Hello, welcome to Roundtable's special series, China Horizons, where we get out of the studio and go to the real places here in the country and discover the authentic stories.
We are still in Xinjiang today and we are looking at a special subject.
Imagine yourself walking into a land where every corner tells a story and every tradition is a treasure.
Here in Xinjiang, we see the thrive of different cultures that are diverse, beautiful and abundant.
We'll get to the bottom of it.
And I'm Niu Honglin with Lai Ming and Yushan for today's show.
Hello, everybody.
Hi.
Before going to details of the amazing culture stories that we've discovered throughout the days when we're here.
First, I'd like to start a little quiz showcasing where we are right now.
We are at a rather special area in not only the region but the entire country, because it's at the far west area of it.
To be more precise, from here, you get to Beijing and you get to Moscow using the same amount of time.
It's almost the same amount of time.
And also, this place is a very important hub on the ancient Sioux Road.
And the last clue is that here this is a city that is a living, ancient city with thousands of years of history.
There are many other ones, but I think this one has one of the oldest history.
And we are at Kashgar.
That's where we are.
We're in Kashgar.
Yes.
This is my first time to the city.
And I haven't had a chance to see the city per se, because I did spend the entire morning getting prepared for the show.
But from the books and from the words, I know that this is a very ancient city.
We've just been to ancient ruins a few days ago.
And that was the first time when I learned about a new way or rather ancient way of building cities so compared to modern cities where we first burrow down to build a basement and then we build up concrete and steel kind of structure thing but now when we talk about Jiaohe ancient ruins and also this Kashgar ancient city we are looking at rather old-fashioned way of building and when I say old-fashioned I mean they dig up, they carve the entire city out of the ancient Loess Plateau and this is Incredible.
I can only imagine something similar to that as the Yaodong on the Yellow Plateau, Loess Plateau.
So I'm actually looking forward to really take a walk around the city to see the vibrant culture that these research papers telling me that there are all kinds of bazaars.
We went to Woonki and there was this grand bazaar, the International Grand Bazaar.
As grand as it is, it wasn't very ancient, but this one is really ancient and incorporates various types of bazaar not just a grand title there, but also various types like wooden structure and smithing pottery, flower and bakery, maybe knives, yeah.
So I'm looking forward to finish off this show here and then get off and then just tour the city.
And it's very interesting you mentioned Jiaohe ruins, because that one, and also the Kashgar city that we're sitting in right now, both have over 2000 years of history.
But here in Kashgar, it's not a ruin and instead is very lively.
It's a walking time capsule that capture both the ancient time culture and also the modern modernity of a very vibrant and diverse cultural city.
And, to be honest, I've been traveling between Beijing and Xinjiang for a lot of times, but this is also my first time to come here in Kashgar, and I'm very much looking forward to discover more about it.
We're in the center of the ancient city of Kashgar and the ancient city of Kashgar is only part or also at the center of the Kashgar city of today.
And the Kashgar city is the prefecture capital of the Kashgar prefecture.
Sure, yeah.
So just to give you an idea of where we are.
Right.
We are in the middle of a, should I say a wildness?
Yeah.
Because, on the grand scheme of things, you have the Tianshan Mountain on the north, You have the Kuen Lun Mountain to the south, and then to the east is the Taklamakan Desert and to the west is the Pamau Plateau.
So it is a basin area again.
And so in the grand scheme of things, we're in the wilderness.
But then to find such vibrancy and find such liveliness in the middle of that wilderness is really something that I really look forward to exploring.
And the ancient city has, like Yusheng said, a history of over 2,000 years.
Back in the West Han Dynasty when Zhang Qian, the ancient historian and also explorer, the envoy, came here.
They already see the very vibrant Kashgar ancient city.
And, of course, the structures and architectures we see today have already been through generations and several rounds of renovation and rebuild.
But still, you get to feel the atmosphere of times again. like you just said, time capsule.
Yeah, I could feel that.
