Uighur Beaver
Kashgar, China
first, today, or actually last night, officially marked the two-weeks of traveling mark - and even better, through a combination of judicious timing and good fortune, I have not had to use an Asian squat latrine once. Not sure how long that streak will last.
Second, a few words about the Uighurs (pronounced "WEE-gurs"). They're a Turkic peoples and accordingly speak a Turkic language, written in Arabic script, and which sounds like Arabic with the throat clearing "habhlablgabchabg" type noise being the predominant one. As for the faces, some of them look fairly Asiatic but many of them look strikingly Western like they could be from Cyprus or something. Although it's difficult to tell them apart, as there are also various Kazakhs, Kyrgziz, Tajiks & Uzbeks running around too. Apparently you can tell by the hats, but it's an acquired skill. Some of the Uighur chicks would be kind of hot, but unfortunately many have got a thing for the Frida Kahlo look, where they actually pencil the unibrow in if they don't exist.
As for Kashgar city, if you were teleported into any number of Uighur neighborhoods here, (which exist as large baked mud-brick/adobe islands amid the standard ugly chinese made shop-blocks) and somebody asked you where you were, about the last thing you would say would be "China". More like Baghdad, Kabul, Islamabad or Istanbul. I'm talking donkey carts, blacksmith shops making horseshoes, blaring islamic music. Crazy stuff.
The Uighurs, however, are a hell of a lot more friendly towards westerners than you would think people in the above places would be. Yesterday in the main square in front of the mosque, I was eating some Uighur bagels and kind of walking around when one young Uighur walked up and started chatting, and invited me to his language school. Being a wary global citizen, I had visions of being kidnapped and held for ransom - though these guys were pretty small so I felt I could take them so I went along with it. So it turned out their offer to buy me some kebabs was . . . . actually an offer to buy me some kebabs, which they did, and then absolutely refused any payment whatsoever, despite the fact that my weekly disposable income was probably enough to feed their families for years. I also gained their favor in the same way that one would with Tibetans, Miao, or other mainland china minorities - by saying nasty things about their government overlords (who, by the way, put the hugest-ass statue of Mao up that i have ever seen here in the characteristically ugly renmin square)
So after that, they (they primarily being my boy Omarjun, and his friend with some unpronounceable name) actually did take me to their language school, where I was instantly the most important person in the entire building. They took me to class, which lasted from 9-11 (or actually from 7-9 - China has this idiotic rule where all cities are on Beijing time, however we are as far from beijing as LA would be from NYC, so consequently there is also an unofficial "local time" two hours behind that Kashgar residents use that confuses the shit out of pretty much everybody). Despite my grateful efforts to bow out after a bit, my host Omarjun wouldn't hear of it, or actually he wouldn't let me go without him, so I reluctantly stayed.
The class was in a dank basement and consisted of about 30 students ranging in age from 12 years old to about 35 or so. The teacher, Muhammed Iziz, or something like that, spoke pretty decent English, though the class wasn't so great as they'd only been at it for a few months. What they lacked in language skills, however, they made up for in enthusiasm and volume. Inevitably, being the only native English speaker for miles around - I was soon impressed into leading the class in their excercises. So Muhammed hands me the book and I start leading the Class in exercises, where I'd read a phrase and they'd repeat it. It went a little something like this:
Me (very slowly and emphatically): "I want to go swimming"
Uighur class (shouting): "EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING! EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING! EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING!"
Me "I want to have a picnic"
Uighurs "EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK! EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK! EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK!"
and so on ad nauseum. And then we had a bit of a Q&A session where I told them about myself, etc, though its very hard to explain to a bunch of Muslims how you like to go out drinking with your friends and I suggest you never try.
All in all, a very touching experience even for a hardened cynic. The only problem is that my buddy Omarjun has now latched himself on to me and proudly declared yesterday to be 'one of great days of my[his] life', and wants me to come to class yet again tomorrow, so i have to meet him again in a few hours. It's kind of a drag, but it's hard to say no when your mere presence makes people so happy.
Speaking of such, right now (if you are still reading this far down and didn't get tired of it) you may be wondering how an American can walk into the heart of a muslim enclave, just a few miles from the Afghan & Pakistan borders & Al Qaeda & taliban country, and be so well received. The answer is both geography (incredibly high, virtually impassable 20k foot mountains surround Kashgar on all sides and cut it off from those places pretty much) and politics (chinese heavy-handedness keeps Xinjiang and the Uighurs pretty isolated from those places, although they frequently use 'terrorism' as an excuse to crack down on them).
Regarding the Bazaar, which I just came from, I'm not sure where to begin. Kashgar's sunday bazaar is the largest & most famous in all of Central Asia, drawing 100,000 traders from hundreds of miles around. To imagine it, take a bunch of Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgzyz, Turkmens, Pakistanis, Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and even a few descendants of White Russians & Cossacks, and the occasional Mongol, put them on trucks, motorcycles, bikes, & primarily donkey carts, then cram in every possible consumer good, agricultural item, livestock animal, commercial good, or otherwise that can be bought, sold or traded, including the kitchen sink in many instances, and you have the Kashgar sunday bazaar.
My own experience involved being swindled repeatedly by Uighur knife merchants - I only wanted one, simply because they're so popular around, here, but I somehow ended up with 3 despite much baragining, which I hope don't get confiscated because I probably paid way too much for them.
first, today, or actually last night, officially marked the two-weeks of traveling mark - and even better, through a combination of judicious timing and good fortune, I have not had to use an Asian squat latrine once. Not sure how long that streak will last.
