“You have to make the trip to Xinjiang at least once.” — Li Juan
2023.10.1 — From Qingdao to Urumqi
Going out isn’t to get to some particular place; it’s just to go out. Stay in one place too long and you have to go and look at something else. And since I’ve lain flat, I don’t have to wait for a holiday to go out — I can go in the off-season, to wherever I want. I want to go to Xinjiang. I found that for the National Day holiday, the airfare was cheapest on October 1, so I hurriedly bought a ticket for October 1. I guess it’s because the holiday started two days early (Mid-Autumn), so the 29th and 30th were the travel peak, and on the 1st there were actually fewer people. At the airport I did find there weren’t many people — many boarding gates were closed, whole rows of chairs sat empty, and the charging sockets that should have been fought over went untouched; I took a whole table to myself and charged two phones and a laptop.
Getting from Silver Beach to Qingdao is a good deal of bother. First a minibus from Silver Beach to downtown Rushan, then wait for the bus coming from Rongcheng; once aboard, the bus still had to pick up people at Haiyang before going on to Qingdao — three hours in all. But I had plenty of time: I reached Qingdao’s Jiaodong Airport at 11:30, and my flight wasn’t until 19:15, so I could only wait at the airport. Still better than sitting at home at Silver Beach. Going out is always good. I even lay down on the table by the charging sockets at Qingdao Airport and had a nap.
There are so many young people in big cities. At the airport I saw a great many, utterly unlike the scene at Silver Beach, where there are only old people — old people wherever you look. But in a big city, just at the airport, you see plenty of young people, young and pretty girls, exactly like the girls in the short videos. When I scrolled short videos at Silver Beach, I always thought the girls in them had beauty filters on, which was what made them so pretty and so unreal. But now that I’ve come to a big city, I find reality is just like that. It’s that I’d been among old people too long, in the countryside too long; I’d cut myself off entirely from life in the big city.
The moment you set out you feel tired. The first thing is that I’d carried too much: only one backpack, no wheeled case, so everything was on my back. The heaviest is the laptop. I hadn’t meant to bring it, but I was afraid it would be stolen if left at Silver Beach — the laptop is my most valuable possession — and I figured I could type and keep my diary on it. After hesitating a long while I brought it out anyway. And bringing the laptop means bringing the adapter (also heavy). Then there are the two phones (one a spare), the power bank, several charging cables, and the tripod (for photos). By contrast, clothes, towel and toothbrush, ID card, toilet paper, water bottle — those are the lightest. It’s not that I dislike going out; I just dislike having to carry so much. If I could go without carrying anything, I’d be far more at ease.
The flight would take a full five hours, not landing at Urumqi’s Diwopu Airport until 00:15. In the name Diwopu, that last syllable is read pu, not bao — I only learned that when I reached the airport and saw the pinyin below. Northerners probably always read the character pu, but for a southerner the character isn’t used much, and I often misread it as bao. Five hours is the longest flight of my life. Forgive me — I’ve never been abroad, so I have no experience. And probably I never will go abroad, because I have no money.
Poverty limits the imagination. That saying is true. I thought: it’ll be very late when I land, and public transport — buses and subways — will surely have stopped. So there’d be no way into the city, and I’d have to sleep at the airport. I’d meant to find some random seat, lie down for the night, and take the subway the next morning to visit the Xinjiang Regional Museum. But then I scrolled my phone again and found the airport has so-called capsule hotels. I breathed a great sigh of relief — there’s somewhere to stay, and rather private and independent. So I’d stay in a capsule hotel. All this said, the poverty I mean isn’t that I had nowhere to stay — it’s that I forgot there’s another way to get around in a big city: hailing a cab, taking a taxi. I’d forgotten about taxis entirely. It never once occurred to me that I could take a taxi into the city! Because there are no taxis at Silver Beach, and even public transport is very inconvenient — poor me, I couldn’t imagine there were such things as taxis.
The capsule (space-pod) hotel was rather fun — my first time in a space like that. Though I was in an upper bunk, it wasn’t hard to climb into; above all it was private, opened only by swiping a card, and sleeping inside I didn’t worry about anyone coming in. Small as it was, it was safe, with air-conditioning (a ventilation system) and a charging socket, and you could sit up without bumping your head. Only the soundproofing was very poor — you could hear people walking outside, and the person in the bunk below snored nonstop, quite clearly audible. But I was both sleepy and tired, and fell asleep quickly.
2023.10.2 — A City Walk in Urumqi
I didn’t check out until nearly eight, because I’d looked up Urumqi’s subway hours and thought it started running at eight (later a subway worker told me it was 7:40). The International Airport station is the terminus; to ride the subway you must download the Urumqi subway app — you couldn’t use the usual payment apps. Urumqi’s subway security checks must be the strictest of any city in the country. For well-known reasons, I won’t say more. I’d meant to go straight to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Museum, but when I checked the hours it said they opened at ten (in fact they don’t let people in until 10:30), and subway plus bus wouldn’t take that long. Then I noticed one subway station is called Balou — “Eighth Floor.” I thought, isn’t that the Balou from Dao Lang’s song? And Balou isn’t far from the museum; I could walk there from Balou. I know the Balou Dao Lang sings of is a bus stop, but it’s not far from the subway station either. Let’s go look at Balou.
“The first snow of 2002 came later than ever before; the No. 2 bus stopped at Eighth Floor carried away the last falling yellow leaf.” The Balou bus stop was quickly found, but the No. 2 bus has been canceled; canceled though it is, the bus-stop sign has kept the No. 2 route list, with a note below: “Route canceled, preserved for memory.” They say it’s all thanks to Dao Lang — quite a service. I also found that Urumqi has many BRT lines, much like Xiamen, so there are relatively few subway lines. At dawn Urumqi was only 8 degrees; coming from the airport into the subway I’d stayed indoors the whole time, in short sleeves, thinking it wasn’t cold outside — but the moment I entered the subway I saw everyone else in long sleeves, and I wondered, is it really that cold? Then the moment I came out of the subway I felt the cold and hurriedly put my jacket on too. That low really is low compared with Rushan Silver Beach; Rushan is still in the teens.
Walking from Balou to the Xinjiang Museum didn’t take long; I reached the museum gate at nine — closed, of course. Urumqi time runs two hours behind Beijing time: if Beijing starts work at eight, Urumqi starts at ten, and opening to visitors isn’t until 10:30. So I walked to the gate of Xinjiang University nearby and had breakfast at a combined restaurant-and-noodle shop. Why combined? Because it sells both pilaf and all kinds of noodles. The owner said there’s no pilaf in the morning, only noodles. I ordered freshly pulled yellow noodles. The owner reminded me the yellow noodles are cold. I said I’d never had them and didn’t know, so I’d change. I ordered dry-mixed beef noodles, RMB 15. Dry-mixed beef noodles are truly delicious: though just two slices of beef were pressed at the bottom of the bowl, the garnishes were excellent — wheat gluten, tofu skin, baby bok choy, green pepper, and soybean sprouts, spicy and hot, the noodles very fine, not thick, not flat. I ate until rather full; that one small bowl dispelled all the fatigue and hunger that had built up since yesterday.
