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Saturday 2004-06-26 - Kashgar, Xinjiang (China)
Foot and mouth disease
Traveling for 65 days over bad roads, eating non-familiar foods, getting used to local water (and just when you are, you’re moving into a different country again) … things happen to your body. And sometimes we’re just tired: this isn’t the most relaxing of trips (not that we were looking for that when embarking on this); a tired body is less able to fight off infections. Here’s the balance (in no particulaar order) after traveling some 50 days with our little group of 12 — not naming names…
- The usual ‘traveler’s disease’ of course (diarrhea, sometimes vomiting): we all get our turn (or turns)
- a corner broken off a tooth
- two teeth (at once) coming off a denture
- a broken crown
- a tooth filling falling out
- various nose colds and coughing (most of us, taking turns — it seems to ‘bounce around’)
- swollen legs
- a sprained knee
- dislocated foot bones (that’s two of us!)
- contused ribs
- blisters — not just on feet, also a big one as a result of a 2nd degree burn
- insect bites (a lot)
- fistual (or some such) on a finger, surgically removed in hospital
- big infection on a leg — also treated in hospital
And through all of that, we all keep moving…
Renovation at breakneck speed
After changing money (first a little at the hotel shop, possibly illegally, then after some false tries at other banks more at the main branch of the Bank of China which is indeed open) we walk in the direction of the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar. The first thing I note, a way before we get there, is a big poster depicting the future of Id Kah square: all new design, rows of new shops all around … but when we walk on we find this vision isn’t that far into the future — in fact it’s nearly finished! A large chunk of the old town around the mosque has been torn down to make place for the fancy new buildings, some in quasi-Uyghur style. There’s a fence all around the are but we notice locals walking through various openings and doors in the fence to avoid making a long detour. While we’re watching this, a woman simply waves us through and we find ourselves on the eerily empty new square. We can walk around unchallenged. The new square pavement is nearly finished but it looks very strange without all the usual bustle and market stalls. After walking around some and taking pictures, we leave the building area again through a a half-finished building and another opening in the fence. Then we try to find another way into the old town — or what’s left of it.
Vegetable Market Road is open and physically unchanged but much quieter than I know it, probably because part of the market crowd has disappeared with part of the old town where all the shops and stalls used to be. Farther on, the old houses still stand, but they’re working on completely new road pavement. I wonder if these houses will disappear as well but at least the new pavement follows the old road pattern. Maybe not — or not yet?
China is busy renovating all of its cities in preparation for the 2008 Olympics but here in Kashgar there’s an cynical twist to it: the process of renovation (or ‘renovation’) has been going on for years already, driving the Uyghurs out of the city center to new flats at the outskirts of the city, and letting Han Chinese into the city (though their apartments aren’t all that much better). On the one hand, living conditions for the Uyghurs should be better in a practical sense, providing them with water and (better) sewer systems; on the other, culturally they are much worse off: they no longer have their old neighborhood mosques nearby, let alone the Id Kah (a Friday mosque); and if they’re not living on the top floor of the high-rise apartments, they have other people walking above them — something quite disconcerting for people who normally live in family dwellings around a courtyard. I feel that in a sense, it’s taking the heart out of their culture. This may not even be intentional: the supremely pragmatic Han seem to have no sense of the value of a cultural heritage.
Even two years ago, we found half of a large cemetery had been razed to make place for new apartment buildings (I was happy to have seen it before it was destroyed — it was quite impressive then). Now, the Olympics form a good excuse to speed up this renovation process. I can’t help but wonder what will be left here in four years’ time, and how far the Uyghurs still living here will then have to travel to go to the Id Kah mosque on Fridays. (The mosque is also used by Hui, Muslim Chinese, but they are a very small minority here.) Still, at least the mosque itself will be spared; two years ago even that wasn’t certain. But one of the charms of Kashgar was the contrast between the old Uyghur center and the new Chinese town growing up right next to it; at least some of that is disappearing now. It makes me sad — and makes me wonder what’s happening in Tibet now…
Another portrait finds its subject
Farther on in the old town of Kashgar (there is at least some left) I deliver yet another photograph — the woman I pictured working on her embroidery is quickly found with the help of friendly and delighted neighbors; she herself is so surprised, at first she can’t do much more than giggle at seeing her picture!
The largest mosque in Xinjiang
The center of Kashgar has turned into a huge construction area (the preceding destruction seems to be finished already). The main entrance of the Id Kah is closed while ‘renovating’ the square in front of it, but the mosque is still open. We locate a back entrance I hadn’t noticed before and find ourselves right at the wide, open prayer hall at the back of the large courtyard. Pillars and roof beams are made of wood, decorated with carving and painted in various bright colors; there’s some decoration on the walls as well. The whole of the huge courtyard is shaded by a mass of poplars also lining the ponds. As a result, it’s always cool and pleasant here, a spot to quietly sit and ponder the world and whatever upper being(s) you believe in. Now, it’s also like a peninsula of the old Kashgar in a sea of modernization. A spot to find your inner peace again, just sitting under the rustling poplar leaves.
Just when we sit down, a man approaches us and asks if we have a ticket — well, no, we entered at the back, there’s no ticket office there. We’ll buy one, of course. No problem, you can stay where you are, just give me the money (10 Yuan), he suggests, which we do. A little while later the friendly man comes walking back to bring us the tickets and tells us they’ll be closing in a few minutes. We ask and get permission to walk a little around the courtyard before actually leaving!
This mosque, with its huge poplar-shaded courtyard is not just unique: it’s also the largest mosque in all of Xinjiang; originally built in the 15th century, it was extended and renovated later. Also interesting is that (as I noted when I was here before) not only Uyghurs come here, but Hui (Muslim Chinese) as well. I’m glad this very special bit of Kashgar will at least remain.
