China's NewSilk Road
By David Noyes
Just hours after arriving in the ancient city of Kashgar, via a late-night plane out of Urumqi, I was amidst throngs of worshipers outside Id Kah Mosque in the predawn darkness. Images of remote oases, exotic bazaars and camel caravans laden with precious stones, spices and shimmering silks crossing the vast unforgiving desert flickered in and out of my consciousness as I wandered alone in front of the historic yellow tiled mosque. I had traveled continuously for three days, journeying halfway around the world to be transported centuries back in time.
As I waited for morning prayers to begin, I was quickly engulfed in an eerily quiet sea of black overcoats and fur hats as thousands of men gathered slowly and deliberately in front of the mosque. I was surprised by the Caucasian features and gripping intensity of young boys who could share their soul through a piercing glance from innocent eyes.
Thousands of sheep, goat and lambskins were piled high in the streets surrounding the Mosque, and the sweet smoky odor of seared mutton and cumin permeated the bitter cold air. I wandered the narrow alleys, exploring the eclectic shops and kiosks. Everywhere in the city, it seemed, the streets were crowded with bikes, motorcycles, pedestrians, donkey carts and vendors selling kebabs, nan bread, clothing, knives, carpets and livestock.
The strange mix of faces and the unfamiliar sites, sounds and smells all conspired to transform a place of antiquity into a complex living history that left me emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. I have never before felt so completely foreign or so far from home.
Being far from home, however, both physically and figuratively, is a state of being that consistently stirs my imagination and ignited my interest to explore Chinese Turkistan and the ancient Silk Road. While the Silk Road remains a symbolic representation of the interconnectedness of multi-ethnic and multi-national cultures, it is easy to forget that China’s legendary oases are still home to a vibrant community of people caught between their ancient traditions and their modern aspirations.
After countless hours of walking the winding cobblestone backstreets and meeting dozens of welcoming Uyghur, I finally began to appreciate the intoxicating rhythm of this fascinating place. As scores of Uyghur, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Russians, Han Chinese and myriad tourists crowded the city’s famous Yengi Bazaar, I found it easy to believe that Kashgar was once again emerging as an international center of trade and cultural exchange.
Both Kashgar and the regional capital of Urumqi have profited greatly from the New Silk Road and the “Develop the West” initiative launched out of Beijing in the year 2000. In recent years, improved infrastructure and accommodations, as well as the potential for great profit, have attracted a virtual flood of traders, investors and tourists from around the world to the westernmost city in China, and the major oasis towns of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
In the larger cities of Xinjiang, the dusty streets of mud-brick houses, once overflowing with donkey carts, are being replaced by the sprawl of a modern economy. The old neighborhoods of Kashgar are slowly being squeezed, while the towering 24-meter statue of Chairman Mao is a constant reminder of the enduring complexity of this ancient crossroad between China and Central Asia.
Beyond Kashgar
While Kashgar has been welcoming foreigners for thousands of years, it is no longer a remote outpost of civilization in one of the harshest landscapes on Earth. Located at a natural intersection connecting overland pathways from China and Mongolia in the east, to the ancient capitals of Rome, Persia and Babylon in the west, Kashgar has been a historic meeting place of cultures and ideas for millennia.
On multiple trips, I used the increasingly accessible city as a point of entry to explore the Karakoram Highway to Taxkorgan (Tashkorgan) and the two routes of the ancient Silk Road that skirt the edges of the Tarim Basin to the north and south of the Taklamakan Desert.
For centuries, the caravan path that is now the newly paved 400-kilometer Karakoram Highway was used by travelers of the Silk Road between Islamabad and Kashgar through the Khunjerab Pass. It is here that four of the world’s great mountain ranges converge on China’s western border to form the Pamir Highland, and it was through this gateway that a young Marco Polo entered China in the late 13th century on his way east along the Silk Road to visit the Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan in what is now Beijing.
However, outside of the major cities of Xinjiang, the promised prosperity is much harder to see. Historic places with romantic names such as Yengisar, Yarkand, Hotan and Niya (Minfeng) that were once important centers of international trade have been nearly forgotten by the wave of globalism which is poised to bring great prosperity to the New Silk Road.
The bazaars and livestock markets look much like they must have centuries ago, while jade is still harvested and sold along with traditional handmade silk in isolated villages alive with an authenticity and simplicity. Donkey carts loaded with produce line the highways en route to the Sunday market as trucks and buses sound their presence with the blare of deafening horns.
Until recently, the east-west flow of goods along the great trans-Asian highway was entirely dependant upon the fragile line of isolated oases conveniently located no more than a couple days’ travel across the shifting sands of the suffocating desert. Without these life-giving islands to sustain the traders, merchants and herdsmen of the commercial caravans, the ancient Silk Road would not have flourished or even existed.
Ironically, the New Silk Road offers modern businessmen great opportunities to exploit the vast natural and human resources of western China; yet these 21st-century industrialists no longer need to rest and water their beasts at the tiny oasis towns that cling to the edge of relevance.
No longer do individuals from different tribes, countries or cultures need to barter and negotiate face-to-face in crowded bazaars for the vendibles of antiquity. High-tech products and today’s essential commodities of oil and steel drive, fly or flow right by, due to the massive investment in infrastructure and pipelines that define a new era.
What is left behind are the welcoming Uyghur people who continue to battle the ever encroaching sands and celebrate the customs that have sustained their families for centuries. Their culture, exhibited through song and dance, still entertains weary travelers, and their exotic spices, precious stones and silks continue to attract buyers from distant lands. But today, their bazaars are surveyed by tourists searching for a simple souvenir in this new form of cultural exchange.
