Kashgar, CHINA - 13 june 2002
One of the ladies in my cabin on the train to Kashgar was a Chinese local living in Kashgar. As we prepared to get off the train, I enquired about the taxi fare to town, so that I would not be ripped off. This, somehow, spurred her to perform her duty of a local extending her hospitality to a foreign tourist. She said we could go to her nursery (she imported and exported plants and in fact, had had four plants with her on this train-ride) together and then, she would buy me lunch and get me settled down in my hotel. “OK, xie xie, [thank you] Liang Dan.” I accepted graciously.
Indeed all the above were done with a lot of attention and extreme generosity and I was really touched by her actions. Very sweet girl.
After I got settled down and did some laundry, I decided to head out for a quick walk around Kashgar. As I descended down the steps, a Chinese man was shouting in Mandarin to the room attendants nearby, “I am looking for a guest in this hotel. She is from Singapore.” He paused to examine me, “Are you the one?!?!”
Hang on, what was going on here? Well, it turned out Liang Dan had mentioned me to her brother and now, her brother, who apparently had heard ‘what a wonderful country Singapore is’, wanted to extend his hospitality to me too. So, Liang Dan and her brother trooped over to my hotel to try and track me down.
They sat me down at the lobby and her brother proceeded to criticise the hotel’s condition and boasted he could get me to stay at his friend’s hotel (which normally cost Y100+) for free.
The hotel I was staying in seemed to be Uyghur-run as many of the staff were Uyghurs. In a way, it was an affront to them to have an Uyghur hotel criticised so openly by a Han Chinese man, within their ear-shots. I felt very embarrassed. Although I tried my best to thank him for his kindness and that it was unnecessary for me to stay in a fancy hotel, he refused to listen to a word from me and stated I would check out tomorrow and stay at his friend’s hotel. He proceeded to inform that his friend was buying them dinner and I was to join them as I was now their guest.
So, that was how I found myself in a Chinese hotel on the outskirts of town, staring at a set Western dinner (beef steak, soup, bread and everything) plus heaps of food ordered from the Chinese menu.
I was still having a little diarrhoea problem but they would not listen to my feeble protests against eating any oily food and insisted I eat to give them ‘face’. Later, I was also made to drink a shot of the local Chinese whiskey even though I did not know how to drink and did not think it wise to drink anything with my weak stomach condition. Nope, Liang Dan’s brother would have none of it.
He then informed the Hotel Guy to get a room ready for me and my Irish friend tomorrow (Jane would be flying in then). The Hotel Guy paused for a long time before nodding his head in agreement. Oh no, he was unwilling to do this. Now, I felt even worse.
I was finally released back to my hotel by midnight, after making me promise to call Liang Dan’s brother on Saturday so that he could take me out on a tour.
I felt terrible. They were trying to make me comfortable and happy with my stay here in Kashgar. They did not want money or anything. They were just being generous and thoughtful in their ways. But this was not what we wanted. We did not want to be in the outlying area of Kashgar in a fancy Chinese hotel with a Western Café and the Imperial Restaurant.
But, there was the problem of the not giving them ‘face’ if I rejected all their generous offers.
Kashgar, CHINA - 14 june 2002
I gave a call to Liang Dan and explained that my Irish friend, Jane, and I travelled so far out into the Kashgar area to be in the middle of, we hope, the Uyghur culture - eating shish kebabs, smelling the mutton body odour, seeing the wonderful variety of exotic faces, head-gears and dresses and wandering in the bazaars. Liang Dan said she understood. I thanked her profusely again. I was once again reminded to call her brother on Saturday for the ‘tour’. Ooook, I guess I could not reject that.
Throw all your romantic notions away! Kashgar is no longer the exotic remote oasis, which had been a major trading post of the Silk Road for thousands of years. It is 2002 now, after all. One would be SILLY to expect the same rustic charm as 2000 years ago. We learnt our lessons in Turpan by setting high expectations for it and then, feeling a tad disappointed about it. So, before we came to Kashgar, we aimed really low.
True enough, there were spiffy roads, a Mao statue, new shopping malls and Oriental-looking bridges in front of the Ren Min (People’s) Park. But once in the Uyghur areas, the whole place was a labyrinth of twisting alleys and mud huts, interspersed by bazaars and mosques.
Jane and I simply wandered round the Id Kah Mosque and the bazaars by the two sides of the mosque and across the road. It was truly a fantastic experience. The faces we saw here were as diverse as those in Turpan and the bazaars here were busier and more interesting.
