Back in Kashgar

Amy and I got up early Sunday to go to the Livestock Market, which was one of the main things I wanted to visit in Kashgar. It's on the edge of the city and easy to find if you follow the truck loads of sheep, cattle, and donkeys. It's an open dusty lot that's actually quite well organized - halters, riding, and feed equipment in the front row followed by nursing cows and calves, large breed bulls, smaller breed bulls, sheep, and a few goats. The sheep are lined up flank to flank and tied off in a row of looped rope. Most of them at least - there were a few herds that were loosely corralled with a ring of rope, but those kept escaping and having to be chased down and literally tossed back into the pack. The corralled ones seemed to be awaiting a good shearing, since they were thickly wooly and were being handed off one by one to a pair of women sitting on the ground with one animal at a time an a pair of big shearing scissors. The sheep's feet were tied together, and she had her leg pressing its neck to the ground to keep it still. Back in the far corner are the donkeys and horses, and about half the length of the lot is reserved for "test riding" the horses. That was great to watch. A lot of these men are real horsemen, so watching them ride and inspect the animals was a treat.

It's a working market, so it's bustling with men (this is "men's work") wearing jackets and round Hui hats or square Ughyur hats. They all know each other and greet each other with warm handshakes, and then it's down to business. There is a lot of handling of the animals and a lot of talking, often in groups of 6-8 men, and they'd move from one animal to the other. Once in awhile the negotiations seemed to get a bit heated, and we witnessed a fight break out, but it was very peaceful for the most part. I have read that the haggling can last all day, and I believe it. In two hours, we only saw about 4-5 transactions completed. We only stood in about four places the whole morning. We'd stop and watch the men haggling over bulls for 20 minutes or so, move on to the sheep for another half hour-ish, and then back to the donkeys for a lengthy while. Amy and I both liked to really watch what was going on and not just storm through taking pictures and being obnoxious like most of the rest of the tourists. And we were much more accepted for that. Several people smiled and invited us over, but we just hovered on the periphery watching and snapping the occasional quick photo from a distance. And then there are the rest of the tourists. I'm embarrassed to be a foreigner sometimes. First there was the woman wearing short shorts and a halter top with her shoulders and half her back exposed. In a Muslim area where that's not acceptable. Then there were the large groups that plowed through the market in waves of 20 minute visits toting their e-freaking-normous zoom lenses but still insisting on getting right up in people's faces. One woman in particular didn't seem to care that she was interfering with business when she insisted on taking a photo of a group of men negotiating, even though they repeatedly tried to wave her away. Another pair of Americans (one Chinese American who spoke no Chinese) were walking around with a video camera and a translator trying to interview people for some unknown reason which seemed a little intrusive and annoying. But my favorite were the tourists wearing facemasks and frowning at the dust and smell of animals and manure. Don't go to a livestock sale if you don't like the smell of animals.

From the livestock market, we made our way over to the Sunday Bazaar which is a lot like many of the other markets in Asia only a lot bigger. It wasn't as crowded as it should have been. The street in front should have been shoulder to shoulder from one end to the other, but there was plenty of room for car traffic. I think the increased security checks probably make people feel like it isn't worth the hassle. The market itself seems to have two main sections - the local goods section with household items and local clothing and the tourist souvenir section with the overpriced furs, carpets, and trinkety things. Amy and I decided to try to blend in a little better by buying head scarves from one of the local stalls. The woman helped us tied them correctly, and we spent the rest of the day wearing them. It felt comfortable, and it opened people up to us a lot more. Where people were friendly enough or at least passively accepting, suddenly we brought smiles and surprised stares. One man even walked right up to Amy and stuck his face 6 inches from hers to stare in the front of the scarf at her face. A few others almost stepped out in traffic or ran into things trying to get a look at us. But they all seemed pleased that we were making the effort to integrate.

So then we walked down the row of stalls purveying dried fruit and nuts and stopped to chat with a young man in his 20s who looked smiley and friendly. The whole conversation was in Chinese with Amy, but she summarized a translation for me later. The guy had asked where we were from, and she said "America" to which he replied "I hate Americans." Great, I thought. It's not the first time I've heard that one. He said he hates the American government and American people because we support our government. Amy corrected him to say that the American government and the American people are separate, and that a lot of Americans (including us) do not support our government. He was genuinely smiling and friendly but was also completely frank and honest with us, and he told us that he had no issues with us - that we were friends and guests, and he didn't hate us. Comforting. I can understand why there is anti-American sentiment in this part of the world. Our country hasn't exactly done a great job of engendering good relationships with the Muslim world. I'm just glad that individual people can have the open mind and kind hearts to judge each person as an individual and not lump us all together in one big hated category.

