China Droll

Kashgar! The end of the road, the end of my mission and everything. The end of my hope of seeing “the old city of Kashgar before it’s razed to the ground,” because that’s already happened.

Here’s what it probably looked like everywhere:

and here is the spanking new Kashgar made by Chinese, for Chinese:

Note the green windows with aluminium frames - dead giveaway - and the streets made nice and wide to accommodate … armoured vehicles? There were certainly enough of them around town, with lots of army posts put up everywhere complete with sandbags and soldiers armed with machine guns/ submachine guns and shields. Outside the Tai Kai something Dance Hall seemed to be a particularly hot hotspot - here the army had really bunkered down with dozens of soldiers and metal fences. That must have been where those pesky Uyghurs threw rocks or something at the Chinese, come out in force to revenge the honour of all those Chinese women who had been raped by gangs of crazed hairy Uyghurs in Guangdong province the month before.

So what if that particular rumour turned out to be untrue? Fighting is fun and the Uyghurs must be taught who runs the place. I stopped outside the Tai Kai something dance Hall to gaze at the beautiful soldiers (after all I am partial to a good man in uniform, only to be told but by a widely grinning man: No standing! What - outside the fence? On a public pavement?

The main mosque in town, now overlooking a “panoramic view  tourist” something

was another place where the soldiers had congregated. I helped an old geezer feed a flock of doves on the steps of the mosque, and I don’t think the irony was lost on him as the white doves crowded around us while sixty or so soldiers, none of them a day over twenty except the surly commander, looked on, guns at the ready. The geezer and I  lifted our collective eyebrows and shook our heads in weary resignation as the soldiers nervously stared at my camera. Would the foreigner take photos? Yes, she would, actually. The expected frantic arm-wave and clenched eyebrows occurred. Then I had a chat with the commander in Cantonese and all seemed to be well again.

Before I went on this trip, I’d read in the South China Morning Post that the tourist industry of Xinjiang was gagging for us big spender “Americans” to come back, but I could see little evidence of this. On the contrary, most of the locals looked at me as if I were a big and nasty cockroach or roasted pig, glaring at me with murder in their eyes. This one was even “happy” to pose for a photo on request:

so imagine how the others looked at me. However that could have something to do with the moustache and mono-brow action. With those, even the friendliest geezer can easily look like a murderer. Talking of moustache, have you noticed how people where the moustache is a predominant feature, always need to check/look for/rearrange or just feel, their testicles? Without stop? The Uyghurs of Xinjiang and especially Kashgar, are no exception. It’s check, check, feel, feel, every few seconds. I have a theory: Guys with moustaches need them as a kind of bulwark against the world because they are deeply unsure of their masculinity, hence the constant need for reassurance that nether regions are still in place. Do Chinese guys ever check their tackle in public? No need! They know it’s there.

Kashgar seems to be much more overtly muslim than the other cities on the Silk Road, close to everything ending in -stan as they are. I have to say I got a bit tired of seeing all those women wrapped up like Christmas presents with only their eyes peeking out - eyes hidden behind sunglasses mostly. Many just had a brown table cloth covering their whole head. How they get around is a wonder. Many of them sat around begging, and I felt like saying: Yeah I’ll give you ten yuan, just take off your towel, you burq!

But I’ll give them this: The guys also walked around dressed in traditional gear from head to toe; not like in HK and Europe where they sashay around in T-shirts and shorts, with the wife lumbering behind in a black tent with an eye-slit like some throwback from 1209.

Anyway - the old city, or what was left of it, was certainly everything I had imagined and more.

I walked around for hours trying to get lost in the few streets and warrens that were still intact, understanding full well why tourists have so far been so charmed by this ancient city.

Watching old war films, I’ve always wondered what it feels like to live in a city under siege. Anybody who wants to know what it feels like, without the threat of being bombed to powder, can just take a stroll around Kashgar, or any modern Chinese city for that matter.

Everywhere was the rubble of homes torn down, barren moonscapes the sign of yet another Chinese victory over the past. The few houses still standing were mostly daubed with the dreaded character “chai” meaning Destroy!

But the Chinese have plans for the place, and it is to turn it into a clean and orderly tourist center where the Uyghurs know their place which is to sing and dance, and otherwise shut up:

And in all fairness, aren’t they allowed to keep their mosques and all the rest? it’s not like in Tibet where everything has been taken away from the locals. No, here in Kashgar the Chinese have been kind enough to build new, proper, modern mosques that befit a province of China. After all, who doesn’t love green windows?

Many places I found locals just standing and staring at the destruction. When i tried to engage them in conversation about how they felt, none of them could understand a word of putonghua, only to turn around five seconds later saying (in putonghua) So! Are you American?

Asking for directions, I finally found a guy in a travel agent’s who was willing to give me an interview about the destruction of Kashgar. I was to meet him the next day and thought it prudent to call first, suggesting that we meet somewhere that wasn’t his workplace. After about three hours a totally different guy showed up. No, when I had talked to Ali earlier that morning he had been in Xian! (Really? but there is no phone connection between Xinjiang and other provinces.)

Was I a journalist? Er… no, I just wanted to talk with a local about how he felt about the destruction. “This is very sensitive. Do you have any other questions?” Did he live in the old city? “No. If there is anything else I can help you with, I am at your service.” All right then. We shook hands and he left.

You can say what you want about the Chinese but they are no slouches when it comes to keeping the population well trained.