So just the day when we were touring the Jiaohe ancient ruins in scorching heat, you couldn't help but get a little sentimental to look at the fallen columns and the what do you call them eroded city streets and roofs.
And you feel like this is actually the elements at work, the time at work.
And so when we come to Kashgar and learn about the fact that it was built in the same manner, you couldn't help but suspect how does an ancient city survive this long?
And a lot of renovations and a lot of changes have to take place, and the most major renovation took place around the year 2010, when the local government spent resources to prop up the industrial structure because well, the caves and the little structures that we carved down into the ground, they cannot sustain that long.
So there were a lot of investment in trying to repair the structure to make them look as as as they used to but, in the same time, try and prop up the structure so they don't fall.
When, when we were touring the jiaohe ancient ruins, the guide a lovely lady point would often point to a dent on the ground saying oh that used to be a room down there, but it's collapsed.
So, in order to keep the city as the way it was, a lot of efforts has to go into making them safe.
Making them safe to living, safe from collapsing, safe from fire hazards.
I think you're totally right.
And here in Kashgar, the situation is even more complicated because we talk about the Jiaohe Ruins being a ruin, meaning that no people have made changes. afterwards right but here in Kashgar people have been living here it's the ancient it's a living ancient city meaning that even though at the very beginning the city was carved out later with generations and generations living here with more a newborn baby and newborn babies start to grow up and get married and start a family they need new places to live okay so here there is a tradition of adding one more floor onto your original house after a new generation is born.
By one more floor, you mean downwards or upwards?
No, upwards.
And that could be a little bit problematic in an architecture kind of sense.
You carve out.
In the beginning you have the basins, and then you build up, And sometimes you build up with an entire floor.
Sometimes you just build several rooms on top of the floor.
And sometimes you even go out a little bit with a balcony or something.
So the structure is definitely not in line with current or nowadays construction rules.
It's not proof of fire.
It can be a little bit dangerous if there is an earthquake.
So we cannot have that happening.
And not to mention, it could be overcrowded because some new generations have two or three kids.
Some new generations may have even more.
So overcrowded would be another problem.
But it has been a major headache for local government to find a proper way to renovate the entire area, because We want to preserve, we want to protect, we want to even leave the authentic flavor of the ancient city here.
So the approach was to give proper guidance to each and every household, tell them what they need to do and even design, help them design their own houses and help them understand the relationship between their houses and their neighbors' houses, because they're so close together.
And all that need to be done at a case-to-case basis, which could be hard, which could be part of the reasons that even today, when you're walking in the ancient city of Kashgar, you can still see some of the buildings are under construction.
I'm not really sure if it's because they're still adding floors or if they're doing reconstruction about their current strengthening and also renovating.
And that is only the outside of the buildings, inside the buildings.
It's modern day China.
You're going to have drainage system, you need electricity, you need and you shall have fiber internet.
Yes, and all those require equipment to require infrastructure being cleverly designed into the hundreds of years old ancient buildings.
And it sounds like something easy from the concept, but definitely it's Very complicated but at least through my observation, it is much, relatively quite successful.
Well, we'll see what happens with our own eyes, because modern drainage and plumbing system is a challenge, especially when we consider adding them to ancient cities and ancient structures.
In Chinese capital Beijing, in the Hutong area, you still see public toilets being erected instead of having individual toilets within each household.
So I look forward to seeing their local solution to that problem.
And also heating.
Oh, heating is also essential.
Even though this is a desert area, it can be very cold during winter.
So centralized heating is an issue.
So I will examine this building right after this.
Yeah, by the description you just shared Hongling, I feel like I was playing an open world game construction game, but in hero mode, like the toughest one.
As I was walking along the streets outside in the Kashgar ancient city, I noticed something that outside it's very much attracting tourists.
There are shops opening their doors onto the main alleys.
But as we get into one of those alleys, just like the Hutongs, it's all residential buildings with people cooking inside.
You can smell the flavor of the food.
