September 8, 2007
Breakfast was a strange experience. Obviously, this hotel caters to Chinese clients with very few Westerners staying here, and only a few of the employees speak English. Walking into the large room on the fourth floor for breakfast, I thought I had walked into the wrong room. I didn’t see our group at first, only several tables of Chinese enjoying their breakfast. Then I looked at the buffet, and the only things I recognized out of dozens of items were hard boiled eggs, watermelon, bread, coffee and green tea. So, it was back to the room for pumpkin spice flax granola bars. You might think the bars are not much better, but believe me, they were gourmet by comparison.
With Tahir leading, we followed a short distance from the hotel to a local market. On street after street, artisans were working in their open front stores making all kinds of useful products. We saw men bending wood slats using a steam device to produce Chinese kitchen products, heating and hammering copper into large pots, butchers hanging slabs of meat outdoors, sewing shoes with manually operated machines, rolling and hammering sheet metal into stovepipes, chipping out wood blocks into shapes for making stringed musical instruments, cooking shishleek (chopped mutton and onion baked in dough) over wood fires, and much more. It was an amazing experience to walk the narrow streets and watch this going on while other workers at these shops were selling the products. Muslim women, covered head to toes in cloth with a veil to provide anonymity, walked in the same paths with women wearing high heels, sequined dresses and makeup. On more than one occasion, the veiled women seemed to avoid the camera even though we attempted to secretly take their photo while photographing another subject. It was uncanny.
After purchases such as beaded shoes, figs, hats, a bagel and hand painted T-shirts (guess who bought the T-shirt), the group headed to the yellow-tiled Id Kah Mosque, the central mosque of Kashgar built in 1442. It holds 1,000 worshipers inside at one time while the courtyard and gardens can accommodate another 20,000 worshipers. The women in our group covered up so as not to show any skin, adjusted our head coverings and entered the grounds of the mosque. It is a Sunni mosque complete with a madrassas, but again, as was mentioned before, boys under 18 years are not allowed to attend. After we finished the tour and were back on the bus, our guide Claudio told us that while trying to find Tahir and our group at the mosque, he stopped to ask someone at the ticket office whether he had seen his group. The man told Claudio seven groups had purchased tickets and listened as Claudio described Tahir. They told him, “Oh, yes, I remember them. The ladies were dressed like Muslim women. Very nice!” Well, what do you think of that?
For lunch, we went to a restaurant where wedding receptions are often held. Again, throw away all preconceived notions of a wedding reception. We were lucky enough to experience one. These receptions have the bridegroom dressed in a suit and his friends in slacks and polo shirts with no bride or women in attendance. I asked where the women were and reply was, “at home.” All the men dance together with glitter confetti sprinkling down on them before retreating to the low-slung tables for food and toasts.
Following lunch, we had the usual obligatory handicraft factory stop. These places are rather well known for their high prices and little room bargaining. However, the restroom was clean.
We next went to Abakh Hoja Tomb, a 17th century mausoleum built for a Muslim missionary, Makhtum Azan. Its green and blue tiled dome and walls are beautiful, even though many tiles are missing. Although this is an historic site, we were told that the Chinese government does not provide money for restoration of the structure and grounds. It relies on entrance fees and some donations, but it is falling into disrepair very quickly. There is a large outdoor graveyard, but inside the tombs are draped with very colorful embroidered silk. These tombs include that of Abakh Hoja, grandson of the missionary who was an important spiritual leader and sometimes referred to as the patron saint of Kashgar. Garry left before the rest of the group, and while standing outside some Chinese men came over and asked to have their picture taken with him and enthusiastically shook his hand, apparently because he was Western.
The translation of Chinese into English for signage purposes is rather amusing. A couple signs, in particular, read, “No SmoK ing,” “Koranpre ching hall.”
Later in the afternoon, seven of us went for a massage lasting 1 ¼ hour and costing the princely sum of $13 USD with a $1 tip. Our feet soaked in Chinese herbal water while our masseurs massaged our upper backs. It is the custom for women to have male masseurs while the men have female and we all were in the same room. The masseurs pounded on our bodies and applied deep pressure to loosen the knots caused by days of riding in vehicles.
Time in Kashgar is confusing. The government has mandated that all of China be on Beijing time. This is the absurd equivalent of the entire US being on Washington DC time. So, while all of the clocks are set at Beijing time, Kashgar operates on local time which is two hours earlier. Obviously, this is necessary for practical reasons.
We expected that we would have much faster Internet access in China and maybe even be able to upload some photos, but it has not worked out that way. Apparently, China blocks our access to Blogspot.com where we post these reports, so we have another plan for uploading that we hope will work. We plan to email the text to Rich’s son Brian in the US and have him upload it to the blog. If you are reading the posts for September 7th and 8th, then you know this plan worked.
On Monday Sept. 10th we travel into Kyrgyzstan and may not have Internet access at all for five days. We will try to post the installment for Sept. 9th before we leave.
Bye,
Tamara, Garry and Rich
Captions: 1) Elderly man in market 2) Example of Chinglish 3) Women in veils as they shop 4) Local market scene 5) Id Kah Mosque, the Yellow Mosque 6) Wedding reception 7) Abakh Hoja Tomb
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