The Xinjiang Museum is in fact quite small: on the ground floor two exhibition halls, one a National Museum exhibition of bronzes — which has nothing to do with Xinjiang — and the other not open. On the second floor, seven halls: Hall Three is an exhibition of ancient silk clothing, which doesn’t interest me though there seemed to be many women there; Hall Four isn’t open; Hall Five is the museum’s main draw — the exhibition of thousand-year-old desiccated bodies, among them the Loulan Beauty, and everyone who comes to the Xinjiang Museum comes for this; Hall Six is an exhibition on carrying forward Red culture, which also doesn’t interest me; Halls Seven, Eight, and Nine are also worth a look — the Xinjiang relics exhibition, showing Xinjiang’s artifacts and history from the Stone Age to the Yuan, Ming, and Qing. The third and fourth floors are probably work areas; I didn’t go up. So the main halls are Five, Seven, Eight, and Nine on the second floor.
Hall Five has not only the Loulan Beauty but six or seven other desiccated bodies. They do look rather frightening, but sometimes people are drawn to frightening things; they don’t want to learn about them only from books, they want to come and see for themselves. Of course, combined with books it makes for a deeper understanding — or I can go home and study the books more closely. The museum was crowded, but not so crowded you couldn’t move. I noticed there were a great many women looking at the exhibits, and the women looking at the exhibits were also very good-looking, so I looked at the people too.
From the moment I entered the subway I found Uyghurs — so different in looks from us mainlanders — everywhere I looked. Pale skin, high noses, deep-set eyes, heavy body hair, especially the hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes: though they look Western, their hair is black and very thick; their eyebrows long and thick, nearly meeting in the middle; their eyelashes longer and denser than a mainlander’s, and curled. The children and the girls look especially beautiful. A Nazha every three steps, a Reba every five — the saying is well earned. For a mainlander on his first trip to Xinjiang, this really is a rare and riveting sight, a visual shock.
Coming out of the museum I meant to take a bus to Hongshan Park to see the snow mountains. I was supposed to get off at Xidaqiao, but the bus was so crowded that I got squeezed and couldn’t get off; I got off at the next stop, Xiaoximen. And because of that small detour I got to see at Xiaoximen what it means to be in the Western Regions. At the Xiaoximen stop there’s a long street of stalls selling all kinds of cheap goods, with shopping malls behind them, so it’s very crowded, and all Uyghurs. Walking in that crowd I felt as if I were in a foreign country, as if the people around me were all foreigners; I looked at this Nazha and that Reba — like Granny Liu in the Grand View Garden, a country woman among city luxuries — and with that lively atmosphere it was a bit like market day at Rushan Silver Beach, and a bit like Nanjing Road in Shanghai, dazzling to the eye.
From Xiaoximen I walked back, first to Xidaqiao. I remembered that someone had said you can see the snow mountains from Xidaqiao on Guangming Road, but he hadn’t made the spot clear, so I had to find it myself. In the end I circled a great deal (it’s a crossroads there) before finding a spot to see the snow mountains. The exact spot is the Xidaqiao bus stop on Guangming Road, on the south side heading east, a little west of the bus stop; standing at the curb and looking east you can see the snow mountains to the east (someone said it’s Bogda Peak). But since tall buildings line both sides of the road, you can only see a ridge as wide as the gap in the middle of the road — and the weather wasn’t very clear, with some haze, and there wasn’t much snow on the mountains — so only dim mountains and dim snow. A phone certainly can’t capture it, unless you have a very professional camera. If it were winter, with plenty of snow and clear weather, you could probably get a spectacular shot. I remember someone said only a few cities let you see snow mountains from within the city: Urumqi, Lhasa, Chengdu, Jiayuguan, and so on.
Hongshan Park also gives a view of the snow mountains. From Xidaqiao it’s not far to Hongshan Park; entry to the park is free, but going up the Far-Gazing Tower costs RMB 10 — not dear. There weren’t many out-of-town tourists in the park; mostly local residents come to relax, and even fewer go up the tower. I like few people; otherwise it’s crushingly crowded. I climbed to the third floor and made a circuit of the viewing platform, from which you can see the whole of Urumqi. But I have no interest in those modern high-rises and highways — only in the snow mountains. Looking south (south, not east — on the road at Xidaqiao you look east), you can see the snow mountains stretching away; though there’s little snow on them, it was enough to delight me. There was some haze, the horizon a hazy gray, hard to make out with the naked eye and impossible for a phone to capture; but standing up high, with a light breeze on my face and a wide open view, gazing at the distant snow mountains, my heart couldn’t help but open and every care fall away.
Out of the park, on to the next stop, Consulate Lane, a food street. A person like me, who doesn’t ask much of food, only enough to fill the belly, just wanders and joins the crowd, looks at the food, looks at the beauties of the Western Regions. Their signboards are all very interesting — unlike mainlanders, who give names so refined and cultured-looking, like Mixue Ice Cream, Dongpo pork, Qingfeng buns; Xinjiang people are simpler and more direct: “Loved” Kayaxi Sapar’s Nutritious Naan, Aitire Guli’s Cold Noodles, Tursun Jiang’s Master “Bon Voyage” Naan, the Diligent Young Fellow Pepper Chicken, the Pilaf Lord Food Restaurant, Wuzierlan Good Food, Bai’erkaiti Pit Barbecue, Baked Buns, and Meat Naan — genuinely funny. If you like tasting all kinds of Xinjiang food, Consulate Lane is well worth a visit, and there are plenty of “foreigners” there too; looking at these local Uyghurs and getting a sense of their daily lives helps a lot in understanding Xinjiang and understanding Urumqi.
From Consulate Lane it’s not far to the International Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar counts as a tourist sight, a photo-op spot; the goods inside are a jumble — all kinds of trinkets, all kinds of food, and many sightseeing restaurants. Out-of-town tourists go there a lot, so it’s not as local as Consulate Lane; Consulate Lane is all local people, not many tourists, not crowded, not noisy. The Grand Bazaar is an over-commercialized, over-influencerized place, and I didn’t like it. Nor was I much interested in that giant tower — like a chimney; I didn’t want to go up. But having come to Urumqi, you have to visit once, so I strolled around. At six there was a street-opening ceremony; everyone gathered in a circle to watch — singing, dancing, and scattering sweets — but it was rather formulaic, with little worth watching or remembering.
I’d walked all day and was truly exhausted. If I’d been traveling light I could have gone to many other places and walked a great deal more, but I was carrying my whole luggage on my back — clothes, laptop, power bank, food and drink — and walking with all that was rather heavy. My calves grew stiff and my back was stooped; time to go to the hostel and rest. I took the subway to the hostel — I’d booked a fourteen-bed men’s dorm for one night. The building was fairly safe; you needed to swipe a card to get into the building and the room, and the bunks had draw-curtains for some privacy. Only you had to put on your own sheets, duvet cover, and pillowcase, and tidy up yourself on check-out — that’s the way of hostels, I suppose.
I hurried through a hot shower to wash off the dust and fatigue, played on my phone on the bed a while, then went out to find food. There were plenty of little eateries nearby, no need to worry what to eat. I spotted a fried rice-noodle shop I’d never tried, so let’s have a taste. The shop was called Moguli Fried Rice Noodles; a Uyghur girl took my order. I ordered the original fried rice noodles; she asked how spicy I wanted it, and I said medium. She asked whether I wanted baby bok choy added — her Mandarin wasn’t very standard, and being a bit hard of hearing I heard it as “crayfish,” and she kept her head down, covering her mouth and laughing and laughing, which made me rather embarrassed. Luckily a young fellow nearby (he looked Han) told me the baby bok choy was free. I said, add it then. I also added rice cakes. Maybe because I was hungry, the fried rice noodles were really quite good — only their “medium” really is medium. Not like in Beijing, where medium is barely mild. It seems Xinjiang people can take spicy food too. I studied the shopkeepers: the young fellow must be Han; the girl is clearly his girlfriend or wife, Uyghur; and the girl’s mother is a Uyghur woman. I don’t know what great fortune this young fellow had, to be with this girl.
