Kyrgyz village from the other. As you

make the journey, you will therefore have plentyof time to consider which kalpak-wearing man is

the more fortuitous. One became the titular na-

tionality in an independent country, his culture

enshrined amidst the daily grind of a crumbling

post-Soviet infrastructure and a coup-prone state

apparatus. The other, meanwhile, lives in one of

the most rapidly-modernizing countries in the

world, yet that modernization has shown itself to

bulldoze minority cultures, and he is a straggling

minority.

It will be a crying

shame when a synthet-

ic Chinese transplant

replaces Kashgars

organic heart, for the

beat of its pulse is vi-brant. Deeply dejected

after the bus journey, I

leave the fading gran-

deur of my room at

the former British embassy - now the Qiniwak

hotels rear annexe - in tentative search of a mid-

night feed. Immediately I am overwhelmed by

the energy coursing through the city, even at

this late hour. Eventually I nd out, by way of a

missed meeting, that Uighurs observe local time

instead of the ocial Beijing time, a subtle but

ceaseless non-conformity said to infuriate the

upper ranks of Chinas elite.

Sitting down in an enormous caf, I battle

through the language barrier with imprecisehand jabbing and settle into a liver, skin and fat

kebab, accompanied by a starch jelly and chilli

salad. It is delicious.

Immersion is Kashgars

appeal - allow yourself to drift

around the place, drawn this

way and that by the strikingcuriosity of its daily routine

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July 2010 The Spektator www.thespektator.co.uk

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So is the fresh fruit thrust upon you by street

sellers, as is the native lagman dramatically

beaten out in front of you in the old towns res-

taurants. The streets leading othe main square

outside the Id Khah mosque are positively alive

with the sight and smell of truly exotic food -

pass up nothing if your stomach and balls are

big enough.

Immersion is Kashgars appeal - allow your-

self to drift around the place, drawn this way

and that by the strik-

ing curiosity of its daily

routine. An infectious

momentum ebbs andows through the day

on a current of chat-

tering beards in tea-

houses, climaxing after

evening prayer when

the Id Khah mosque spews worshippers out

of its yellow mouth, into the square and sur-

rounding eateries. The square itself is an amphi-

theatre of simple drama: frolicking families play

with beach balls, scruy street kids make play-

grounds of the public space. In the evening your

spine is shivered by the wail of the muezzin, as

late young men sprint, and greybeards hobble

across the paving to commune with their Allah.

During the day, go and get lost in and

amongst the Old City that stood in for Kabul

in box oce hit The Kite Runner. This earthen

brick honeycomb of alleys, courtyards and hous-

es stands on millennia old foundations and is in-

habited by over 200 thousand Uighurs. Passing

by open doorways and courtyards you glimpse

veiled women tending to simple domesticity;

poultry, wells and washing lines. Giggling girls

glide by on bicycles, their red frocks blurring

against the uninterrupted desert browns of

these ancient structures. In their open-fronted

workshops, leather skinned men turn tools from

pale woods and ham-

mer horseshoes in front

of furious furnaces as

skull-capped sorts gos-sip over perpetually

poured pots of tea on

pavements broken by

embroidered blankets.

Kashgars beauty is in

this timelessness. Then, without warning, glo-

balization slaps you with the bizarre motif of a

drably veiled woman carrying a live chicken in

a Morrisons (British supermarket) carrier bag. A

few blocks away a twenty metre concrete Chair-

man Mao would like to remind you that this is

China after all, and modernity is coming to get

you.

No doubt there are plusses to modern Chi-

nese cities, and there is indeed excitement to be

had for the western tourist in uptown Kashgar,

with its confusion of familiar concrete structures

A few blocks away a twenty

metre concrete Chairman Maowould like to remind you that thisis China after all, and modernityis coming to get you

Travel DetailsThe bus from Osh to Kashgar via the Irkeshtam

pass costs $75, and is one youll remember for

a while unless you selectively erase it from your

memory. Allow at least 24 hours and come well

prepared with food and water (unlike yours tru-

ly). Be prepared to be unable to communicate

with anybody on the bus including the driver

and xer- everyone was Uighur/Chinese and

none of them spoke a lick of Russian.

