Letter from China 6: Kashgar
Aug. 20th, 2005 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorous_ettNow this one's going to be a puzzle. I'm out of my depth here - we aren't in Han China any more and it shows. The majority of people here are Uighurs (more Turkic than Chinese, in feature,culture and language), and a lot of people have worse Chinese than mine. (an interesting but pleasing side-effect of my teaching job is that I find myself a lot better equipped to understand halting, ungramatical, tone-free Chinese than the Chinese tourists do - a useful skill here...)
So this isn't going to be a particularly informed entry. I'm fascinated by the culture here, but as I don't understand the non-Han majority and speak no Uighur at all, the most I can do is talk about the things I've seen.
It's also desperately, swelteringly hot. Not quite as bad as Turfan, but I've been out in it a heck of a lot more. (though to be scrupulously fair about this, it's a lot cooler in the shade - in south China it's just unescapably muggy everywhere - and dry heat means you feel less sweaty.) If any of you were wondering why I'm using my Snitch icon instead of the usual owl, the reason is that the thought of being covered in feathers in this heat makes me cringe.
The first impressive thing about Kashgar was getting here. The journey from Urumqi turned out to be over 1000 kilometres, and we made it in great style and comfort, in the hard-sleeper section of a spanking new train on a recently constructed railway running through vast stretches of arid desert or near-desert, apart from the occasional oasis. Lumpy, dusty mountains were visible most of the time on one or the other side of the track.
Chinese trains are a source of great admiration to me, and really merit an entry all of their own. They run vast distances, often thousands of kilometres, they carry unfeasible numbers of people in varying degrees of comfort, they usually drag at least a dozen full carriages in their wake, they generally arrive more or less on time, and they cross the most unpromising terrain - mountains, gorges, wide rivers and (here) desert. They also make pleasing, mournful hooting noises, nothing like the flat British "nee-naw".
Taking a hard sleeper on a Chinese train is great fun. (There are other classes, all equally memorable, which I must leave for another day.) You arrive on the train after an appalling scrum in the waiting room as hundreds of people all attempt to pile through the gate at the same time, get out your books, instant noodles and screw-top jar for tea, and then just sit back and watch the station slide away and somewhere new slide into view. There are three tiers of bunks in most hard-sleeper carriages: the bottom, which is comfy and has the best veiws, but people tend to want to use it as a seat and sit on your feet if you're lying down; the top, where you have all the privacy you want but are crammed against the ceiling; or the middle, which is considered the best. All three bunks come with a pillow and blanket or quilt, depending on the season. In all cases, you will be surrounded by fellow passengers from all along your route, with a lot of time on their hands, and nothing much to do except chat - I've had the oddest conversations in my time. When the need arrises, you seep your pot noodles and fill up your tea jar from the samovar at the end of the carriage. Or curl up in your bunk and let the movement of the train rock you to sleep.
But that's not what I came to talk to you about.
Kashgar is built in an oasis in the middle of the desert, and has traditionally been a staging post on the Silk Route, along which goods were carried from China to Europe. It still has an enormous Sunday bazaar, about which I can tell you nothing yet, as it takes place tomorrow, but I do know that merchants from the Central Asian republics and even Pakistan come here to trade.
At first glance Kashgar is disappointingly Han, right down to a very large statue of Chairman Mao in the main square, surrounded by red flags. Without doubt, the Chinese city planners have been at work here, tearing down the shabby but picturesque old houses, and creating something nice and modern, with lots of nice white tiles and plate-glass windows, and big, broad streets down which taxis can drive unhindered.
But it doesn't take long to start picking up on the differences. To begin with, a lot of the people do not look Chinese at all, with prominent noses and long faces, and a good many wear Muslim dress, especially women - not the full head-to-toe black, but many at least wear a gauzy headscarf, attractively knotted, and there is every degree of veil, right down to thick, brown lack veils which are draped over the entire head, showing no features at all (though there seems to be a lot less worry about arms and legs than I was expecting).
The smell is different - there are a lot of small kebab stands, at which mutton is grilled over charcoal on special trays, with a kettle at the far end to ensure a ready supply of faintly spiced rose tea for the customers - and it's surprising how far the smell of charcoal and charring meat travels. Despite the four-lane main drags, you still see the occasional flat, wooden donkey cart trotting along under the trees. Like Urumqi, signs are bilingual, but here it's more than a token gesture - Arabic script takes preference, and often bills and receipts come in the Uighur language.