2023.10.3 — A Street Wanderer in Urumqi
At first I didn’t know where to go today, but luckily there was the recommendation app, which suggested a few photo spots. I got up and went out to find a breakfast place; it was nearly ten by Beijing time — though compared with the mainland, it was only eight in the morning here. I’d meant to have pilaf (which I still hadn’t tried), but that shop said pilaf is only available at noon; they open from one to three. So Xinjiang people don’t eat pilaf in the morning — only at noon and evening. I had to go to a porridge shop next door instead and ordered a bowl of millet-and-pumpkin porridge for RMB 8, and a steamer of six soup dumplings, also RMB 8 — breakfast came to RMB 16 in all. A bit expensive. After eating I took a bus to Ya Mountain.
Ya Mountain’s full name is Yamalik Mountain. It’s said it used to be a barren hill; later soldiers and civilians developed it and planted many trees, and now it’s well greened. At the summit there’s a pavilion called the Ninety-Nine Century Pavilion, from which you can see Bogda Peak in the Eastern Tianshan. On the bus there I saw a rolling notice on the electronic screen: “Wear a mask throughout the journey.” At the park gate I climbed according to a map app, but found I’d taken a wrong turn and made a big detour. So maps aren’t reliable either, since the ground keeps changing — a new road had been built, only it wasn’t finished; but the locals knew the little path and all went up by it, saving a lot of effort. I came down by the path too. On the way up I saw a little squirrel hop into the middle of the road, and a pheasant duck into the grass.
A pity it was only eleven (that is, nine), and the sun had only just risen in the east, where there was still a glare of white light; plus a bit of haze, so Bogda Peak wasn’t very clear, and a phone couldn’t capture the snow on it at all, only an outline. An online friend said that if you come at dusk when the sun sets, and the weather’s good, you can see the golden sunlight on the mountain. But I couldn’t wait for sunset — in the afternoon I had to take a bus and leave Urumqi. Visitors came up in ones and twos: a group of older women dancing in the pavilion, several couples courting, a few college girls hiking and taking photos, and someone who’d brought a mat and lay on it eating and playing on his phone. Also, to the east of the summit you can see the whole of Urumqi — those high-rises, highways, and overpasses, a busy scene.
Then I came down the mountain, meaning to go to Min Street; an online friend said that building is great for photos. I had nowhere else to go today; though I’ve little interest in photo spots, it’s better than nothing. On the bus to Min Street, one stop before, I saw a building with a green spire and dome — I knew it was a mosque — so I got off early to look, and to walk to Min Street afterward. I love walking. I found the building, the Xiheba Mosque, but its iron gate was tightly locked and weeds grew inside. I was hungry, and near there I found a pilaf shop and ordered the cheapest mutton pilaf: a very small bowl, yet RMB 30. Luckily the tea was free. The pilaf was delicious too; the yellow carrots in it were the first I’d ever seen; the mutton was a bit greasy, washed down with tea. There was also a little dish of garnish — onion mixed with shredded carrot (here the carrots are red carrots again) — and the garnish also cut the grease.
After eating I went on toward Min Street. Beside Min Street there’s a mosque, the Shaanxi Laofang Mosque — very small, not open to visitors — against a backdrop of skyscrapers and Min Street. Min Street is just beyond: a somewhat dilapidated building whose outer wall is painted with a camel caravan and dancing girls. Five stories, it’s made one whole by five buildings and four vaulted spans, with connecting corridors between the buildings — four levels of corridors — Islamic in style throughout, built in 2000, full name the Xinjiang Min Street. Inside are shops dealing in jade, which seem to do no business. Only a few young people come for photos; standing on the third-floor corridor, or in the walkway, you can indeed get some pretty shots.
From Min Street I walked toward the People’s Theater, passing many of Urumqi’s famous malls — Jinquan Mall, Jinbishan Plaza, Zhula Trade City — and many mosques: the Qinghai Great Mosque, the Hezhou Great Mosque, the Shaanxi Great Mosque. I just wandered and looked the whole way, until I reached the People’s Theater. I was really too tired — mainly because I was carrying all my luggage. In those malls I couldn’t find a restroom, and my belly felt bloated. Luckily, at the People’s Theater I discovered it’s a cinema, with a restroom on the basement level, and I dealt with it at once. Seeing that there was still plenty of time before my evening train — a full four hours — I could watch a movie at the theater. So I bought a ticket for Under the Light; it was pointless — a film about smashing organized crime turned into a family melodrama. Chinese people really are dull, wallowing in family ethics all day long.
There were still two hours after the film, and an hour by bus to Urumqi Railway Station — just right. The station is a bit out of the way. From Urumqi to Kashgar takes eighteen hours; I’d bought a sleeper berth, leaving after eight in the evening and arriving around two in the afternoon the next day. In the berth next to mine was a young mother with a five-year-old little girl. Looking at the mother and the little girl, they seemed very Han, and their Mandarin was very good, so I took them for Han. But chatting with the little girl I learned they weren’t Han — which ethnic group, I didn’t ask; it’s just that the little girl especially loved to talk nonsense (maybe she doesn’t know it herself, but to an adult that’s what it looks like). She said what her mother was called and what her father was called (both long strings of names). She said she’d seen dolphins and sea lions in Urumqi, and gone to the zoo to see tigers. She asked whether I had children at home. Then she said, then you be my daddy. I said, I can only be your uncle. She said, you be my mommy’s bridegroom, and my mommy be your bride. I couldn’t help laughing. She said, my mommy’s face is red, and your face is red too. Later, when the lights went out, she said she had to chat with me before she could fall asleep. She said, you look so handsome in glasses, and your voice sounds nice too — be my daddy. Before we’d chatted much, she was snoring softly.
2023.10.4 — To Kashgar; the Western Half of the Old City
The little girl and her mother had gotten off at two in the morning — they were going to Korla. I was sorry not to say goodbye to them. After eight the sky finally brightened. And I noticed another interesting thing: the timestamps on photos taken with the iPhone are two hours behind the phone’s clock. That is, a photo I took at eight shows as six. This place is two hours behind Beijing time. In fact Kashgar is three hours behind Beijing — which I only discovered after arriving: past eight in the evening, and the day was still bright; Urumqi is two hours behind Beijing, and Kashgar is another hour behind Urumqi. The whole way was gobi — very desolate gobi; you could see some grass turning yellow, and patches of white stuff on the ground. At first I thought it was frost; later, finding the white stuff still there even at noon, I decided it was only the white salt efflorescence from saline-alkali soil. Along both sides of the railway there are also many sand-fixation structures, looking like woven hemp rope, arranged in a long crisscross grid. Fixing the sand is truly hard work.
