Journey to the East

So, to wrap up my blogging on the trip to Xinjiang, I thought I would post the best of the rest of my photos from the trip. To enlarge a picture click on it, and click again on the picture in the screen that pops up. Enjoy!

A typical Uighur mid-day meal: Polou, cold vegetables and tea.

No experience in Xinjiang would be complete without eating. In fact, one of the greatest parts of heading waaaay out west is the food. So, I thought I’d give a quick look at Uighur food, and the cuisine of Xinjiang.

In general, Uighur food is much like the food of the rest of Central Asia (Afghani food is particularly similar, apparently). Thus, Xinjiang cuisine is renowned for its use of huge portions of lamb and beef. Particularly famous are its enormous, meaty, spicy kebabs. Unlike their eastern Chinese cousins, which are much smaller and meant to be eaten in large numbers, Xinjiang style kebabs are massive. Each would probably constitute a single serving’s worth of meat if assembled whole on a plate. These juicy cuts of lamb (and sometimes beef) are doused in chili, cumin, and an array of other spices, impaled on large (almost knife-like) metal skewers and roasted over a searing flame. They are absolutely delicious, and make for a great dinner and an even better late night snack. Breakfast also features heavy portions of meat, especially in the form of polou (or pilaf, as it is known in much of Central Asia), a bed of pan-cooked rice with shaved, stewed carrots, roasted onions, (occasionally) chopped dates and raisins, and (of course) a huge hunk of bone-in, roasted lamb. You have to be on top of your timing to get polou, though, as it is rarely found after 1PM local time. By noon, most restaurants have stopped serving it, or have sold out. Also, like many of the culinary traditions of Central Asia, bread plays an important role in Uighur cuisine. It’s a real treat to be walking around in Kashgar, in the Old City, in the early morning to smell the naan ovens firing. Some of them make regular flatbread, which is decorated with ornate spiraling patterns, making it both intricate and delicious. Others make the equally delicious samsa which are baked meat dumplings filled with big chunks of lamb. These are incredibly filling and are a wonderful morning snack.

However, centuries of interaction with East China has clearly influenced the cuisine of Xinjiang. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Xinjiang’s various noodle dishes. Handmade noodles crossed the Silk Road into the region from the East, and were quickly assimilated into the local diet. Now, anywhere in Xinjiang you find huge plates of steaming, stewy noodles. Often this is called laghman and is served with big chunks of meat in a sauce of tomatoes, carrots, onion, peppers, chickpeas, and spices (cinnamon, anise, etc.). The total effect is a hearty, aromatic, spicy and filling lunch.  Eating laghman is also a great visual experience, as all of the noodles are handmade. As you wait for your food, you can watch the kitchen staff pulling large strings of the noodle dough, stretching it again and again to make the long strands which you’ll eventually eat. The people who do this are pros, and there’s sort of an artistry about the whole process, which seems highly acrobatic. If nothing else, the freshness of the meal is incredible. Similarly, the tea culture of Xinjiang bears the mark of cultural fusion. Tea is an important beverage in this area as the halal dietary code of Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol. In the place of wine or beer, tea is often consumed. Here again, Xinjiang has fused the customs of East and Central Asia into something completely unique: traditional Xinjiang tea is served, like in China, without the addition of milk (as is the case in much of Central Asia, and especially India and Pakistan). However, unlike in China, Uighur tea is usually brewed with a blend of spices (the most bold flavor being that of cardamom), and thus have an incredible fragrance and delicately sweet flavor. In the afternoons, it’s nice to find some respite from the desert heat by climbing up to the balcony of a teahouse and having a bowl or two (yes, tea is served in small shallow bowls here) with some naan. From these high vantage points, one can sip tea and simply watch the world pass, which– in Kashgar– is an experience unto itself.

