Tag Archives: Kashgar

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Women of Kashgar

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One of the things which I found endlessly fascinating in Kashgar, China was the variety of womens’ dress. In the photo above, you can see plenty of Uzbek ikat-patterned sik in blue and purple. Every woman is either wearing a long skirt or has leggings on to cover her legs. Yet even as you notice this, look at the little girl on the left, she’s in a frilly, flouncy red dress.

Curious, the next day I took myself and my camera to the main square. It took a little time to find a spot in the shade in front of the mosque given that this is where the town elders seem to congregate. They stared a little as I sat there snapping but returned to their own conversations pretty quickly. For all I know, they could have been discussing the people I was photographing walking across the square.

kashgar-china-women-2The young women in the photo to the left were most typical of the women who passed by that day. Conservatively dressed in rich but heavy fabrics, heavy tights and with scarves of the most outrageous colors tied back to cover their hair. Many of these women wore the tails of their scarves over their shoulders maybe as a replacement for the plaits that were tied up behind.

I found the woman in the photo on the right most intriguing. Her clothing is very stylish and she’s wearing high heels but the only the upper part of her face is visible. I wasn’t sure if the white mask was for religious reasons or just to keep the dust off.

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In the heart of Old Town Kashgar most women are dressed like this: with an overdress and a heavy brown woolen veil over their heads. I had a hard time not staring: how does she see? that wool is not even close to transparent. And check out the pink frilly skirt just showing beneath her overdress and her daughter’s brightly-colored dress and pants. I think this is a woman who likes pretty things. How sad that she can’t preen when she’s out in public.

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The Road to Pakistan: Kashgar to Upal

There were police checkpoints all the way out of Kashgar. Our taxi was stopped and re-directed off the main (paved) road on to an unpaved side road. The driver was not happy. We were just back on the main road when we came to a Y fork. A Chinese driver was waved through but our car was stopped. I couldn’t help wonder if it was because the driver was Uighur. When we were through the checkpoint I asked the driver what was happening. “The bus to Pakistan” was his gruff and unconvincing reply. As we continued on I noticed police in pairs, one on each side of every side road we passed. It seemed a little over-the-top for a weekly bus coming or going to the Pakistani border.

We came into a suburb where there were even more police and it seemed that every business was shuttered. Our driver pulled into a gas station – even though the pumps were barricaded. The owner, who also looked Uighur, waved him away but our driver stopped the car and got out. They chatted, we were waved at multiple times and then a policeman came by. The chat resumed or maybe restarted. Arms were waved left and right. The body language spoke volumes: the policeman really didn’t want to make a big deal but he wanted the driver to move on; the driver dug in his heels – presumably about the right to choose where he could buy his gas; the gas-station owner just looked uncomfortable. Finally our driver gave in, got back in the car and drove off in a huff. Curiously, a little further along the road there was an open Sinopec station. We pulled in, filled up and were finally on the road to Tashkorgan proper.

We crossed the muddy Ghez river. Our driver seemed to have gotten over his frustrations with the police and started pointing things out as we drove along: the Kum Tagh (Sand Mountains), the Tian Shan. Proudly he pointed at the road ahead of the car and said “Karakoram Highway”. I didn’t tell him that I’d already memorized as many statistics as I could find about this cruel and famous stretch of road between China and Pakistan.

We stopped at Upal to buy bread, fruit and water. We’d just parked when Abdul Wahab‘s nephew came over to shake hands. We’d only met him for a few minutes the evening before but he treated us like we were family. Since I knew he could speak English, I asked him about the police on the road from Kashgar. “There was a government official visiting to inspect a new housing development”, he explained.
My first thought was “Wow, that was a lot of protection for one local official” and then I remembered that I’d read about these housing projects in the newspaper just a couple of days before. These new houses were as much as political as a construction project.

The Upal market was just setting up. Wares were laid out on simple wooden tables or on tarpaulins on the ground. Stalls were arranged in “streets” on unpaved, well-trodden ground, dusty but servicable. It was only 10am but the sun was already beating down most especially on Murph’s newly-shaven head. We stopped to get him a hat. As he tried on hats, BigB leaned against me and CAM sat on a wall just watching. The next stallholder over, a young man with sun-lined skin and eager dark eyes tapped me on the arm. He pointed to BigB and then to me in universal “Is that your son?” sign language. I nodded. I pointed to CAM stopped up and came over. The man held up two fingers and I nodded again. He stretched his arm up indicating CAM’s height, taller by half a head than both of us. He gave me two big thumbs up, I smiled back. That’s all a girl needs for a good start to her day: enthusiastic approval of her son-producting abilities from a random stranger in a country market.

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An Afternoon Walk in Kashgar

Kashgar, China. We’d reached the city I’d wondered about for months – reading and learning about its’ history as a trading post between East and West, Chinese, Pakistani, and Central Asian traders for hundreds of years. I wanted to get out, walk around and see for myself. Murph decided to come along too but our boys opted to stay in the hotel relaxing.

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Western China And The Silk Road

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We’ve always planned to include visiting China on our family world trip. Until last weekend this wasn’t much more than an item on the list of countries we plan to visit. Then, while flipping through maps in the excellent Wide World Books and Maps travel store, my husband threw me a “how about we go here” curveball which almost knocked me flat. His idea? “Let’s follow the Silk Road”. “You want me to take my children into Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran?” was my shocked reply. Waving a copy of Lonely Planet’s ‘Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway‘ he said “When you read Three Cups Of Tea you said that you’d love to visit that area.” This is the essence of my relationship with my husband: he comes up with crazy ideas and I, being a plodding, practical person, figure out how we can turn the ideas into reality.
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