Alternatively you can get a bus to Sary Tash

and then hitch to the border from there. Or youcan get a taxi to the border for between $135-

150. As always, the friendly guys in Osh Guest-

house will sort you out with all the information

you need.

Alternatively you can go via the reportedly

hit and miss Torugart pass from Bishkek. Check

travel agents in Bishkek and/or Thorntree to get

the lowdown.

I went to eight other hotels (long story), and

stayed in four, so I know that for your bucks the

rear annexe at the Qiniwak hotel is your best bet.

Karakoram cafe opposite the Qiniwak hotel

will sort you out with a cappuccino, very help-

ful travel advice, and local guides. They also do

western food if youre homesick, but seriouslymake the most of the local cuisine. http://crown-

inntashkorgan.com/karakoramcafeesp.html

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www.thespektator.co.uk July 2010 The Spektator

Focus

Far left: The bicycle is still the most used form

of transport in China, the largely Islamic

Xinjiang region included

Left An Uighur man in the Old City

Above A young girl helps a veiled relative

navigate her way home after a visit to one of

the mini-bazaars in Kashgars side alleys

and alien street stalls. But make no mistake,

a more ruthlessly developed metropolis like

Chengdu is now indistinguishable from a bland

western prototype, and shares none of Kashgars

historic saving graces.

Where remnants of Chinas ancient civilisa-

tions possess a fragile charm, modern China

simply has oddities. Not content with erecting

monuments to their own recent mythology (hel-

lo again, Mao), I stumble across a bizarre circle

of Snow Whites seven dwarves cast in concrete

in front of a ferris wheel an adobe bricks throw

from the Old City. The dichotomy is truly appar-

ent in the most advanced beggars this youngwriter has seen. On the concrete streets of the

modern city, x-rays of smashed limbs and tuber-

culosis-infected lungs are propped up next to

the aicted. One even limply clings to an intra

venous drip of piss yellow liquid, which feeds

into his chest of weeping, livid red sores.

The tension between modern China and its

indigenous Uighur violently expressed itself in

riots that left hundreds dead shortly after I left.

Though there was no trace of violence during

my stay (aside from Turkic tempers), the locals

I spoke to were deeply aggrieved by what was

happening to their city. One owner of a tour

company told me his business prospects were

bleak if Kashgars antique draw was erased; he

was already struggling in a global recession year

that had left the town empty of tourists. A taste

of the future is oered by the citys main bazaar,

which has been sanitised and re -housed in a cav-

ernous structure that has little to oer for those

already familiar with Central Asias markets.

More authentic oddities are to be found in

the surrounding streets however. A cacophony

of tenuously chained dogs bray at onlookers as

they are bargained for next to bundles of hay

sold out the back of a horse and cart. Cheerfully

paraded out front of a carpet workshop, Kash-

gars indigenous weave has produced a rug cel-

ebrating (not commemorating) the 9/11 attacks.

Conned to the outskirts of the town is

Kashgars famous livestock market, now re-duced to having an instrumental commercial

purpose rather than being the city social hub

it once was. Having recently visited a similar

market in Kyrgyzstan, I already knew the drill.

Here, men in their element haggle over a variety

of livestock drawn from large lorries, or pulled

roughshod from the boots of cars. Children pa-

rade cavorting horses and women showcase

the animals nal destinations - succulent fatty

kebabs. The Kyrgyz version, I remember, was

Siamese-twinned with a used car market.

Similarly, Kashgars Old City also has an in-

dustrialized counterpart trading under the same

name, but new Kashgar moves more like a pol-

ished juggernaut than a rusting lada. Brave the

bus ride from hell to catch the original, before it

loses out in this simmering sibling rivalry.

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spirit of kashgar

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