I saw some Uyghur young kids playing just hide and seek right outside this building just now.
So this is a very lively place where people actually live here.
They modify their houses.
They modify their spaces, gradually cultivate the idea of community, just like how the idea is implemented in cities like Beijing and now.
This is just how well the traditional culture locally and the modern community idea and the modern societal idea is combining right here in the Kashgar ancient city, where we are at right now.
We've been to many such destinations incorporating ancient culture and modernity.
I think in downtown Beijing, there's the Hutongs.
And then in Shenzhen, there's the Bagua Street.
And this part of the country in Kashgar city, what impresses me the most is the sound of it.
And I don't just mean the hustle and bustle of human beings, of traffic, but more so, from smithing technique I mean the way on our way here.
I mean this is obviously very quiet.
This is a homestay.
People has to have to stay quiet.
Ketmen, forgive me for not being familiar with the words just now.
Ketmen obviously is a regional style farming tool and here you can find Ketmen bazaars and that's another interesting that I'd like to to go searching for when we are done here.
When I was doing a live stream this morning, I noticed there is a story even behind the creation of the blacksmith here.
They say that in ancient times there was this monster and every year the monster would harass the entire village and ask for young girls as sacrifice every single year.
And that has been a tradition that one for a really long time.
But a young man would not have that situation as a reality.
He would not accept it.
So he started to go on a journey to search for a way to beat the monster and then a, A legendary old man, very wise man, told him that you have to find a very special kind of material and to create a special kind of tool so that you can beat the monster.
It was the only way.
And after so many hurdles he jumped, after so many problems he solved and challenges he conquered, he finally found the material and he got the special equipment and he destroyed the monster.
But he sadly also sacrificed his own life.
But at least the village is forever a peaceful place and the special equipment he manufactured, or the skill as well as the material, got passed down from generation to generation.
And guess what?
It's an iron pot.
So in order to honor him, the iron pot was not only used as a treasure or as an ancient time souvenir, but was blended into the everyday life of people here in Kashgar.
You use the pot to cook and you sell the pot to everybody else.
You said as a weapon?
Previously as a weapon, nowadays as a kitchenware, and that was the story behind this blacksmith creation here in Kashgar.
Not your typical Holy Grail kind of quest where the hero gets to extract the Excalibur from the rock or from the stone.
But you can see different parts of the world.
People have their own fairy tales or their own folk tales, based on the way they conduct their own lives.
So if you've enjoyed the blacksmith story, maybe you will like other folktale stories in our new podcast as well.
So make sure you search for Chinese folktales.
Besides that nowadays, Lai Ming mentioned the hammering sound of the creation of the.
It's very lovely to listen to the sound.
I remember being at a blacksmithing shop where I live in a small village, so this really sounded familiar.
Yes, but I kind of feel like it's for display for tourists because... He was actually working.
He was working, but there are so many other techniques and skills that are very common with the blacksmith today.
This morning I went to a blacksmith bazaar and there are a lot, a lot of beautiful iron wares, very interesting ones, traditional ones and nowadays ones.
I even find a... Iron pots?
Yes, and also not the weapon that we just shared about, but also there's the one that you can fry four or five eggs in with a special shape.
So your fried egg would be in perfect heart shape or round shape in stars as well.
It has modes yes, iron ones, and my point was they're using modern day technique as well.
You see electricity, you see equipment, and they're again working for sure.
But these kind of skills are gradually in being improved and the final product is not only confined to just kitchenware or ironware that you use for everyday life, but of course, different types of souvenir very delicate one and even teapot.
Imagine an iron teapot.
Quite interesting.
Yeah, come to Kashgar.
Don't get Atlas or Nang.
Get an iron pot.
How about that?
It could be a choice.
But here in Kashgar, there are so many.
Get everything, folks.
Get everything.
But you can get everything.
Because here in Kashgar, and even in the ancient town, I saw a lot of different types of souvenir shops.