But passing some cities the gobi turned to oasis again; around the cities many crops were planted — corn, pomegranates, grapes, and broad expanses of cotton, white bolls one after another; the first time I’d ever seen so much cotton. From Urumqi to Kashgar the prefectures and cities passed through were Turpan, Korla (in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, “Bazhou” for short — not the Bazhou of Chongqing), Kuqa (in Aksu), Aksu, and Artux (in Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture). The gobi also has many mountain ranges, often red like the Danxia landforms, tall and long, standing over the desert; on the map you can see they’re strip-shaped, the mountains bare, not a blade of grass — giving a feeling of boundless desolation you can’t sense from a map. The moon rises after midnight, so in the daytime you can also see the moon over the summits — a waning moon. “The moon of Qin, the Pass of Han; from the long march of ten thousand li no man came home.”
The train was half an hour late, reaching Kashgar Railway Station at three in the afternoon. Outside the station there were plenty of taxis, and the buses were convenient too — Bus 28 goes to the old city; you scan a payment code, RMB 2. Taking the bus lets you observe the daily life of ordinary locals up close, whereas a taxi cuts you off from them and costs more. A great many Uyghur men, women, and children with high noses and deep-set eyes got on along the way. Kashgar’s first impression is of a fierce sun and strong ultraviolet — far more sun than Urumqi. Maybe because the altitude is higher, and it sits on the edge of the desert. But the locals I saw wore no hats, and the women were still so fair.
I stayed in a hostel again — a hostel is all I can afford; the hostel was RMB 100, and after the National Day holiday it’d be cheaper, a few tens of RMB. A twelve-bed men’s dorm, not as good as the fourteen-bed one in Urumqi: inside each bunk there was only a small lamp, not a light strip as in Urumqi, so it was very dim. And Kashgar is clearly drier than Urumqi — shake the quilt and there’s a lot of dust that stuffs up your nose. But I have no money for a luxury hotel. First I put on the sheets, pillowcase, and duvet cover, then took a hot shower, then washed my dirty clothes, underwear, socks, and towel and hung them out to dry on the terrace outside. I took the odds and ends out of my bag, traveled light, and went out to find food and wander the old city.
I think pilaf is delicious — mainly because, as a southerner, I love rice too much. Prices here seem a bit lower than Urumqi’s: pilaf only RMB 25, with a dish of pickles (red shredded carrot) and a big bowl of flower tea (very good). After eating I first made a big circuit around the western half of the old city, then went inside (you have to pass a security check) and strolled slowly. Jiefang North Road divides the old city into an eastern and a western half; the western part is smaller, the eastern a bit larger — I’d do the east tomorrow. Walking around the western outskirts I again found Xinjiang’s shop names simply hilarious: “Beautiful Feeling Florist,” “Noble Pigeon Soup Nutritious Meal” (there are an awful lot of pigeon-soup shops), “Appreciate Naan,” “Handsome Young Fellow Clothing Shop,” “Sincere Fruit Business,” “Contemporary Delicious Pilaf,” “Relatives Beef and Mutton Shop,” “Physique Men’s Clothing Shop.” These names feel like machine translation, and there are typos too — writing “shop” as “dot” — and they hang them up anyway, no matter. Of course the old city inside has plenty of interesting names as well; I won’t list them one by one.
Right by the road stands a very famous Kashgar mosque, the Id Kah Mosque, also a tourist sight; when prayers aren’t being held you can go in to visit, the ticket RMB 30. I didn’t go in, because there were simply too many tourists. Inside the old city, aside from the busy commercial and food streets, I prefer the narrow, thinly peopled lanes, to see how the local residents live. Outside the houses and in the lanes, greenery is set out in rows; every household hangs a red flag that flutters, very festive. Children dart through the lanes — riding bikes, playing football, playing hopscotch, wrestling, playing on phones; an older sister or a young mother carries a baby; older women sit by the roadside chatting; old men drink tea in the teahouses; and of course there are many volunteers and police. Kashgar’s dwellings are those square, two- or three-story, low little buildings with earth-yellow outer walls, packed close and set at pleasing angles, extending away like little tin boxes stacked together. Just stand at a lane’s mouth and shoot down its depth, taking in the blue sky above, and with the lines and angles of the houses the photos come out especially beautiful — anyone who likes architecture would surely want to come and see. And if someone walks past, especially a child, a happy child, the picture has even more human warmth, making me, the photographer, happy too.
I walked back and forth in the lanes; some spots I may have passed two or three times, some I may have missed, but most of the paths I covered. I saw many tourists and many local residents, took many photos and videos — and in between it rained a little. I was amazed that Kashgar could rain, and that I happened to catch it: backlit, the raindrops were perfectly visible, glittering. Women in fine dress posed in the rain; residents walked past with naan in their hands; three or five little girls frolicked in the rain under umbrellas — all these scenes I recorded, in photos and videos, in words, and in my own head. I saw.
2023.10.5 — The Eastern Half of Kashgar’s Old City
I’d reached Kashgar yesterday afternoon and gone to see the western half of the old city, because I saw the west is smaller than the east and I had only half a day, so I did the west first; with a whole day today, I’d do the east. I got up at eight, but the sky was still dark, the shops along the street all shuttered and unlit, only some streetlights still on. Slowly the sky began to brighten — blue above, orange at the horizon — and not until nine did the morning sun rise from the distance. Kashgar really is three hours behind the mainland.
I was a bit hungry and wanted to eat baked buns. But when I got to that little shop, they were only just opening; the owner said I couldn’t eat until 10:30. So I went for a stroll first. In a lane there’s a trendy baked-naan shop, with a funny name too: My Grandpa’s Grandpa’s Father’s Baked Naan. I’d been past it last night, when there was a long queue. But in the morning there weren’t many people, so I queued too. Plain naan RMB 3, rose naan RMB 3, raisin naan RMB 3, chili naan RMB 4, and walnut naan and milk naan, all RMB 3. You can also have a bigger one made to order, a bit pricier. I bought a rose naan and a chili naan, but didn’t eat them — saved them for later. I still wanted the baked buns; I’d been in Xinjiang so many days and hadn’t tried them. I strolled a while more, then went back to the baked-bun shop; the helper was baking them in the oven. I sat in the shop a while and the buns were done. I asked for five, RMB 2 apiece, RMB 10. They were piping hot; I ate them with chopsticks. There was a lot of mutton inside, with a gamy smell, and greasy too; now and then you’d bite into a bit of bone.
The eastern half really is bigger: along both sides of the main street are shops and eateries. The shops sell Kashgar specialties — jade, copperware, dried fruit, ethnic clothing, carpets, silk, musical instruments. The eateries serve barbecue, skewers, baked buns, baked eggs, pilaf, big-plate chicken, beef noodles, pigeon soup, cold noodles, cold jelly, and yellow noodles. There are also many little stalls selling fruit platters, pomegranate juice, shaved ice, ice cream. And then all kinds of photography studios renting out ethnic dress with a photographer to follow you around — girls who come here all want to rent an outfit and hire a photographer to trail them, because the photographers know the old city well and know where the best shots are; the girls’ spending has lifted Kashgar’s economy.
I don’t like strolling on the main street; I prefer the lanes. The main street is all out-of-town tourists; the lanes are local residents. The main street is gaudily decorated and noisy; the lanes are plainer and more modest, and quieter. I’d rather look at the locals more. Of course, there are more finely dressed girls taking photos in the lanes, so I can look at them more too. In the lanes you can also see more clearly the architectural style of Kashgar’s dwellings: the outer walls are coated with a layer of red mud, with dry grass mixed into the mud, so the walls are thick — meant to insulate, cool in summer and warm in winter. I hear the old walls were all earthen, but now they’re all brick, with only the outer face mudded. Many houses are padlocked, and those not locked have cloth curtains and blankets hung at the doorway to block prying eyes; we outsiders can’t go in, only stand at the door for a look. Inside there’s a courtyard, and light reaches it; they like to sit on blankets all around.