One other culinary advantage of Xinjiang’s arid climate is that dry weather allows for a really spectacular array of fresh fruits. Throughout China Xinjiang’s orchards are renowned for their apples, grapes, pears, dates and melons. On nearly any street in Kashgar’s Old City you’ll be able to reap the rewards of this, as everywhere vendors hawk dried fruit or fresh melons. Similarly, Xinjiang is abundant in nuts and almonds. The end result of all is of this is that Xinjiang has distinctly more dessert options than does Eastern China. These come in varied forms: Sesame hard candy made with local honey, peanut or almond brittle, chilled pressed dates in a sweet syrupy broth, fresh sliced melons, and –most importantly– home made ice-cream sweetened with honey and served by the spoonful into pint glasses. This frosty desert has the most wonderfully subtle and sweet flavor and is an amazing escape from the hot sun. Often, when walking in Kashgar, you’ll see dozens of men camped out under and awning in the shade, talking and enjoying a big cup of the stuff.

In all, eating in Xinjiang is a rich and incredible experience. Any description of it would be, however, incomplete without some visual aides. Here are some pictures:

Every kind of kebab imaginable is available at the Wuyi Night Market in Urumqi.

Xinjiang's famous lamb kebabs on the grill.

Kebabs are a popular nighttime snack. This stand was in the old town in Kashgar.

Naan flatbread: an absolute staple of Uighur food.

Making laghman, pulled noodles

Making Kebabs in Kashgar's Old City.

Late afternoon sunlight falls on Kashgar's Old Town.

When I decided to take a holiday in Xinjiang, Kashgar was always the one place in my mind which served as a final destination. As the cultural heart of Xinjiang it is a place that has long captured my imagination. Any trip to the province without going to see Kashgar would seem, in the end, to be somewhat incomplete. Thus, as we set out on the 24 hour train ride from Urumqi to Kashgar, I was incredibly excited. I will say this: the city is worth it. Worth the hype. Worth the distance. Worth the time. Worth the effort. There is, quite simply, no other place in the world quite like it.

Like much of Xinjiang, Kashgar bears the stamp of being a true border town. This is apparent everywhere: in the city’s architecture, religion, food, music, art, culture, daily rhythm, etc.. Kashgar looks and feels much like it neighbor cities, all of which are located in countries ending in “stan.” Where else could you find a place that can boast such strong flavors of  Central Asia (it was used as a stand-in for Kabul when filming the movie version of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner… and indeed, when you are here, you can almost imagine what it would be like to be in a peacetime Afghanistan) while still remaining within territorial China? This city is a world unto itself.

There is a certain romanticism hanging around Kashgar, especially in the Old Town, which surrounds the famous Id Kah Mosque, the city’s beating heart. Here the sense of community among Kashgar’s majority Uighur inhabitants feels very strong. There is a liveliness and a vibrancy reflected in the local culture absent just eastward in Urumqi. This catches a visitor up in the swirling atmosphere of a place that seems truly magical when first viewed with fresh eyes. Certain aspects of this romanticism strike you immediately.

The smell: the heavy odors of sewage, pollution, garbage, etc. that one finds in Ji’nan are almost entirely absent here. Instead, Kashgar is a place of much more delicate aromas: baking bread from the naan ovens all over the old town, charcoal and grilled meat, dried fruits and nuts, flowery tea, fresh-sliced melon, fresh market produce and the heavy smell of spices like cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, chillies, coriander and anise.

The sights are magnificent too. For instance, the architecture: graceful and delicate carved archways and woodwork that is almost Arabesque, slender twin spires of minarets which rise slightly above the slanting old rooftops rooftops, rounded domes of mosques (often times in Kashgar’s Old Town, one finds themselves lost and wandering amongst the buildings only to look up and see the crescent moon on the spire of a minaret and realize that you have stumbled on a small mosque), seemingly ageless oven fired brick homes the color of mud, wooden carvings on doors whose patterns almost match the complexity of the woven designs on the brightly colored carpets sold on the streets, brightly painted second floor balconies of teahouses.