Atlas, if you may, you can find them.
Yes, and there's also different type of local specialty, different food, very delicious.
Pottery items.
Yes, and also yogurt and all these things happen.
And they're happening in the sense that you can not only get the souvenir, but in most of the cases you can even try a little bit of their local technique.
So very much happening.
Make my own pottery urn or something.
Yes.
It's very creative that nowadays these shops, they're not only showcasing their products, but also showing you how it's made.
What's the history of the product they're selling?
And, unlike a lot of other quote-unquote ancient cities that I've visited elsewhere here, it gives you the sense that you can be part of this culture by just walking on the street and touring around as a tourist.
So that's very cool and that's something unique to Kashgar that the city has to offer.
When I was very young and purely a tourist I used to, didn't really enjoy the super commercialized ancient places quite that much.
But when I grow older I started to be able to find the little details that I do enjoy in these places.
And I started to have a different kind of understanding of these places, because if you talk to each and every shop owner here, you will find out that they are residents here.
They used to have a very harsh lifestyle.
They didn't used to have electricity or internet or even tap water in their houses.
Now they do.
They used to have to work from very early morning to late at night only to produce the kind of product that are not with a higher enough price and they now They open BB, they open homestays for tourists.
They use their traditional techniques to manufacture these souvenirs that tourists very much enjoy.
And also they produce their local food as a local specialty for tourists, so that they can get a better income.
And I see these kind of phenomenon and I started to realize, when we find some places a little bit too commercialized, a little bit too crowded with so many visitors, is actually improving the livelihood of local people.
Local people do still live here and if you walk a little bit away from the main avenue, from the so-called over commercialized area, you go into places with people living there communities, residential communities, and they're still in.
I think it's called the gaotai area in the ancient city of kashgar.
There's the West District, there's the East District and there is the Kao Tai residential area district, where it's not a tourist destination.
It's where people live.
I don't know.
Maybe I am being a little more mature, in the sense that when I see these places I don't feel like it's local people's traditional way of living, idealic way of living, is being abandoned because of the development of society.
I think it's because of the development of society they get to live in a rather modern style.
Well, I think this is because people's mentality has shifted over the years with regard to how they enjoy tourism.
Back in the days, I think, when everybody didn't have a lot of money to spare, we cherished opportunities to travel in the sense that we go there, we take photos, we bring home photos to share with our friends and brag about where we've been and just based on the pictures and say oh, I've been there, I've been there, I know lots of people but in fact you know there's no story to tell.
But there's no story to tell.
This is out of the urge to save money.
And when tourists are not ready to spend money when, when there's not to expect from developing tourism, you get a kind of matter-of-factly, business-like attitude on behalf of people who participate in the industry.
When we say we are tired of overly commercialized tourist destinations, we are really tired of the matter-of-factly, none-of-my-business, I-don't-care kind of attitude that we get from business providers.
But now over the years, I think, people's mentality has shifted to a point.
Also the government has done a lot to promote tourism, to promote cultural and plus tourism kind of business model, and also people have begun to take pride in the local culture.
And the thing that really impresses me traveling here to Xinjiang autonomous region is to see people really taking pride in their own culture.
They know what they're doing and they really take pride in the foods they are able to cook, in the kind of art they are able to produce and also they you can feel the genuine hospitality and the genuine happiness when they see you paying attention to their products, pay attention to the art, to their culture, and they're willing to talk to you, even though they don't very much speak the best Mandarin, Chinese Mandarin language.
But you can feel the warmth in every greeting from the waitress, from the business people, from every phrase, like They have all the reasons to be so proud about their culture because they have a really abundant, rich and diverse culture here.
We talked about Xinjiang being the home of all the 56 ethnic groups of the country, and here you see demonstrations of different ethnicities for sure.
And also it's a very interesting thing to see all of the intangible cultural heritage, items and skills being demonstrated in such a way that everyone, even as a tourist, you can get your hands on a little, you can learn about the history behind it and you can understand the significance at a much, much deeper sense.