In the lanes I couldn’t tell directions, and a map was no use either, since many of the forking paths aren’t marked on it — so those trailing photographers really are necessary. I’d often see a certain girl in this lane and run into her again in another. With a photographer leading them, they don’t get lost. I could only wander at random, walking my legs nearly off, and in the end I couldn’t remember a single path — the houses are all too similar. Some Uyghur young fellow was even renting out a camel and a horse for the girls to photograph. When the camel needed to pee, its tail would lift, and the young fellow hurried to catch it in a plastic dustpan and pour it into the drain, so as not to dirty the ground.
In the morning I’d had baked buns, all mutton, which for me was a bit greasy and filling, so at noon I ate something simple: cold noodles. A small portion RMB 8, a large RMB 10; I had a small bowl. Xinjiang cold noodles are plainly different from Shaanxi cold noodles. But I’m not a foodie; I don’t know the specifics of how either is made, or how their ingredients and seasonings differ, so I can’t say. But I can taste that they are different. The colors differ too: Xinjiang cold noodles are pale yellow, Shaanxi cold noodles semi-transparent. At night I still wanted something simple — a bowl of fried rice noodles, RMB 22. Not as cheap or as tasty as Moguli’s rice noodles in Urumqi.
Though southern Xinjiang has a vast desert and a dry climate, there’s plenty of fruit; the roadsides are full of people selling watermelon, Hami melon, grapes, and figs. A small box of Hami melon costs only RMB 5. A bigger mixed box of Hami melon and watermelon only RMB 10. Only the figs are a bit dear. Xinjiang figs look very different from the figs in Weihai — thick-skinned, not green but pale yellow, with little flesh inside — and they’re frightfully expensive: RMB 10 for five, whereas in Weihai they’re sold by the jin, and at their cheapest RMB 5 for two jin. These Uyghur vendors’ Mandarin isn’t good — very bad; even for a simple price I’d have to ask several times to hear it clearly.
I’d meant to go to Hotan tomorrow, but my waitlisted ticket never came through, and I reckoned I wouldn’t get one. The last day of the National Day holiday is still a return-travel peak. Tickets for the 7th are very easy to buy, but I no longer want to go to Hotan — I only want a day trip to Turpan. But I had nothing arranged for the 6th, so I’d stay an extra day in Kashgar and take a day trip to the surroundings: Baisha Lake and Karakul Lake on the Pamir Plateau.
2023.10.6 — The Kunlun Mountains, the Pamir Plateau
Before I’d ever been to Xinjiang I could never tell the Tianshan from the Kunlun, often confusing them, thinking they were one range — that Kunlun was Tianshan and Tianshan was Kunlun. Of course that’s not so; they’re not in the same place. One obvious difference: the Tianshan is north of the Taklamakan Desert, and the Kunlun is south of it — the two lie on either side of China’s largest desert. Looking south from Urumqi you see the Southern Tianshan; looking east, the Eastern Tianshan, and Bogda Peak is in the Eastern Tianshan. The Kunlun lies south of Kashgar, separating China from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. On the Pamir Plateau the Kunlun has three great peaks — Kongur Tagh, Kongur Tiube, and Muztagh Ata — all above 7,500 meters.
And all three peaks are within Akto County, which belongs to the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture (“Kezhou” for short — a rather imposing abbreviation; the Kirghiz are the same as the Kyrgyz), not to the Kashgar Prefecture. Kezhou’s terrain is peculiar: Akto County is wedged right into the Kashgar Prefecture, separating Kashgar City from Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County (“Taxian” for short). That is, Akto County sits right between Kashgar and Taxian, and whether you go to Akto or to Taxian you must cross prefectural lines. The national highway to Akto County and Taxian is G314, which starts from Urumqi and runs all the way to the border crossing between Taxian and Pakistan. And the Baisha Lake and Karakul Lake I was going to visit today are on the Pamir Plateau, within Akto County, ringed by snow mountains.
At nine the tour bus set out from the parking lot at the east gate of Kashgar’s old city. It was a 51-seater, but only 27 people were aboard, showing that visitor numbers were falling; I heard that the previous days had been full. With driver and guide that made 29; the bus had many empty seats. Because there were few people, I could sit on the right to look at the snow mountains, then run to the left to look some more. The guide was a Uyghur young fellow, thirty. He said, my mom married at eighteen, but times have changed; I’m thirty this year and still unmarried — a single turtle (or ghost, anyway not a single dog). He said, when we were little we spoke only Uyghur and couldn’t speak Chinese; we learned Chinese later, so he doesn’t speak it properly. Indeed he didn’t — like a foreigner speaking Chinese, but much better than those street vendors. On the bus he announced Kashgar’s history and sights, told allusions and jokes, first in Chinese and then in Uyghur — of which of course I understood not a word, but he translated every passage into Uyghur. Most of the tourists were Han, with a few Uyghurs. He also said that in summer a lot of snow melts on the mountains, but luckily it had snowed the day before yesterday, restoring a lot of snow, so it was a bit cold and we should wear more clothes.
After an hour and a half the bus reached Wupar Town in Shufu County (“Wu Town”), and from the bus I could already see snow mountains in the distance — I grew excited. The bus rested twenty minutes at a service stop; passengers got off to buy breakfast — baked buns RMB 2 apiece, not dear, same as Kashgar, only a bit cold, and Hami melon just RMB 6 for a big box. On the plaza you could see the snow mountains again, though only a bit of the summits. The guide said, in Xinjiang there are two famous “zas”: one is bazha, the other mazar. Bazaar means market, like Shandong’s market day, except their market days go by the week — Monday is this township’s bazaar, Tuesday another’s. A highway service stop counts as a bazaar too. Mazar means funeral; Uyghurs value funerals as much as Han Chinese. The guide explained some points of Muslim funerals: burial on the day of death, the body washed clean, men washed by men and women by women, wrapped in white cloth, with no jewelry and no burial goods — rich and poor alike, everyone equal.
The street trees along both sides of the road are white poplars, planted very densely — one every half meter — and some trees seemed to grow two, three, four, or five from a single root, so the poplars aren’t thick, but tall. The guide said the poplars are mainly for windbreaks and sand control. Kashgar also plants many other trees — desert poplars, sea buckthorn, and rose willow. The desert-poplar groves turn gold in autumn, very beautiful; the guide said we’d have to wait another ten days or so to see them — they hadn’t yellowed yet. The sea buckthorn berries by the roadside are free for the picking; no one minds. The rose willow is green — why’s it called rose willow? Because when it flowers, the blossoms are red. I saw more corn than anything in the roadside fields; the locals were shelling corn in the fields, but I saw no wheat. Passing a certain village the guide said this is the only place in Xinjiang where rice is grown.
The bus drove from north to south; leaving Shufu County we entered Akto County in Kezhou, the altitude rising higher and the peaks more numerous. Around the Kezhou Glacier Park you could see many red mountains, rolling on and on, a vast expanse, very spectacular. But the bus didn’t stop; the guide said this is a newly developed tourist sight, not on the day-trip itinerary. On the way back the bus stopped twenty minutes at the park gate and everyone got off to take photos. The park gate fronts a huge red mountain — very photogenic. But to see the glacier you’d have to walk another thirty kilometers in. Beside the road runs the Gaizi River, and G314 was built along it; the river is meltwater from the snow mountains — sometimes rushing, sometimes slow, depending on the channel’s width — the channel all stones, and the turquoise water flowing over the stone flats, irrigating the crops in the fields.
