Link to article
"KARAMAY, China — In a desolate park on the city outskirts here, oil bubbling from the ground fills small pools next to a wooden walkway. By one pool is a statue of a bearded ethnic Uighur man sitting on a donkey, playing a lute.
The symbolism is telling. China is ramping up energy production here, turning the northwestern Xinjiang region into a national hub for oil, gas and coal, while the increasingly marginalized Uighur people are memorialized in what appears to be a bronze homage to a romantic past...."
Monday, December 29, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Court Sentences 12 to Die for Xinjiang Mayhem - NYTimes.com
Court Sentences 12 to Die for Xinjiang Mayhem - NYTimes.com:
From the Times:
"BEIJING — A Chinese court has sentenced 12 people to death for their roles in a clash in Xinjiang this summer that claimed nearly 100 lives, state media reported on Monday. The clash, in the far west region of China, was one of its deadliest episodes of ethnic violence.
According to Xinhua, the official news service, a court in Xinjiang’s Silk Road city of Kashgar found the defendants guilty of “terrorist attacks” during a rampage in July that killed 37 people in nearby Shache County, which is known as Yarkand among the region’s ethnic Uighurs...."
From the Times:
"BEIJING — A Chinese court has sentenced 12 people to death for their roles in a clash in Xinjiang this summer that claimed nearly 100 lives, state media reported on Monday. The clash, in the far west region of China, was one of its deadliest episodes of ethnic violence.
According to Xinhua, the official news service, a court in Xinjiang’s Silk Road city of Kashgar found the defendants guilty of “terrorist attacks” during a rampage in July that killed 37 people in nearby Shache County, which is known as Yarkand among the region’s ethnic Uighurs...."
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Decoding Etiquette in China, Handshakes to Meals - NYTimes.com
Decoding Etiquette in China, Handshakes to Meals - NYTimes.com:
'via Blog this' 9Oct2014
Excerpt (which certainly reminds me of my visit):
"Any tips for mealtime?
You must try everything, even if something looks aggressively weird. To refuse anything is a loss of face to the host. What happens inevitably is that you’re seated at a round table — there are few rectangular tables in China because in the middle of the table, no matter how posh the circumstances, is what we call a Lazy Susan — and as the food arrives, the host moves it in a clockwise motion toward you, and he will serve himself last. All at the table know to save for the guest the last bites of the most coveted food. If you were a little boy bent on torturing your little sister, you could not come up with some of these possibilities — not in your wildest imagination. My favorite example was a penis of a deer in leek bulbs. Best thing to do is not to ask what you’re eating.
Also, if you do not drink or have a low resistance, as I do — I mean, I’m a very cheap date — you must indicate that immediately, even stretch the truth and say you have a medical condition, otherwise you’re in for the long haul. They are promiscuous toasters."
My trip leader, a native Chinese, when asked what an item of food was, usually answered like this:
"Remember, Chinese eat anything that flies except airplanes, and anything with four legs except tables." So we learned to just try things, and decide then whether to eat more or not. And often, we never knew what it was that we ate.
'via Blog this' 9Oct2014
Excerpt (which certainly reminds me of my visit):
"Any tips for mealtime?
You must try everything, even if something looks aggressively weird. To refuse anything is a loss of face to the host. What happens inevitably is that you’re seated at a round table — there are few rectangular tables in China because in the middle of the table, no matter how posh the circumstances, is what we call a Lazy Susan — and as the food arrives, the host moves it in a clockwise motion toward you, and he will serve himself last. All at the table know to save for the guest the last bites of the most coveted food. If you were a little boy bent on torturing your little sister, you could not come up with some of these possibilities — not in your wildest imagination. My favorite example was a penis of a deer in leek bulbs. Best thing to do is not to ask what you’re eating.
Also, if you do not drink or have a low resistance, as I do — I mean, I’m a very cheap date — you must indicate that immediately, even stretch the truth and say you have a medical condition, otherwise you’re in for the long haul. They are promiscuous toasters."
My trip leader, a native Chinese, when asked what an item of food was, usually answered like this:
"Remember, Chinese eat anything that flies except airplanes, and anything with four legs except tables." So we learned to just try things, and decide then whether to eat more or not. And often, we never knew what it was that we ate.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Once a Draw, Restive Region (Xinjiang) in China Suffers After Unrest - NYTimes.com
Once a Draw, Restive Region in China Suffers After Unrest - NYTimes.com:
'via Blog this' 6Oct2014
This news (and the earlier posts about the Xinjiang violence) makes me glad that I got to see a bit of this region, and Urumqi, in 2013, before things degraded as they have.