Here, shish kebabs are huge, chunky affairs and really delicious! The way to stomach it without feeling too queasy or gross about the fat is to accompany the kebabs with the local Uyghur tea. I loved them.
I had three sticks of kebabs and a bowl of noodle. The locals were gobbling them up like ten sticks each. A bevy of babushkas - Uyghur middle-aged ladies and grannies - came and sat next to me. Some sat with one of their legs up on the seat, exposing their underpants. Soon, they were served a mountain-load of shish-kebabs and gnawing away at them in no time.
With the mutton intake came the ‘aromatic’ body odour among the locals. Sometimes, I could still smell an Uyghur lady 3 minutes after she left the toilet, for example. Well, what you eat is what you smell. In the Tibetan part of China, I smelled yak butter among the monks. And here, I smelled barbecued mutton. Why not?
Kashgar, CHINA - 15 june 2002
I knew it was Saturday and that I ought to call Liang Dan or her brother but I decided to procrastinate til as late as possible.
I spent the day wandering among the alleyways in the Uyghur area, getting lost in the labyrinthine alleys. I enjoyed it very much. Uygher children were all delightful and seemed more precocious than Tibetan children and definitely more so than Han Chinese children.
In the Tibetan part of China, when the children asked for photos, all the boys would pose excitedly but the girls would stand by the side awkwardly. The Tibetan girls needed more persuasion before they shyly agreed. But here, the Uygher girls, many dressed in frou-frou lacy dresses and looked like wedding cakes, had had their hair shaved (maybe due to head lice?) and were fighting with the boys for more pictures. Strangely, these girls also had a kick out of tiaras. They would wear tiaras on their heads proudly and march off to school.
While the locals were mostly Muslims, there were many interesting varieties in their dressing too. The babushkas with the see-through head-scarves were plentiful. There was a larger number of women who covered their whole head and face with a brown cloth. Some wrapped their nose and mouth with a white scarf and wore dark sun-glasses. These looked like they participated in the Invisible Man Project. Many ladies and some girls also had drawn a line across their eye-brows connecting them. It was really interesting to observe such varieties.
I called Liang Dan in the evening and well, she said she and her brother were too busy with their work today and could not meet me. I know this made me look like a really bad person but I actually felt quite relieved. Liang Dan was sweet but her brother was difficult.
By night-fall, the area around Id Kah Mosque was transformed into a food market, selling boiled goat’s heads and innards, spicy chicken and eggs, chickpeas and some deep-fried sweet desserts. It was colourful and extremely busy. Jane and I sampled different dishes that looked swallowable, i.e. we did not try the goat’s head and innards.
An Uyghur elderly man found us interesting and chatted with us in Mandarin. Soon, we were surrounded by a group of at least seven people who appraised us seriously, furrowed their eye-brows, puzzled over our replies and made further queries and clarifications with the Uyghur elderly man who acted as the translator. We felt like zoo animals but they were friendly and just curious.
Kashgar, CHINA - 16 june 2002
Kashgar is famous for its Sunday Bazaar. The population can swell up to 50,000 as villagers from the surrounding region come to buy and sell. According to a local, today’s bazaar was the quietest in a long time. It was the harvest time now, apparently.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day tremendously doing what I liked best - people-watching.
The Kashgar Sunday Bazaar is a fantastically huge market. Farming forks, melons, yoghurt drink, apricots, hats, cloth materials, dried fruits and nuts, house-hold items, bicycle-repair parts, etc… everything that could be sold was sold here. The main covered market was huge and confusing, although similar items were indeed organised to be sold at their special sections. I got lost many times - which was great.
Outside the market was just as chaotic. Barbers had set up stalls by the side. These Uyghur men, who had apparently worn their skull caps all their lives and now removed them for the barbers, actually had fair skin where the hats used to be. The contrast was incredible. They received a good facial massage after their shave or cut.
I saw old, worn shoes being sold as well. Many came to try on the least disgusting looking pairs. Donkey carts shoved past you as the owners ferried sheep, fruits, their families across the market. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. There was so much to see. I really enjoyed myself here.
The weather was very hot and I stopped frequently for home-made vanilla ice-cream and yoghurt drink. People always warned about avoiding food items with ice and glasses which were not washed after each use, because of the questionable hygiene. Jane was very careful about this. But, NOT to eat the vanilla ice-cream and yoghurt drink is NOT to get into the Uyghur action. They were sold everywhere and eaten by everyone. And I loved them too.
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