Before It's Gone: Western China's Xinjiang Region Sees
Unusual Culture Slipping away

Joshua Kurlantzick

January 26, 2003

XINJIANG, China - In five years of living in and
traveling around Asia, I frequently scoffed at
foreigners' stories of places that had been ``ruined''
by modernization, of destinations I had to visit before
they were wrecked. For instance, while some people
visiting Bangkok thought it an ugly, modern city, I saw
a metropolis that had managed to expand without losing
its uniquely Thai identity.

But even I eventually found a stunning place that
seemed on the verge of being decimated: China's
Xinjiang province. Though I have visited every country
in East Asia save North Korea, Xinjiang was the most
photogenic and culturally fascinating place I have
seen -- a massive area populated primarily by Uyghurs
(pronounced WEE-gurs), a Muslim Turkic ethnic group.
Yet modernization and pressure from Beijing on the
Uyghur culture seriously threaten the very aspects that
enchanted me. Even worse, unlike changes in Thailand,
Xinjiang's modernization appears unlikely to benefit
most of the province's inhabitants.

I spent seven days this summer desperately trying to
see -- and scout out for other visitors -- every
Xinjiang site I expect to be gone in five years, and
attempting to discover what the future held for the
province.

Urumqi

A companion and I started our trip in Urumqi,
Xinjiang's largest city. Almost immediately, we felt
like we were no longer in China. Wandering through the
city's central market as Turkish pop music wafted
through the air, I was reminded of Jordan. As in Amman,
chatty Urumqi carpet vendors plied us with tiny cups of
tea and Middle Eastern-style bagels. Outside, dried-
fruit vendors yelled at the top of their lungs to
advertise their selection, while young boys ran through
the crowd, lifting packages in exchange for a bit of
baksheesh.

Outside the market, however, Urumqi is becoming a
Chinese city. Beijing fears the Uyghurs, who briefly
had their own state before the Communist takeover in
1949, and over the past two decades has attempted to
neuter Xinjiang's society, culture and economy by
launching aggressive resettlement policies. Only
300,000 Han Chinese resided in Xinjiang in 1949; now
there are more than 6.4 million. Beijing also has
formulated policies that deprive the Uyghurs of their
heritage. Artists suspected of ``advocating
separatism''-- a broad category that could include
simply promoting Uyghur arts -- have had their works
seized and their homes destroyed. And since the Sept.
11 attacks, the situation has gotten worse. Beijing has
attempted to link the few Uyghur separatist groups that
exist to al-Qaeda, though independent Uyghur experts
say there is no evidence of ties to Osama bin Laden's
organization, and most Uyghurs do not want to separate
from China. Nonetheless, over the past year China has
intensified its crackdown in Xinjiang, arresting and
executing hundreds of Uyghurs.

The next day, we drove north from Urumqi to Tian Chi,
or Heaven Lake, a little slice of alpine tarns and
mountains inhabited primarily by ethnic Kazakh nomads.
For 200 Chinese yuan ($25) we stayed two nights in a
local family's yurt, a round felt Kazakh tent. (The
price included dinner, though we had a hard time
explaining to the Kazakhs that we didn't eat meat; when
we told our host, she offered us lamb.) The family had
placed their yurts amid the Xinjiang equivalent of a
trailer park -- clusters of yurts decorated with
strings of lights. The park even came complete with
Kazakh trailer trash, a young woman in a halter top --
most nomads wear long coats and riding pants -- who
frequently bickered with her significant other.

Unfortunately, across the lake from our yurt we could
see Tian Chi's future. The local government was
building a series of attractions that reminded me of
the ugly, exploitative sites that have sprung up near
many Indian reservations in the United States. We saw
booths where Chinese tourists could get their pictures
taken in traditional Kazakh dress, speedboats that
zoomed day-trippers across the lake, paved hiking
paths, trailside banquet halls.

But none of this construction could yet detract from
the area itself, the most stunning mountain scenery I
had seen in China. On our second day by the lake, we
wandered up a horse path on Lamppost Mountain, one of
the circle of peaks surrounding Tian Chi. After an hour
of hiking, we were secluded in a high pine forest
blessed with occasional clearings that offered views of
the shimmering lake, which changed from green to
turquoise as the sun rose.

Turpan

We drove the next morning along a new superhighway to
Turpan, one of the oasis towns dotting the vast low
Taklamakan Desert. Turpan actually sits in the second-
lowest spot on Earth, 508 feet below sea level. While
the other oasis cities are relatively recent
constructions, Turpan dates back 2,000 years and was a
key trading post during the Silk Road era. On the
outskirts of town, we stopped at the Bezelik Caves, one
of several ruins of pre-Islamic cities carved into the
sandstone cliffs near modern-day Turpan. The circular
sandstone dwellings and underground hideaways reminded
me of Tatooine, Star Wars' sand planet.