More and more snow mountains came into view; east and west, all snow mountains. I’d look out the right window a while, then dash to the left window to take pictures — snow mountains without end. The road kept turning: now a snow mountain would be hidden by the mountain ahead, now it would appear again, now on the left, now on the right. The guide said this is such-and-such a mountain and that is such-and-such a mountain, but I couldn’t tell at all which was which. In the end I remembered only three peak names, and couldn’t tell them apart either: Kongur Tagh, Kongur Tiube, and Muztagh Ata. But there were surely more than these three great peaks — the peaks all run together in one long ridge, with summits of every shape, the snow on the shaded and sunlit faces of the summits sometimes deep and sometimes only a thin layer.
Our first stop was the Baisha Lake and Baisha Mountain scenic area. Searching online, the Baisha Lake scenic area is in the Altay region — that Baisha Lake and this one aren’t the same place. Standing on the highway and looking west, there’s Baisha Mountain: a gray mass like a stretch of desert. It’s said the wind here is so strong that sand deposits on that side of the mountain, giving a feeling of great desolation. Below the mountain is Baisha Lake, its water also green — a turquoise color — setting off the gray-white mountain behind it. There was no wind now and the lake was very calm, yet it was a bit cold; this was already the plateau. There were many tourists by the lake, and locals leading yaks for photos; now and then yak dung lay on the ground. To the north of the lake were more snow mountains, but the great peaks I mentioned are to the east of the lake. And since we were standing on the east side, we couldn’t see those snow mountains across the water. We took in Baisha Lake for an hour, then the bus went on to the next sight, the road running right along the lake, curving around its eastern shore the whole way; watching the green water from a speeding bus has a charm of its own.
On one map app it’s called Karakul Lake; on another it shows as Karakari Lake. It’s much smaller than Baisha Lake, but the scenery here is even more breathtaking. Because you stand on the western side and look east, those rolling great peaks are to the east — Kongur Tagh, Kongur Tiube, and Muztagh Ata are all there. Unlike at Baisha Lake, where you could only see the mountains to the west and north. So the guide gave us half an hour more here than at Baisha Lake. Whether you stand on the road or go down to the lakeside, with the snow mountains as background and a figure in the foreground, you can get stunning photos. The snow mountains stand silently, saying nothing; there were some dark clouds over the summits, and snow and cloud lost their boundary. At Baisha Lake it had still been clear, the sunlight lighting lake and mountains brightly; now at Karakul the sky had clouded over, all dark clouds, so the lake looked somber and the mountains melancholy, and the wind here was stronger. I couldn’t take the cold, and seemed a little short of oxygen; I took some photos and hurried up from the lakeside to the road and hid in the bus.
We returned the same way, reaching the east gate of Kashgar’s old city after eight. The whole way went from the uninhabited plateau into the densely built city, the road growing lively and then congested, the bus slowing the deeper we got into the city. The guide said it was the evening rush hour. On the streets of Wupar Town I also saw many primary-school children getting out of school with schoolbags on their backs and uniforms on. I was puzzled — isn’t today still a holiday? Along the roadside in the uninhabited area there were some fake policemen, just mannequins, raising their hands in a welcoming gesture, but they were covered in dust. In the suburbs the road was thick with dust too, so you couldn’t see far ahead, and the houses and pedestrians along both sides were gray-faced and grimy-looking. Entering the city proper, the flying dust was gone, the houses clean, and there were more people on the streets — pretty girls. In the old city I ate a bowl of pigeon-soup noodles, a Kashgar specialty, but a bit expensive at RMB 40. Then back to rest.
2023.10.7 — Leaving Kashgar
The train was at three in the afternoon, reaching Turpan before nine the next morning — nearly eighteen hours. Turpan is very close to Urumqi, and there’s a high-speed rail. The high-speed line from Urumqi passes through Turpan, Shanshan, Hami, Jiayuguan, Zhangye, Xining, Lanzhou, Tianshui, and Baoji all the way to Xi’an, in only about fourteen hours. In Tang times the monk Xuanzang would have taken months. I’d meant to go to Hotan and ride the railway around the Taklamakan Desert, but couldn’t buy a ticket to Hotan. The Taklamakan Desert Ring Railway includes these stations: Korla, Aksu, Artux, Kashgar, Hotan, Yutian, Qiemo, and Ruoqiang. It’s the world’s first desert-ring railway, completed and opened only in June 2021. And going back to Urumqi you have to join it at Korla and pass through Turpan. Turpan is a transport hub through the ages; I meant to make a day trip from Kashgar to Turpan. There’s no high-speed rail in southern Xinjiang; the desert-ring trains are all very slow; and there’s no high-speed rail to northern Xinjiang either — only eastern Xinjiang has high-speed rail.
I got up and checked out of the hostel, then ate a late breakfast — or early lunch — by the roadside: a bowl of meatball noodles, RMB 12. Another noodle dish I’d never had; the meatballs are made of mutton. Unlike the mainland, where meatballs are usually pork. The meatball noodles were quite good. Since the train wasn’t until three, there was still time. I decided to wander first, then go to the station. The Id Kah Mosque is right in the old city, and I still hadn’t been inside. Now that I had idle time, let’s go see it. The ticket was RMB 30, and once inside I found there was nothing much to see. The mosque is still open to worshippers; prayers are held daily, and during prayers you can’t visit. What time exactly, how many times a day, I didn’t ask. But I hear young people nowadays aren’t so devout and don’t pray five times a day. The mosque isn’t built north-south like Han buildings but east-west; worshippers face west, toward the holy city of Mecca. Inside, the floor is carpeted and you must take off your shoes to enter; there are no statues or portraits. There are radiators, and air-conditioning too.
I wandered the lanes of the old city again. Since the 7th is already a workday, there were far fewer tourists, and far fewer local residents too. The No. 18 Primary School in the old city was in session; a guard stood at the gate, and parents were bringing children to school. The streets seemed empty; unlike the past two days, when you’d always see plenty of beauties in ethnic dress on photo shoots, the shops’ business had gone quiet too, no tourists queuing or noisily calling at the doors, only a few Uyghur older women and men now and then — it couldn’t help but feel a little dispiriting. In winter it must be hard to see any tourists here; whether that’s a joy or a sorrow for those who live here, I truly don’t know.
Getting from the old city to the railway station is quite convenient — plenty of buses, plenty of taxis too (taxis stop when you wave, unlike big cities where ride-hailing is handier), and since I had time I took the bus. On the bus you scan a payment code to pay, not a transit code as in big cities. The driver was a Uyghur girl, very pretty; she reminded me I hadn’t scanned successfully. By the way, Kashgar’s buses are marked “Shenzhen Aids Xinjiang.” On many facilities in Kashgar are written the words of each region’s aid to Xinjiang. A hospital reads “Shandong Aids Xinjiang”; a scenic-area service center reads “Jiangxi Aids Xinjiang”; a car market reads “Guangzhou Aids Xinjiang.” At the railway station exit hangs a banner: “Thanks to the aiding provinces and cities for their selfless assistance.” Probably southern Xinjiang is still rather poor and needs the helping hand of the mainland provinces and cities; I guess Hotan and Yutian are the same.