As an example, have you guys ever heard of the 12 Makam?
Of course.
It's just so iconic.
I've been.
I've been trying to learn more about it, but so far i don't think we will have the chance to listen to an actual performance here in kashgar.
But there's still a chance to try.
Yeah, there's still a chance to try.
We're still here for a few more days hours.
But the 12 Makam if you're unfamiliar with the term, it's actually the mother of Uyghur music.
It's a type of musical form that combines poetry, narration and singing, and 12 different musicians playing all the different types of folk instruments.
It's just a very epical kind of performance.
And a lot of the times I hear local people say that Even people who listen to it for the first time can just fell in tears while listening to it, with or without understanding what exactly is being sung.
It's just how deep and resonating the music touches your soul.
I've tried to listen to some of the clips online.
It is indeed like a chanting kind of music.
Very suitable for meditation, I'll say, but also very just, unique to Xinjiang style and Uyghur style in particular.
It features over 300 melodies, over 4000 lines of lyrics and it takes a total 24 hours to finish the entire piece of the 12 makams.
So that's just how grand this whole performance can be.
No wonder we haven't really seen the performance so far.
I was about to say my tears have already been ordered for the 12 Macomb, but when you said 24 hours.
And the 12 Macomb is also inscribed not only as a national intangible cultural heritage but also the world intangible cultural heritage.
And I do believe in the future it's going to be introduced to more people around the world to just appreciate how beautiful it is.
Yes, the thing itself, the music itself and the whole culture behind it is definitely worth your time.
And, on top of it, people loving the music are trying really hard as well to introduce it to the world.
They are finding different ways to demonstrate the music and the culture.
For example, just this year in Shatou County they started a music lantern festival kind of thing, using the twelve muqam as the background music and also the theme music for the music games that you get to play in the festival and you play different types of music and you won different things.
And because it's a lantern festival, you also get to play riddles and they also use the lanterns to create 54 different scenes in the classics of mountains and heroes, with a lot of plot, a lot of stories.
Young people loved it.
And imagine you're 16 or 18 and it's your first time being introduced to the 12 Macomb using this way.
Of course you'll love it.
Yeah, it's a knockout.
I could totally imagine myself being at the scene and being engrossed, being intoxicated and being carried away.
And the 12 Makam is not the only kind of music that is making people visiting here feeling mesmerized.
Another one I have to mention would be Manasseh.
Do you know what Manasseh is?
It's an opera, folk opera.
It's an epic.
It's an epic.
It's a hero epic.
And the way it's been passed down through generations is that you have one person who's dedicated in learning this, and he or she will find the master and start learning all the songs in the entire series.
And that is for different artists, for different areas.
They have their own lyrics, they have their own story to tell.
Or their own versions of the story.
Yes, they have their own versions and their own little plots because essentially, or at least at the very beginning, it's a way of recording and documenting the history.
So different places would have different history stories to tell in the Manasseh kind of way.
And you would see different manuscripts in different areas, even for different artists.
And what's funny about this is that one famous Manasseh artist started to find his own style in this traditional art.
And what he did was to include a lot of not only traditional music instruments here in Xinjiang, but also Western music instrument.
And he blend in a little style of rock music, of other types of music and make it even easier to be accepted by audience around the country and around the world.
And what happened is that he went to the Spring Festival Gala in 2024.
So his music was definitely appreciated by people all around the country.
Okay, making a lot of sense.
Speaking of making something heard and enjoyed, appreciated by a major or bigger member of the society.
Another example is the Ying Ge Wu, which is surprisingly developing rather prosperously in the region as well.
We typically know Ying Ge Wu as a... In Canton area?
In Canton area, in Chaoshan Canton area.
It was also featured at one of the spring festival galas and it was impressive.
And then it was just last year when the local artists, they here in Xinjiang yeah, they began to take an interest in that and they started practicing by themselves.
