Galen’s father is an amateur luthier, so Galen has a natural interest in stringed instruments and the people who make them. It was not surprising that, when Galen and I split off for ten minutes in the center of Kashgar’s old city, I found him trying out instruments in a Uighur luthier’s shop.
This photo is widely available throughout China, largely seen in restaurants selling Uighur food. It is a ram, completely cooked and its marbled meat is browned. It sits in a position that it might use in life, legs folded underneath its torso. The only thing I find strange about it, is that it has a …
“During this time, I have witnessed many of the so-called great national events; but, in my heart, they left little impression…but there was one small matter which did mean something to me.” – Lu Xun, A Call to Arms, “A Small Matter” The mother was short, but she wore strappy, light blue wedges to …
The hilltop neighborhood stands like a mud lamp standing erect over Kashgar, looking out over the city. This hilltop neighborhood is the last remaining architecture preserved of this ancient city which Marco Polo once wandered through, seven centuries before. View from above Kashgar sits on a flat plane, punctuated by this small hill. The neighborhood …
Way back when we were in Urumqi, I did a post on the awkward problem of timezones in China. Despite being the size of the U.S., including Alaska, China has only a single official timezone: Beijing Time. Beijing is in the east of the country. If you were to compare China’s geography to America’s, Beijing …
I’ve talked a lot about how different the Uighurs are from Han Chinese and how distinct Kashgar is from places farther east in China. But nothing does a better job of demonstrating that than Galen’s photography. Here are some of the portraits that Galen did while in Kashgar, mostly in the Sunday Market:
I have mentioned that Kashgar is a Muslim city that is known for trading. I wanted to detail this encounter we had. Walking down a lane in Kashgar’s old city, Galen and I came upon a handful of men with a sheep on a rope leash. We watched as one of the men picked up …
Kashgar. Something about that name rings of the end of the earth. Like Kathmandu or Patagonia, the city’s name is redolent of a wild and ancient greatness that leaves me wondering why it has not yet been appropriated as the name of a clothing company, as the other two names have. Kashgar is the epitome …
Recently, the Uighur economist professor at Ethnic University in Beijing was known as a moderate promoting Uighur rights in Xinjiang. When talking to the Uighur on the bus, my friend mentioned this economist in this post a few days ago: http://www.silkroadhitchhikers.com/?p=1667 I wanted to let yall know that he was recently given a life sentence …
We were leaving Turpan on a sleeper bus, the bad road bumping along. The landscape was that of a brush desert, low, green-gray bushes the only plants that could hang on to life in this environment of extremes. The wind had picked up that day, rocking our bus from side to side and tossing tumbleweed …