Even such magnificent sights get lost amidst those that are happening in the streets, which are filled with a constant level of buzz. In the Old Town one often finds men pulling donkey carts. There are  barrage of people on scooters zipping down the narrow alleyways. Most of the things sold on the street (from ornate tea kettles and ceremonial knives to homemade ice cream and kebabs) are also produced there in the street as well. Thus, much of the Old Town’s industry is on immediate display. In front of music stores, men sit playing their instruments. The streets are crowded as food vendors push carts full of brightly colored fruit, green produce, baked bread or other sundries. Walking in the streets, one encounters women in brightly colored headscarves, men with long beards and traditional prayer hats, and children at play. You catch the gleam of copper from newly made pots and pans hanging in storefronts, or the absolutely brilliant array of color coming from a rug imported from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or even Iran.

The center of all of the action is the Id Kah Mosque, a spectacular building right in the center of the Old Town. The structure is built in the Arabic style and painted a beautiful and bright yellow with bright tiled flourishes. Every afternoon the square in front of the mosque is crowded. Merchants set up stalls along the side hoping to sell prayer hats, prayer beads, copies of the Qur’an, tailored shirts, guidebooks, maps, water and myriad other items to would be pilgrims and worshippers as they pass. At 5pm you can hear (as you can all over the city) the afternoon call to prayer, and the proclamation “Allahu Ackbar” (or “God is Great” in Arabic). Venture inside the mosque, and you’ll find it surprisingly verdant. The grounds in between the front entrance and the main prayer hall are filled with trees. I remember a lesson from my Intro to Classic Islam course at Davidson in which my professor explained that in Islam, all things in their natural state are believed to be submissive to Allah. He pointed out that this had an incredibly natural connotation: life, when in a purely harmonious state, is completely in line with the will of God. At the center of the mosque in Kashgar, with ample shade and calm, this idea feels almost tangible. The lushness of the interior, and its general removal from the hustle and bustle of the streets make this a particularly quiet and peaceful sanctuary. I can only imagine that those who come here seeking something of the divine must surely be able to find part of it. Around the mosque, much of the city turns. At night, people gather in the square in front of the Id Kah Mosque and it remains a lively and buzzing place. Want to see the heart of Kasghar? This is the place to do it.

Part of the charm of the Old City lies in its authenticity. Unlike the “Ancient City” model of development and tourism being put in to place in other cities in Eastern China (in which the core of an old city is preserved and filled with tacky souvenir shops and cafes aimed at tour groups, particularly foreigners), Kashgar’s Old Town is not set up for the benefit of tourists. There’s not the element of show or spectacle in the Old City here. Or at least not yet. By contrast, Kashgar is local. There is an incredibly strong sense of community in the Old Town, where the population is still predominantly Uighur (a Turkic minority community in China’s northwest, which is the majority population for Xinjiang and find the center of their traditional heartland in Kashgar). Everywhere one sees examples of how much the Old Town feels small-scale, and close knit. The men who gather at local ice-cream stands to sit in the shade, eat ice-cream, talk and watch the frenzied pace of Kashgar’s streets pass by them every afternoon are regulars and old friends.  All of Kashgar’s merchants are Uighurs, locals, and have often worked in their trade for several generations (one of the largest rug dealers in Kasghar is a father-son operation which has been in business for nearly 40 years). The expertise of these merchants is real, and their goods are authentic, unlike the tacky souvenir swag sold in other places. But the good are not meant for tourist consumption (or at least not all of them). The copper pots being made in storefronts, the fresh produce in the streets, the sliced melon and fresh baked naan are mostly consumed by the people who live and work in Kashgar.