And that's just the start. Venture down the side streets to either side of Renmin Lu (People's Road) and you soon find yourself in a very different town indeed. Behind the usual modern white-tiled architecture are winding lanes with alleys leading off them, and lined with stalls selling sheep carcasses (instead of the ubiquitous Han pork), beaten copper utensils, turned wood, carpets and day-to-day clobber of the usual sort - but entirely Uighur. Houses are low, flat-roofed and made of yellow mud brick, and some of the richer courtyards have gateways adorned with towers and crescent moons. You can see bedsteads or carpets on the roof or in the street, so that the inhabitants can sleep on them at night in the relative cool. Dust is everywhere, from the bricks and from the desert. No Mandarin Chinese can be heard at all.
It's even more striking if you start visiting actual tourist sites. There are mosques that could come straight out of Central Asia - dusty, tiled, domed structures with shady courtyards, prayer rugs and rose gardens.
The visiting Chinese are gobsmacked, and so am I. It's hard to believe that this is still China.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-20 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:49 pm (UTC)I hope you get the chance! I kept thinking of you on the train - looking at all that GEOLOGY going past outside the window...
A sentiment with which I'm sure many Uighurs would concur!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-20 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-20 10:40 pm (UTC)Han Chinese are what we understand by "Chinese". They constitute a majority of ca. 92% in China and ca. 97% in Taiwan. Altogether there'well over a billion of them and they're v.v.v. varied in customs, looks and tongues; yet share basic culture.
They occupy the majority of govt. position. Higher echelons of party/govt. are almost pure Chinese.
Mandarin - northern Chinese language - is standard, both in People's Republic of China and in Republic of China (Taiwan), albeit is called differntly :) Now, most of people speak it, although often with a local accen or mixing it heavily with local dialect.
Cantonese is, in fact, a separate language of Chinese family. There's seven of them: Mandarin (northern), Wu (Shanghaise), Min (Fujian, Zhejiang, Taiwan), Hakka (Guangdong, Fujian), Gan (Jiangxi), Xiang (Hunan) and Yue (or Cantonese - Guangdong, Guanxi). They are called "dialects", but they're rather entire groups of languages each with many languages/dialects/subdialects and from 40-70 milions speakers each.
The names and classifications vary.Here's the map with linguistic group, Chinese and minority
For more info, including links to the China-basics, pester me (bufo_viridis@interia.pl) or of course out charming L_J host, who I hope, forgive me my barging and total show-off.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:03 am (UTC)Ethnologue web site states:
The number of languages listed for China is 236. Of those, 235 are living languages and 1 is extinct.
But they list many dialects for each language and truth to be told, large areas of China are linguistically unresearched.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:53 pm (UTC)And I'm glad you like the China entries - they're fun to do but I'm never sure how much I'm getting across. Hopefully there'll be another before I go home, though I can't guarantee it, internet access being what it is round here.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-20 11:13 pm (UTC)But - you won't do it of course - one should never confuse the timing of the two! A freind of mine was violently shaken awake when overslept the time of breakfast. "Miss! Miss! Eating time!"
My co-passengers where more delicate: when I was still napping at 10 am (there are only so many things you can do during 48hrs ride), they became worried: "Look, he's still sleping. He hasn't eaten his breakfast. Shall we call a doc? Maybe he's ill? He hasn't eaten!"
Heh. Once I calculated I've spent over a month onboard Chinese trains, counting 24hr/day.
It's hard to believe that this is still China.
Well, only politically... Uighurs wouldn't be too unhappy to see the backs of Chinese.
Have you seen the guys with long plaits of garlic? In huge bunches all over the bikes? They look great. And old chaps with long beards - v. pictoresque, if one can say so about a fellow humanoid.
BTW of mosques - in Turfan the're a v. interesting mosque, v. different from the ones in Kashgar, which are very "Arabian". That one is from Central Asia, with a minaret like a giant salter.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:57 pm (UTC)I have indeed - and a finer display of garlic I have never seen.
I take your point about the word "picturesque" - they are, but like you I feel slightly uneasy about treating people like tourist attractions...
I've seen the mosque you mention. Quite a sight.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 03:45 am (UTC)Can you do horse riding there?
I envie you girl! That trip sounds FUN!
no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 12:59 pm (UTC)I'm going home in about a week, and feeling thoroughly fed up at the thought - even though I theoretically love my job...
I didn't see any horse riding opportunities - perhaps in north Xinjiang where there are grasslands and herders...
Glad to hear from you, by the way - hopefully this means you have survived the Attack of the Ravening Bimbos?
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 01:00 pm (UTC)