I was in a sleeper again — I can’t imagine the misery of a hard seat, but many Uyghur compatriots take hard seats, hauling big bags and small, hurrying to the provincial capital Urumqi to make a living, just as farmers from the central provinces once went to Guangdong and Zhejiang to work. On the train I didn’t meet another cute little girl — they were all in school. Going back to Urumqi was just like coming: same route, few stops — only Aksu and Korla — and the next stop Turpan; the scenery the same too, mostly desert and gobi, and only when you reach an oasis city do you see plants and houses. I’d imagined Xinjiang’s cities as all small and shabby, like mainland county towns, but Xinjiang’s bigger cities (like Aksu) have tall, dense buildings and brand-new railway stations, with many young people coming to catch trains, Han and Uyghur both, the girls dressed prettily and stylishly, many in high heels, and some in hanfu and horse-face skirts. On the train (and in the cities) you always hear a Sichuan accent; it feels as if there are a great many Sichuanese in Xinjiang — Li Juan and Dao Lang are both Sichuanese.
2023.10.8 — A Day Trip to Turpan
When I was little, all I knew of Xinjiang was Turpan and Dabancheng — Turpan for its grapes, Dabancheng for “The Girl from Dabancheng”; these two places are more famous than Urumqi. After so many days of wandering Xinjiang I was very tired, and my beard had grown long (to lighten the backpack I hadn’t brought a razor), like a scruffy old fellow (and I am one); but going back to Urumqi you must pass through Turpan, and I could book a fairly cheap Turpan day tour online, and since coming to Xinjiang is so rare a chance, I’d add one more place. As for northern and western Xinjiang, I’d love to go too, but that’s really too far — I had neither the energy nor the money.
The day-tour agency picks people up at Turpan North Station and drops them back there at night. But trains coming from southern Xinjiang only stop at Turpan Station, not Turpan North. Turpan Station is in Daheyan Township, forty or fifty kilometers from the Turpan city center, and Turpan North is ten-odd kilometers from the center too. Outside Turpan Station there are no buses, only unlicensed cabs; a shared ride to the North Station costs RMB 30. I couldn’t figure out why Turpan Station is so out of the way and so inconvenient. Later the tour guide explained: it’s because of the karez — the ground beneath the Turpan city center is riddled with karez channels, so you simply can’t build a railway over them; the moment a train came rumbling along, the karez would all collapse. So both Turpan Station and North Station were built especially far out.
The tour was a small group of thirteen, most from Urumqi, some alone, some with families in tow. Since the holiday was over, there were far fewer people. The guide said the previous days he’d led big groups of forty or fifty, dog-tired, his voice shouted hoarse. Now with few people he could relax a little. Even at the sights, meeting another group, two could merge into one with a single guide. Our first stop was a karez; we walked a long way in the tunnel, which was very cool, and the karez water could be drunk straight. I also picked up a little geography: the Tianshan is to the north; below it is the Flaming Mountains; below them the Turpan Basin; the snowmelt runs underground through the Flaming Mountains and into the various karez tunnels for people to use. In the past the karez belonged to the bayi lords (that is, the landlords). Now you tourists are our bayi lords too, the guide said.
Grapes everywhere, too many grapes — the vines climb on trellises (they look like trees, but grapes are a vine, and in winter the vines are pulled down and buried in soil). There are more than 500 varieties of grape, of which only about 50 are cultivated. The guide told us some, and the sights had plenty of explanations posted, but when would I have time to learn the varieties, the history, the craft? Even seeing them I couldn’t tell them apart. I remember only two the guide mentioned: the horse-teat grape and the suosuo grape. And that Xinjiang measures by the kilogram, not the jin. If in Xinjiang you ask how much per jin, you’d instantly look like a mainlander and the shopkeeper might fleece you. Asking prices in Xinjiang, never say per jin. There are also many grape-drying houses — long rectangular hollow-brick structures built of mud bricks (not red bricks, which absorb heat), with protruding racks hanging inside, though now, past the autumn drying season, the racks are all empty. Growing grapes is like growing rice and wheat — there’s a lot of learning in it.
The second sight was the Jiaohe Ancient City; if you’re interested in history and culture you could linger there a while. But the tour’s schedule was too tight — you could only follow the guide for a quick, rough understanding, no time for many areas. Turpan is really too sunny; walking in the sun you could hardly keep your eyes open, your hair and skin burning hot. Hard to imagine how hot it is in June, July, and August, and how the figures of history fought and defended here, and what sufferings Xuanzang endured here on his way to fetch the scriptures from the West. Xinjiang’s sights are all very large; often you have to take a shuttle from the scenic-area entrance to reach the viewing spot. If you came alone, not on a tour, to tick off the sights, getting around would be very inconvenient; even self-driving, you’d need a guide and still take the shuttle — easier just to join a tour.
At noon the agency arranged a meal at a hotel; we happened to fill a big table. The guide is Hui, and even when we invited him to eat with us he couldn’t. Garlic-scape stir-fried pork and celery stir-fried pork — both pork. The food was rather tasty, unlike some tour agencies’ meals, which are truly awful. After eating we went to the third and fourth sights, which are together: the Junwang Mansion and the Emin Minaret. I don’t know much about the history of the Western Regions in Qing times, so I looked at them gulping whole, remembering nothing. I recall only that the Junwang Mansion also has a karez, and the water was very cool. The Emin Minaret used to be climbable, but later there was an earthquake and they don’t let people up anymore; the mosque beside it, also built entirely of mud bricks, cracked with several obvious fissures in the quake.
The fifth sight was the main event: the Flaming Mountains. On the way there you can see the Tianshan and the Flaming Mountains ranges — the Flaming Mountains red, the Tianshan white. The Flaming Mountains run very long, eighty or ninety kilometers, so there are many sights, and I hear there are several locations where Journey to the West was filmed. Today we went to only two: one is Mantou Mountain, a stretch of red, especially spectacular; an off-road vehicle took us up the mountain, and at the top you can look all around — and at the top the sun also nearly kills you, the phone growing hot as if about to explode; then down and on to another spot, the one with the giant thermometer and the sculpted group-figures from Journey to the West, showing 43 degrees today. My God. In summer it’s higher, of course — I hear over 48 degrees, and the local weather forecast stops reporting honestly, never exceeding 48. The Flaming Mountains we also merely glanced at. The guide said the hotter the weather, the redder the mountain, like fire. In autumn now it isn’t red.
The sixth sight was Grape Valley, a park for enjoying nature, with many villages inside and many locals living there. The scenic area is large too; you must take a shuttle, and it was a long ride to get there. Driving up the mountain, the temperature dropped noticeably; in short sleeves I felt a bit cold. I saw two places inside: one the Grape Museum, with a stone stele bearing the three characters “Grape Valley,” where some people were taking photos; the other the Wang Luobin Music and Art Museum, on Wang Luobin’s life. There were very few tourists in the scenic area, many facilities shut, and the guesthouses seemed to have little business; leaves carpeted the hills, and grapes were planted all along the walkways too. Coming down after seven, we happened to meet the nearby primary school letting out, and the children happily high-fived the tourists on the shuttle one by one.