And then you know what it is here in Xinjiang, as well as in Shenzhen, the western regions there, since it was traditionally underdeveloped, there's been a lot of efforts from the rest of the country to provide aid and assistance.
So the the Guangdong people heard about their interest in this, so they sent coaches to train them and then since this year they've been able to put on performances after very arduous training, and they do this at the precise, the Kashgar ancient city.
The thing about having people from outside of the autonomous region coming in and help local people build or improve their industries.
It has been a tradition here in china for the relatively remote areas and regions.
We help each other and we find different ways to communicate and to cooperate, and even in the area of intangible cultural heritage.
Just i think last year they People here in Xinjiang, along with people all around the country, different provinces and different regions they held a special intangible cultural exhibition featuring the intangible cultural items from Xinjiang and those places that have been sent support to.
Xinjiang started to be a communication and also comparison of different A tournament.
Yes, it's a very specific and special way of demonstrating the intangible cultural heritage.
And just in 2024, Xinjiang's first Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum was built and opened to public, and I cannot wait to go and have a tour.
Yeah, and it totally makes sense to introduce the Anger dance here to Xinjiang.
I was a bit surprised, to be honest, but now, when you think back on it, it makes sense because people in Xinjiang, whichever ethnic group you come from, you grow up learning how to dance.
I once saw a video of just construction worker I think that young lad is of Uyghur ethnic group and he was just standing there resting, perhaps after lunch or something, and then someone played a Uyghur style music behind him and just naturally he starts dancing and the freestyle movement becomes better and better and more fluent and more people gather around and several other people join him.
That's just how natural that dancing is in the local people's genes here in Xinjiang.
And if you've ever seen the anger dance before, that's particularly popular in Guangdong in southern China.
That one required a lot of movement.
You need to dance while hooraying, while swinging both your hands with a drumstick or something, and also jumping throughout the performance.
Oh, they are being professional about it.
They put on performances at the Kashgar Ancient City.
Intangible cultural heritage is one thing that you have to experience here in Xinjiang.
But I think for a lot of young people.
Yes, many of them are being innovative.
They're preserving, they're protecting the cultures that they have been growing up with, but they're also finding their own ways, finding their own interpretation of their culture, not only the intangible cultural heritage related ones, but also the one that they're basically created by themselves.
Or they're creating.
They're creating.
Improvising.
They're improvising and they're using the traditional ways of, for example, making art, painting pictures, as a starting point.
For instance, we have I've heard one story of a young lady using the kind of material that are extracted from murals as a way of painting.
So painting like that from a relatively far distance it's kind of like oil painting, but if you go closer to the painting the texture is different, the glimmer style would be different, because minerals would reflect light in specific ways.
And in order to do that, you need to find the right pigment from the right mineral.
You have to paint the picture and then put a special layer of glue on the painting so that they stick.
And that used to be a traditional way of painting, but she developed from there, using different types of materials, finding her own style and even sticking onto the painting with different material.
Instead of crushing the minerals into tiny little pigments and use it and brush it on, she's making them into relatively bigger fragments so that when you stick onto it it would look a bit more three-dimensional.
And using all these techniques, she has been participating in international art exhibitions and her paintings are very, very much well received by audience and buyers out there.
I can see that because just a simple tour around the bazaar around the Kashgar ancient city I could see such vibrant colors, not only on the simple pottery items but also more exquisite ceramic items as well.
So the color coordination is different from what we commonly see in the rest of the country.
In her case, she's creating art and sell the art to the outside world.
That's pretty cool.
In some other people's cases, they are using the technique that they have been learning and improving for years and create and put them into a certain experience that tourists can also enjoy.
Here in the ancient city of Kashgar, I've seen experiencing sight in a lot of different shops.
The blacksmith one we talked about and atlas.
You see the machines weaving atlas and you can even try a little bit and destroy a little bit of the hard work.
Destroy?
Yes, of the professional workers.
I know it's horrible because we're not good at it, but they can fix it because it's part of the experience.