Lunch was at the outdoor food market. We ate a sampling of all sorts of street food that was yummy. I had cold rice noodles with shredded cucumber and cabbage and some sort of spicey sauce and a couple of fried yummies. One in particular was addictive. It was a fried loose pastry thing that came out of the oil looking sort of like a bird's nest, and it was stuffed with sugar, raisins, and almonds. Oh my goodness yummy. Another of my favorite Ughyur foods is samsa. It's a rolled out dough pastry pocket stuffed with lamb meat and fat, spices, and onion, and then it's stuck to the inside of a brick kiln to bake. Yakupjan says that the bricks are made from the salty clay in this area, so as the samsa cooks and crisps, the dough absorbs some of that salty goodness. Awesome. The weirdest thing I've tried is sheep lung. Yep, that's right. Lung. I only took a bit. One of the gals had a big bowl of broth with chunks of sheep lung and slices of a sausage-looking thing that was flavored rice-stuffed intestine. I knew it was lung, and she asked if I wanted to try it. Why not? It didn't taste like much, and I successfully convinced that gag part of my brain that it was a hunk of fat. Not sure why that's psychologically so much better.

From the market, we wandered through the old part of the city to the top of the hill with the big mosque. The city is so active and alive, so that was a nice walk. The mosque itself is yellow tiled and surrounded by a big square. It's really beautiful, and we got there in time to hear the call to prayer. I sat in a spot by myself on the steps to listen to the low somber chants and watch the men stream like ants through the doors. Ughyur women do not enter the mosque, and while foreign women are allowed when there are no prayers in session, I didn't feel it was appropriate. I did speak with a German man who entered and took some pictures, and it seems very nice. The entrance is very plain without a lot of ostentatious decoration, and the prayer area is centered around a big wooded garden. It looked so peaceful in the pictures. There is a covered walkway circling the perimeter that is carpeted with prayer rugs, and this is where the men go for their prayers. So natural and beautiful.

Then to break that natural beauty, Amy and I had to go and get ourselves hit on. We were walking to the bank when a man walked up to us, all smiles and with very broken English. He was from Tajikistan and was a truck driver vacationing in Kashgar. He asked where we were from, unsuccessfully asked for Amy's phone number, and then made a gesture of "you, you, sleep". Pointing at each of us and trying to get us to come back to his place. Uhhh, no. He wasn't creepy and walked away politely and quickly when we said absolutely not, but it is indicative of the opinion of American women. This isn't the first person I've come across who has watched the movies and seen scantily clad Americans with their loose morals and thinks we're all easy. Sorry to disappoint you, but these Americans are not into the girl on girl on Tajik. Even with that spectacular full set of gold uppers.

That is one strange thing about Kashgar - there are a half dozen dentists on every corner. I asked Yakupjan, and he said that gold teeth are a sign of wealth. There are a lot of folks walking around with fully coated (or replaced) gold teeth, and it's quite impressive. I got a few pictures of some spectacular dentist signs as keepsakes.

The Olympic torch relay is in Kashgar tomorrow (Wednesday), so I'm glad I got the heck out of dodge when I did. The streets are lined with Chinese and Olympics flags, the car antennae are all sporting mini flags, there are banners plastering the railings of the sidewalk, and the security precautions are impressive. Though no information seems to be accurate or forthcoming. Yesterday, when I returned to Urumqi, I was told that the torch would be here today and that the streets would be blocked to cars from 8 pm last night until 2 pm today. I was also told that the campus would be closed so that if you left you couldn't come back in, and that I could watch what's going on from my hotel room but couldn't open the window. None of this ended up being true. Certain streets were closed in the center of the city where the route led, and the gates of the university were closed, but they were still letting people in and out. The shops were all open, and it wasn't on lock down, but there seems to be a lot of concern and paranoia around here. Maybe warranted, maybe not. But I heard all of the same precautions about Kashgar, and I feel like those might actually be more accurate. I'm fleeing the torch though and heading back to Beijing tomorrow. Then I'll have one full day in Beijing, and it's back to Boston on Friday. Looking forward to being home!