Second, a few words about the Uighurs (pronounced "WEE-gurs"). They're a Turkic peoples and accordingly speak a Turkic language, written in Arabic script, and which sounds like Arabic with the throat clearing "habhlablgabchabg" type noise being the predominant one. As for the faces, some of them look fairly Asiatic but many of them look strikingly Western like they could be from Cyprus or something. Although it's difficult to tell them apart, as there are also various Kazakhs, Kyrgziz, Tajiks & Uzbeks running around too. Apparently you can tell by the hats, but it's an acquired skill. Some of the Uighur chicks would be kind of hot, but unfortunately many have got a thing for the Frida Kahlo look, where they actually pencil the unibrow in if they don't exist.
As for Kashgar city, if you were teleported into any number of Uighur neighborhoods here, (which exist as large baked mud-brick/adobe islands amid the standard ugly chinese made shop-blocks) and somebody asked you where you were, about the last thing you would say would be "China". More like Baghdad, Kabul, Islamabad or Istanbul. I'm talking donkey carts, blacksmith shops making horseshoes, blaring islamic music. Crazy stuff.
The Uighurs, however, are a hell of a lot more friendly towards westerners than you would think people in the above places would be. Yesterday in the main square in front of the mosque, I was eating some Uighur bagels and kind of walking around when one young Uighur walked up and started chatting, and invited me to his language school. Being a wary global citizen, I had visions of being kidnapped and held for ransom - though these guys were pretty small so I felt I could take them so I went along with it. So it turned out their offer to buy me some kebabs was . . . . actually an offer to buy me some kebabs, which they did, and then absolutely refused any payment whatsoever, despite the fact that my weekly disposable income was probably enough to feed their families for years. I also gained their favor in the same way that one would with Tibetans, Miao, or other mainland china minorities - by saying nasty things about their government overlords (who, by the way, put the hugest-ass statue of Mao up that i have ever seen here in the characteristically ugly renmin square)
So after that, they (they primarily being my boy Omarjun, and his friend with some unpronounceable name) actually did take me to their language school, where I was instantly the most important person in the entire building. They took me to class, which lasted from 9-11 (or actually from 7-9 - China has this idiotic rule where all cities are on Beijing time, however we are as far from beijing as LA would be from NYC, so consequently there is also an unofficial "local time" two hours behind that Kashgar residents use that confuses the shit out of pretty much everybody). Despite my grateful efforts to bow out after a bit, my host Omarjun wouldn't hear of it, or actually he wouldn't let me go without him, so I reluctantly stayed.
The class was in a dank basement and consisted of about 30 students ranging in age from 12 years old to about 35 or so. The teacher, Muhammed Iziz, or something like that, spoke pretty decent English, though the class wasn't so great as they'd only been at it for a few months. What they lacked in language skills, however, they made up for in enthusiasm and volume. Inevitably, being the only native English speaker for miles around - I was soon impressed into leading the class in their excercises. So Muhammed hands me the book and I start leading the Class in exercises, where I'd read a phrase and they'd repeat it. It went a little something like this:
Me (very slowly and emphatically): "I want to go swimming"
Uighur class (shouting): "EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING! EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING! EYE VANT TO GO SVEEMING!"
Me "I want to have a picnic"
Uighurs "EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK! EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK! EYE VANT TO HAVE PEEKNEEK!"
and so on ad nauseum. And then we had a bit of a Q&A session where I told them about myself, etc, though its very hard to explain to a bunch of Muslims how you like to go out drinking with your friends and I suggest you never try.
All in all, a very touching experience even for a hardened cynic. The only problem is that my buddy Omarjun has now latched himself on to me and proudly declared yesterday to be 'one of great days of my[his] life', and wants me to come to class yet again tomorrow, so i have to meet him again in a few hours. It's kind of a drag, but it's hard to say no when your mere presence makes people so happy.
Speaking of such, right now (if you are still reading this far down and didn't get tired of it) you may be wondering how an American can walk into the heart of a muslim enclave, just a few miles from the Afghan & Pakistan borders & Al Qaeda & taliban country, and be so well received. The answer is both geography (incredibly high, virtually impassable 20k foot mountains surround Kashgar on all sides and cut it off from those places pretty much) and politics (chinese heavy-handedness keeps Xinjiang and the Uighurs pretty isolated from those places, although they frequently use 'terrorism' as an excuse to crack down on them).
Regarding the Bazaar, which I just came from, I'm not sure where to begin. Kashgar's sunday bazaar is the largest & most famous in all of Central Asia, drawing 100,000 traders from hundreds of miles around. To imagine it, take a bunch of Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgzyz, Turkmens, Pakistanis, Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and even a few descendants of White Russians & Cossacks, and the occasional Mongol, put them on trucks, motorcycles, bikes, & primarily donkey carts, then cram in every possible consumer good, agricultural item, livestock animal, commercial good, or otherwise that can be bought, sold or traded, including the kitchen sink in many instances, and you have the Kashgar sunday bazaar.
My own experience involved being swindled repeatedly by Uighur knife merchants - I only wanted one, simply because they're so popular around, here, but I somehow ended up with 3 despite much baragining, which I hope don't get confiscated because I probably paid way too much for them.
posted by Miguel V | 2:49 PM
2 Comments:
Hey Mig,
What a coincidence! Bonnie and Tommy spent the night with us last evening and guess what they woke up chanting, "I vant to go sveeming"
Small world,eh?
Great story.....!
H&K,
SSV
Dear Miguel,
I want to introduce myself, as a friend of your parents. Sylvia sent an email to me this very morning and told me about your trip. I've had similar experiences regarding human relationship in Brazil's country places. In fact, after some days you start to ask how can someone have a so different life than ours. May be this can teach us a little bit about the relationships in the ancient times, when the human contact was the essence of the relationships. The nude, raw, with no artifacts human contact.
Have a nice trip,
Alex
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