Our tour bus was boarded only once by military, on the highway to Urumqi, in Eastern Xinjiang province, but they quickly departed when they saw that we were all American tourists. We did see lots of evidence of military activity, including the construction of new bases out in what appeared to me to be desert.
'via Blog this' 6Oct2014
This news (and the earlier posts about the Xinjiang violence) makes me glad that I got to see a bit of this region, and Urumqi, in 2013, before things degraded as they have.
Our tour bus was boarded only once by military, on the highway to Urumqi, in Eastern Xinjiang province, but they quickly departed when they saw that we were all American tourists. We did see lots of evidence of military activity, including the construction of new bases out in what appeared to me to be desert.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Terrorist attack kills dozens in China's tense Xinjiang region - CNN.com
Terrorist attack kills dozens in China's tense Xinjiang region - CNN.com:
"Hong Kong (CNN) -- A series of explosions tore through an open-air market in the capital of the volatile western Chinese region of Xinjiang on Thursday, killing dozens of people and wounding many more, state media reported.
China's Ministry of Public Security said the attack in the heavily policed city of Urumqi was "a serious violent terrorist incident" and vowed to crack down on its perpetrators. President Xi Jinping called for the terrorists behind it to be "severely" punished.
Two SUVs slammed into shoppers gathered at the market in Urumqi at 7:50 a.m. Thursday, and explosives were flung out of the vehicles, China's official news agency Xinhua said."
There is a video available at the web site.
"Hong Kong (CNN) -- A series of explosions tore through an open-air market in the capital of the volatile western Chinese region of Xinjiang on Thursday, killing dozens of people and wounding many more, state media reported.
China's Ministry of Public Security said the attack in the heavily policed city of Urumqi was "a serious violent terrorist incident" and vowed to crack down on its perpetrators. President Xi Jinping called for the terrorists behind it to be "severely" punished.
Two SUVs slammed into shoppers gathered at the market in Urumqi at 7:50 a.m. Thursday, and explosives were flung out of the vehicles, China's official news agency Xinhua said."
There is a video available at the web site.
Monday, May 12, 2014
A Devotion to Language Proves Risky - NYTimes.com
A Devotion to Language Proves Risky - NYTimes.com:
"BEIJING — A poet, linguist and globe-trotting polyglot, Abduweli Ayup had a passion for the spoken word, notably Uighur, the Turkic language spoken in his homeland in China’s far northwest. In 2011, soon after finishing his graduate studies in the United States, Mr. Ayup returned home to open a chain of “mother tongue” schools in Xinjiang, the vast Central Asian region whose forced marriage to the Han Chinese heartland has become increasingly tumultuous.
But in a country where language is politically fraught, Mr. Ayup’s devotion to Uighur may have proved his undoing..."
'via Blog this' 12May2014
"BEIJING — A poet, linguist and globe-trotting polyglot, Abduweli Ayup had a passion for the spoken word, notably Uighur, the Turkic language spoken in his homeland in China’s far northwest. In 2011, soon after finishing his graduate studies in the United States, Mr. Ayup returned home to open a chain of “mother tongue” schools in Xinjiang, the vast Central Asian region whose forced marriage to the Han Chinese heartland has become increasingly tumultuous.
But in a country where language is politically fraught, Mr. Ayup’s devotion to Uighur may have proved his undoing..."
'via Blog this' 12May2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
China Remodels an Ancient Silk Road City, and an Ethnic Rift Widens (Kashgar, Xinjiang Province)
China Remodels an Ancient Silk Road City, and an Ethnic Rift Widens
Click here to read the article
Excerpt:
"The Chinese authorities set out five years ago to modernize Kashgar’s fabled Old City district while promising to preserve its dense Casbah-like charms. But the results underscore the growing divide between the government and the ethnic minority that lives here — the Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have chafed at Beijing’s rule since Communist troops took over their traditional homeland in 1949. The region, in China’s far west, is now known as Xinjiang, a Mandarin term meaning “new frontier.”