Last we went to one more place — a villager’s home. It’s said the local government picks them carefully: at least good Mandarin (they call it the national language; formerly there were separate Uyghur-language schools, now all merged), and a glib tongue, to introduce their raisins. It wasn’t forced spending; both the agency and the villager were plain and simple. In the villager’s courtyard a woman held forth (a cadre, probably), explaining the good current policies and their good grapes (the bad grapes go to the Japanese). We sat on carpeted platforms — the men inside, who had to take off their shoes; the women outside, who didn’t (so they can readily go down to do housework and wait on their husbands — that’s how it is in Xinjiang). The villager brought out grapes and watermelon; we listened and ate, and a young girl (a guli) performed a dance, and then came the pitch for their raisins. The woman spent a great deal of breath, praising hard, but no one bought — many in the group were from Urumqi and had no need to. Only one girl from Shandong bought some suosuo grapes (RMB 200 a kilogram — the villager ground them to powder for her) and the most expensive kind of raisin (RMB 80 a kilogram). Ah, farmers have it so hard.
Because the tour ended early, we got back to Turpan North Station early, so I rebooked my train for an earlier one — leaving at 9:30, reaching Urumqi at 10:30. An hour on the high-speed rail and I was at Urumqi Station. There was one last bus. An hour on the bus and I was back at the hostel I’d stayed in before; after the National Day holiday an eight-bed dorm was only RMB 67. Outside the hostel, at a beef-noodle shop, I ate a bowl of dry-mixed beef noodles, RMB 18 (RMB 13 without added meat; I added meat — I was hungry).
2023.10.9 — Walking the Legs Off in Urumqi, the Last Day
The last day I had nothing planned; I was only waiting for my flight — at 7:30 on the morning of the 10th (the cheapest airfare that day). I’d spend the daytime wandering the city, walking my legs off, and at night go to the airport capsule hotel to sleep. I’d stayed in Urumqi two days before, so there was nowhere in particular I wanted to go now. I’d made a big loop around Xinjiang, but my understanding of it still wasn’t deep — only a tourist’s taste of the surface. I decided to go to the Xinjiang Museum again, to learn a little of Xinjiang’s history, especially the northern Xinjiang (Altay) and western Xinjiang (Ili) I hadn’t been to. When I’d checked out and walked to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, I suddenly realized today was Monday (people who don’t work have no sense of time), and the museum might be closed. I checked, and sure enough, it closes on Mondays. But I didn’t want to change my plan; I could go to the pilaf shop outside Xinjiang University next to the museum and eat pilaf. I went there and ordered a mutton pilaf, RMB 28 — little rice, little meat, all bones. Had I known, I’d have ordered beef pilaf, RMB 25.
I took the bus to Xidaqiao, then went around from Xinhua Road to Guangming Road, hoping for another look at the snow mountains; but the weather was worse than before and I couldn’t see them, only blurry mountains. I went back around to Xinhua Road and began my long walk. From Xidaqiao I walked to Xiaoximen, a wholesale market for women’s clothes, so women were especially numerous. I walked south to Daximen, then on to Consulate Lane, where I bought a bottle of pomegranate juice for RMB 20. Through Consulate Lane, then north to the International Grand Bazaar — I didn’t go in, not wanting to join the crowd again, just strolled the food street opposite, where the food was too expensive and I didn’t want to eat. Then I went around onto Heping South Road, on north to the People’s Theater on Renmin Road, and rested at the theater. All told I hadn’t walked many steps — only fifteen thousand — but carrying a backpack, all my luggage, it was still rather heavy, my back a bit sore and my legs a bit stiff. I bought a movie ticket and sat two hours in a soft sofa seat in the screening room; once rested enough, I took the subway to the International Airport.
I’d been in Xinjiang eight days, and I loved wandering the streets looking at things; at first, seeing people who don’t look like us, I found it fresh, found them beautiful — but seeing more of them, the strange stopped being strange. Just as we Han Chinese all look different from one another too. Among them are the beautiful and the ugly, tall and short, fat and thin, young and old, the thick-haired and the bald, the clever and the dull, the kind and the wicked, the poor and the rich, leaders and subordinates, the happy and the melancholy. Even if our faiths differ — so what? That middle-aged woman said, according to Islamic law we Uyghurs aren’t allowed to drink, but young people now have started drinking, and drinking hard, their health getting worse and worse. They scroll short videos too — the viral tunes, the memes — addicted to games, chasing stars, livestreaming, listening to Dao Lang and Wang Luobin, and they’ve picked up no small amount of swearing; little children will even say “shabi” left and right. You see, different faiths still share the same tastes. Han and Uyghur are no different. People everywhere are the same.
A few scattered observations of Xinjiang. Street signs are in three languages: Chinese, Uyghur, and English — a bit like Weihai, where signs are in Chinese, English, and Korean. Subway and bus announcements are in two languages, Chinese and Uyghur, no English. Xinjiang people’s Mandarin is poor, so presumably their English is worse. Uyghur differs from place to place in Xinjiang, like the dialects of the mainland. “Yaxshi” means good. “Guli” means an unmarried girl. Though Xinjiang is vast, very little of it is habitable — great stretches of desert and plateau, plus grasslands and lakes. With strong sunlight and meat at almost every meal, you have to drink tea often; Xinjiang has many kinds of spice. On Urumqi’s and Kashgar’s buses you swipe your card only once, unlike Beijing or Weihai, where you swipe both on and off. Xinjiang has strong wind and solar power; Dabancheng is a wind gap, and there are solar panels in the desert. The temperatures of northern and southern Xinjiang differ greatly — northern Xinjiang is already winter, southern Xinjiang still autumn. Oasis, plateau, and desert temperatures differ too. Kashgar has a county called Shache (che). The Jiaohe Ancient City was the capital of the ancient Jushi (ju). Urumqi’s heating is underfloor heating.
The last night I stayed in the capsule hotel; for me it was far better than the hostel. Hostels no longer quite suit me — I need a more private space, not to be squeezed into a small room with many people. To save money, I made myself uncomfortable — was it really worth it? But to be comfortable I’d have to earn more money. And earning money is itself a hard thing. Wavering between earning money and saving money. To save money, I couldn’t go out anymore. This year I went out many times and spent a lot of money, yet earned hardly a few. For the coming autumn and winter I’ll honestly hole up at Rushan Silver Beach, going nowhere, quietly living my life by the sea.
2023.10.10 — The Tianshan Snow Mountains from the Plane
If you fly from the mainland to Urumqi, in the daytime, then please sit on the left side of the plane by the window — that way you’ll see the Tianshan snow mountains. Flying from Urumqi back to the mainland, sit on the right side by the window. I didn’t get a window seat, but there weren’t many people on the plane and the middle seats were empty; the person at the window was asleep, sprawled out, leaving a big space. So I sat in the middle and shot outward, and got the towering Tianshan snow mountains. As the plane climbed, at first the sky was black, then it gradually brightened. At first I saw only far-off snow mountains, not very bright; later, after about an hour in flight, the snow mountains were directly beneath the plane, perfectly clear to the eye and to the camera. Snow mountains again. The last time I saw snow mountains from a plane was flying back to the mainland from Lhasa. This time, flying back from Urumqi, I saw snow mountains again. The snowcaps of the Tianshan are a bit different from Tibet’s: Tibet’s mountains are higher, great expanses of white snow; the Tianshan has far less snow, the bare rock like sandy soil, tinged red — not like Tibet’s mountains, which are frozen ground, tinged black; the lie of the ranges differs too — Tibet is a plateau, broader; the Tianshan is a narrow strip-shaped range with a pronounced slanting slope. I looked at the snow mountains a long time and was well satisfied. This trip could count as brought to a perfect close.