We also stopped at Gaocheng, another ancient sandstone
city that had deteriorated more than Bezelik -- though
the old monastery/library that served as the town
center remained, its thousand-year-old bookshelves and
rooms intact. As at Tian Chi, however, tour groups had
discovered Gaocheng, and the monastery was crowded with
tourists trying on Uyghur dress and pulling off pieces
of sandstone.

Our late lunch was amid a grape valley that reminded me
of southern Italy. Along with the local grapes, we
finished with slices of hami, a succulent local version
of cantaloupe that is one reason why Xinjiang is known
across China for its delicious fruit.

Kashi

The next morning, we flew to Kashi, which would be the
highlight of our trip. A hub of the old Silk Road, at
the crossroads of Central Asia and China, Kashi has
been one of the world's major trading posts for
centuries. Today, the city still boasts an enormous
Sunday market that draws people from all over Asia.

Beijing is aggressively redeveloping Kashi, and several
residents said they expected older stone buildings to
be torn down in the next year or two. Still, some of
the older areas, as well as the Sunday market, are
weathering the pressure of development. The alleys and
bazaars of old Kashi remain the most crowded commercial
districts in town. The Seman Hotel, an inn built in the
building that served as the Russian consulate during
the 19th-entury ``Great Game,'' when Britain and Russia
competed for influence in Central Asia, is more popular
than upscale new Chinese hotels. What's more, the
Uyghurs themselves still take pride in Kashi's history.
``I prefer the old buildings, with their courtyards, to
the new construction,'' one girl told us.

And though some Urumqi residents questioned why we
would want to buy antique Uyghur rugs -- ``Old rugs are
bad,'' one man told us, pointing us to newer, machine-
made carpets -- the Kashi carpet merchants seemed
unsurprised when we asked them to pull out older hand-
woven items. Historically, hand-woven Uyghur carpets
have been valued by collectors for their high knot-
count, beautiful pomegranate-dye colors and elegant
combinations of silk and wool. Over the past three
decades, the Chinese government has organized Uyghur
carpet weavers into state-owned factories, which sell
their products at a large mark-up to tourist shops.
(Some of these carpets retail for over $3,000.) Yet
this collectivization and codification has not
destroyed the Uyghurs' art. Some Uyghur artisans who
work for state factories also produce more intricate
and labor-intensive carpets in home workshops and sell
them to Kashi merchants.

We spent the first day wandering Kashi's labyrinthine
and visually striking back alleys, full of sandstone
houses covered in intricate tilework and lattices. Fig
sellers who pushed the ripe fruit into the hands of
passers-by competed for business with knife-sharpeners,
gold dealers and bagel bakers pulling fresh batches out
of brick ovens. Packs of children gathered around us
and clamored to have their photos taken once they
realized they could see their own image in our digital
camera's viewfinder.

I snapped photos constantly. Because of its history as
a trading post, Kashi boasts an amalgam of ethnicities,
remarkable diversity of photogenic faces and costumes.

Walking back to our hotel, we heard melancholy
accordion music wafting out of a small shop. We stopped
to listen and were invited in by the musician, a middle-
aged Uyghur man. He excitedly motioned for us to stay
and telephoned his daughter, a high school student who
desperately wanted to chat with foreigners to improve
her English. She hurried to the shop and offered to
guide us through the Sunday market the following day,
after which we would retire to her family house for a
large meal.

The next morning, the four of us -- she had brought a
friend who also was learning English -- set off for the
market. From an overlook, we could see thousands of
people streaming down into the bowels of the bazaar,
considered by many the biggest open-air market in the
world. Indeed, everything at the bazaar was huge:
Several city blocks worth of spice merchants, thousands
of donkey carts tied to trees, fruit vendors peddling
50 watermelons at a time, seven-foot pyramids of tea.

By 2 p.m., shopped out, we retired to our guide's
elegant stone house, where we ate on the floor in a
small, carpet-covered room off the courtyard. Over a
massive meal of dried fruits, hami, nuts, laghman
(Uyghur noodles), fresh bagels, pulao (Uyghur rice with
meat and vegetables), and, thankfully, not much lamb,
the girls told us about their plans and dreams. Both
were on their way to a university in eastern China.
Though their parents had been married by arrangement,
they both wanted to find men who loved them and try
dating before marriage; one of the girls ultimately
hoped to return to Xinjiang with a husband and start a
small business.