The official narrative of the modernization project justified tearing down 65,000 homes and resettling 220,000 Uighur residents as crucial to improving their lives. “Houses in the Old City of Kashgar are mostly old and dilapidated, extremely vulnerable to earthquakes and fire,” said a 2010 report by Xinhua, the state news agency, that was widely republished in the Chinese government-controlled media. “The renovation of the Old City zone in Kashgar is a project that complied with the wishes of the people,” the report claimed."
from NY Times, 5 March 2014, by Dan Levin
Our guide in Urumqi was from Kashgar, and he had left there after the Afghan and Pakistan borders were closed post 11 Sept 2001 (911). He had been working in international trade until the border was closed. Kashgar is about 1,500 KM (900 miles) south and west of Urumqi.
Excerpt:
"The Chinese authorities set out five years ago to modernize Kashgar’s fabled Old City district while promising to preserve its dense Casbah-like charms. But the results underscore the growing divide between the government and the ethnic minority that lives here — the Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have chafed at Beijing’s rule since Communist troops took over their traditional homeland in 1949. The region, in China’s far west, is now known as Xinjiang, a Mandarin term meaning “new frontier.”
The official narrative of the modernization project justified tearing down 65,000 homes and resettling 220,000 Uighur residents as crucial to improving their lives. “Houses in the Old City of Kashgar are mostly old and dilapidated, extremely vulnerable to earthquakes and fire,” said a 2010 report by Xinhua, the state news agency, that was widely republished in the Chinese government-controlled media. “The renovation of the Old City zone in Kashgar is a project that complied with the wishes of the people,” the report claimed."
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Xian, China Travel article, NY Times, 7 Feb 2014
NY Times on Xian, China, 7 Feb 2014
Nice article from NY Times travel section.
Includes several photos of the city, including many spots we visited.
Nice article from NY Times travel section.
Includes several photos of the city, including many spots we visited.
Monday, January 27, 2014
NY Times, 23Jan2014: 3 Dead in Clash at Police Station in Western China, Report Says
3 Dead in Clash at Police Station in Western China
NY Times, 23Jan2014 by Andrew Jacobs
"BEIJING — Three ethnic Uighurs were shot and killed last week outside a police station in China’s far west Xinjiang region during a fight with security guards who blocked them from entering the building, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday.
The shootings, which took place on Jan. 15 in Aksu Prefecture but were only confirmed on Wednesday, are the latest in a spate of deadly skirmishes involving the region’s Uighur residents and Chinese authorities.
Such confrontations have been occurring with increasing frequency in the past year, alarming Chinese leaders and prompting even heavier security in a vast energy-rich region that borders several Central Asian nations. Last week, Beijing announced that it was doubling Xinjiang’s public security budget, with one regional official vowing “no mercy for terrorists,” according to the state news media..."
Full article here: http://nyti.ms/19QSDmq
NY Times, 23Jan2014 by Andrew Jacobs
"BEIJING — Three ethnic Uighurs were shot and killed last week outside a police station in China’s far west Xinjiang region during a fight with security guards who blocked them from entering the building, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday.
The shootings, which took place on Jan. 15 in Aksu Prefecture but were only confirmed on Wednesday, are the latest in a spate of deadly skirmishes involving the region’s Uighur residents and Chinese authorities.
Such confrontations have been occurring with increasing frequency in the past year, alarming Chinese leaders and prompting even heavier security in a vast energy-rich region that borders several Central Asian nations. Last week, Beijing announced that it was doubling Xinjiang’s public security budget, with one regional official vowing “no mercy for terrorists,” according to the state news media..."
Full article here: http://nyti.ms/19QSDmq
NY Times, 25Jan2014: China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
China Accuses Uighur Intellectual of Separatism for His Advocacy Work
from the NY Times, 25Jan2014, by Andrew Jacobs
"BEIJING — In an ominous sign of the fate awaiting one of China’s best-known Uighur intellectuals, security officials in the far western region of Xinjiang issued a statement on Saturday that accused him of separatism and inciting ethnic hatred.
The statement provides the first concrete indication that the scholar, Ilham Tohti, an economics professor in Beijing, could face a long prison term for his advocacy on behalf of Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority whose uneasy coexistence with the Chinese authorities has grown increasingly violent."
Full article here: http://nyti.ms/1f0KauJ
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