We were fortunate enough in our time in Kashgar to feel the warmth of that community personally. As guests we were made to feel very welcome in most of the places we went in the Old Town. Once in wandering the streets, my friend Chris and I heard live music coming from a short distance away. After following our ears, we came to apartment block where the music was streaming out. Naturally, we were invited inside by one of the residents to find a four piece Uighur music ensemble. The player were all very insistent that we join them, sit with them, listen to them, and drink tea with them, and their children who were gathered on a rug playing and eating a picnic dinner. We stayed for maybe ten minutes, thanked them profusely, and quickly left, feeling like we had just experience a completely singular cultural experience. Similarly, one afternoon, on we decided to take in the streets of Kashgar from the upper floor balcony of one of Kashgar’s teahouses (because liquor is strictly prohibited at most establishments due to Islamic standards, much of the dining culture here centers around drinking tea). Upon our arrival we were greeted by a local man and his son, who had come to drink tea and enjoy a sunny afternoon. Upon seeing that we had purchased a Uighur-to-English phrasebook, our new friend took a good deal of interest in us, and asked us to sit and chat with him. Of course, we were asked to eat naan and drink tea as well, and the encounter turned into a very friendly conversation about life and customs in Kashgar. Further chat (in a combination of broken English, broken Uighur and broken Chinese) revealed that this man was a local Imam, and of some standing in the community. Again, we felt incredibly fortunate that a man of such local importance had reached out to us, a group of foreign strangers.

In this way, Kasghar feels different from Urumqi. If our presence in Urumqi’s neighborhoods was at first greeted with suspicion, in Kashgar we were met with openness. If looks we received in Urumqi suggested “What are you doing here?” in Kashgar, they suggested “Welcome friend! Have a seat!” The openness of the people and the culture in this town make it an easy place to feel at ease. While much of the “tourism” here may revolve around such simple activities as taking a walk and watching people work, it is easy to feel completely enthralled with such activity, and to feel that in doing so, you’re seeing something very real and very special.

Sadly, however that community is feeling the effects of development as well. While the core of the Old Town is well preserved, “modernization” is creeping in from the periphery. On the outskirts, Kashgar is evolving into a city of glittering multi-story shopping complexes and towering apartment blocs. It is in no way as close as Urumqi to losing that core of its true identity (and in some cases never will, as the Old City will inevitably be kept alive for the sake of tourism), but you can’t help feeling, as you walk in the streets in Kashgar, that what you see today may well be gone tomorrow. It’s yet another tale in the already thick anthology of communities which struggle between development and tradition. The city is a cultural wonder. I only hope it’s able to stick around.

As always, there are more photos from Kashgar than I know what to do with. Here are many of the best shots. Enjoy!

Welcome to Kashgar: A scene from the heart of the Old Town.

Streetside vendors like these ones selling fresh samsa (meat filled, baked dumplings) make Kashgar's Old Town an incredibly vibrant and interesting place.

Traditional multi-story architecture in Kashgar's Old City.

A major crossroads in the Old City.

Naan in Kashgar: The smell of baking bread was prominent in many areas of the Old City.

Traditional Uighur musical instruments for sale.

These presses are used for making the elaborate designs on naan. Even beyond being functional, they're actually quite colorful, and cool to look at.

Fresh, locally-grown watermelon, ready to be sliced (also, check out the size of that knife).

Uighur prayer hats for sale near the Id Kah Mosque.

A very tall minaret near the central square in the Old Town.

Dried fruit and almonds on sale at an open air market near the Id Kah mosque in Kashgar.

Traditional architecture in Kashgar's Old Town.

A typical sight in the streets in Kashgar: a donkey cart.

Kashgar's Id Kah Mosque: The spiritual and cultural heart of the city.

Locals gather outside the mosque before the 5PM call to prayer.

Seen from afar: the minarets of the Id Kah Mosque rise above the tree line.

Minaret at the Id Kah Mosque.

A shot from the interior of the mosque: These are the gates before the main prayer hall.

Inside the mosque everything seemed incredibly green and verdant.

Cooking up a local specialty: lamb kebabs.

Locals gather on the second story balcony of a teahouse to take in amazing views of Kashgar.

One of the very friendly locals we met at the teahouse was an Imam and his son.

A typical morning activity in Kashgar: Making naan.

Preparing the meat for lamb kebabs.

Kashgar city skyline.

An alleyway in the heart of Old Kashgar.

As seen in a Kashgar alleyway.

Late afternoon in Kashgar's Old Town.