Still, both young women lived with their eyes open.
``Xinjiang is changing a lot,'' said one. ``It doesn't
seem much like the same place anymore.''

Her friend agreed. ``We hope to come back and do well,
but it can be difficult to get ahead,'' she said. ``The
Chinese in Xinjiang have better schools and get jobs
and business loans more easily -- I don't know what
will happen to us.''

XINJIANG BASICS

Comprising a sixth of China's area, Xinjiang is one of
the nation's five "autonomous regions," areas
traditionally not dominated by Han Chinese. In reality,
these regions don't have much autonomy from Beijing.

Area: 635,900 square miles, slightly bigger than Alaska

Population: 17 million in the region, 1 million in
Urumqi, 181,500 in Kashi. About 95 percent of the
population is concentrated in 3 1/2 percent of the
area. Uyghurs are estimated to be 45 percent of the
population and Han Chinese 40 percent.

Weather: In Urumqi, average high/low is 16/-2 in
January, 87/65 in July. December through February are
very snowy.

Currency: The yuan, worth about 12 cents U.S.

Time zone: Officially 16 hours ahead of Pacific
standard time, but many locals observe
informal "Xinjiang time," 14 hours ahead of Pacific.

Documentation: Passport and visa required; visa fee
from $30.

Information: www.chinaconsulatesf.org, (415) 674-2940.

IF YOU GO

Getting there: The easiest way to get to Xinjiang is to
fly to Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, then catch a
China Xinjiang Airlines flight to Urumqi. China
Xinjiang also flies from Urumqi to Kashgar and to other
destinations in the province.

Major carriers including United, Cathay Pacific and Air
Canada often offer flights to eastern China for as
little as $700 round-trip from San Francisco. However,
internal flights to Xinjiang are extremely expensive:
Expect to pay at least $600 for a round-trip ticket
from eastern China to Urumqi, and $150 to fly from
there to Kashi. Great West Travel in Shanghai (+86 (21)
62798489) is one of the best Chinese travel agents for
domestic flights.

When to go: Xinjiang province is virtually inaccessible
in the bitterly cold winter, between late October and
April. Mid-summer, from late June until late July, also
can be uncomfortable; Turpan, Urumqi and Kashi become
extremely hot and dusty. Better to visit between late
July and early October. Use sunscreen every day and
drink plenty of water.

Lodging: The Holiday Inn (+86 (991) 2818788) is
Urumqi's finest hotel and a bargain at $65 a night. We
thought the service here was superior to many four- and
five-star hotels in Shanghai.

The Seman Hotel (+86 (998) 2822147), a sprawling
complex that includes the former Russian consulate, is
the choice in Kashi. Expect to pay roughly $40 for a
Russian consulate double. The manager, Abdul, is a fine
source of information in the city,

Near Tian Chi, you can just show up and stay with
Kazakhs who offer lodging in their yurts. If you want
to reserve ahead of time, Mark Zhong (+86 13809939497),
a local travel agent, can make arrangements.

Resources: Lonely Planet China and Lonely Planet
Central Asia both have sections on Xinjiang province.

For a history of the Great Game and foreigners'
interaction with Xinjiang, try the books ``Foreign
Devils on the Silk Road'' or ``The Great Game: The
Struggle for Empire in Central Asia,'' both by Peter
Hopkirk.

Web sites:

• www.uygur.org, the East Turkistan Information
Center, focusing on Uyghur political issues; •
http://homepages.utoledo.edu/nlight, the site
of a U.S.
specialist in Uyghur culture

Tips

Dress and behavior: Though the Uyghurs are one of the
most liberal groups of Muslims in the world, and Uyghur
women often dress in brightly patterned headscarves and
sheer dresses, you should dress relatively
conservatively in Kashgar and other western towns.
Neither men nor women should wear shorts in public, and
women should not wear short skirts or aggressively try
to approach local men. Non-Muslim visitors should not
attempt to enter mosques during prayer times.

Forbidden topics: Though you may find that Uyghurs you
interact with are willing to talk about their views on
China, do not question new acquaintances about Xinjiang
politics. Uyghurs have been arrested just for talking
about China's role in the province. However, you can
feel comfortable mentioning that you are American,
since the Uyghurs generally are extremely pro-U.S.

Time zone: Although there is one official time zone in
China, Xinjiang is so far west of Beijing that locals
have their own informal ``Xinjiang time,'' two hours
behind Beijing. If you are making appointments or
booking transportation, be sure to inquire whether the
time is Beijing time or Xinjiang time.