And from that I get to understand how come tourism here in not only Kashgar but also the entire Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region is definitely thriving.
Let me mention the fact that people's understanding about tourism being changed and improved over the years.
And there is a term or a concept that is popular in the tourism market these years.
That is the amount of time that a tourist would stay at a certain spot.
You would want that time to be as long as possible.
People say that in Kashgar they have prolonged the staying or duration of each tourist to around six hours And if you really think about it, it's a quite long time.
Some people would just stay here for several hours and some would stay for days.
And if you stay here in the Kashgar ancient city for two days instead of two hours, you will need to stay at a hotel.
You will need to spend at least four or five meals here and you would most definitely need a coffee if you're like me you cannot survive without a coffee or tea so that is spending that is revenue for local people yeah of course we mean you can see the same pattern happening to the film industry a few years back before covid we were having a lot of reports about how the movie industry has been booming has was about to replace the u.s market as the biggest in the world and um and the government really spent a lot of efforts to promote the development of the film industry in the sense that we know that we're not just going to watch the movie maybe some hot pot before the movie maybe uh some snacks popcorn or beverages so it's uh it's an experience it's uh it's a complicated experience Likewise, in the Kashgar ancient city, I think it makes sense for the locals to exhaust their means to try and prolong the stay of the customers.
I only hope that they're doing it smartly. rather than, for instance, resorting to bad traffic.
They are doing it smartly.
They are introducing different types of economy in it.
I'm talking about the games economy or sports game economy.
For those of you who are familiar with the situation in China these years, we love sports village football games and village basketball games.
We love these games because it's quite authentic and when local villagers take pride, when they do have enthusiasm in the games, they started to celebrate it in their own way, singing and dancing.
They put on performances before the game and they chant and hooray to the games during the games, and it's a really fun experience that you can enjoy as a tourist.
And that kind of games have been being more and more popular throughout the country and here in Xinjiang as well.
That's so true.
Back in 2024, I think, I saw the news of how have you ever heard of the city Keramei or, in Chinese, Kelama Yi?
The city is particularly known for the oil city, where a lot of petroleum enterprises is gathered.
But just last year they hosted I think that's what they call the Jiang Chao, or rather a basketball tournament attracting over 350 basketball players from All over Xinjiang.
They formed altogether 20 teams to play basketball in the city of Keramei.
And throughout that week there are basketball matches, games all alone attracting thousands of visitors from all around Xinjiang, if not outside of Xinjiang, to Keramei, and just experience the culture there and learn more about the tag of the oil city, and just walk inside there and realize that there is much more to the city than just the industry, because Xinjiang is such a vast place.
For my family.
For example, my grandpa only had been traveling down to Kashgar from Urumqi to deliver goods.
60 years ago.
And just a few decades ago, my father himself never even been to Kashgar or anywhere southern to the Tien Shan mountains.
Because Like why would he?
He didn't think about traveling around a few decades ago that dearly as we do nowadays.
But now people in Xinjiang.
They are very eager to walk around each other's city and get to engage in more people-to-people communication.
Even within this region, such communication is happening, and it's happening more and more in recent years.
Besides the sports games economy, here in Xinjiang, another economy is also quite prominent.
That is the snow and ice economy here in Xinjiang.
We talked about it during the 2022 Winter Olympics and it's only begun to pick up after the Winter Olympics raised the profile of winter games and also as people get more money to spare in their pockets.
And here in Xinjiang, there's plenty of terrain suitable for developing that industry.
Yes.
And from there people get to come here and enjoy a little bit of snowboarding, a little bit of skiing, stay in the lovely hotels and enjoy a little bit of barbecue, Xinjiang style.
Imagine how great that would be.
Again, I am booking my next personal trip to Xinjiang during winter time.
It can be also a great experience.
Throughout our entire conversation, I cannot help but notice that there are a lot of cases where the young people are taking the lead.
We talk about young people lacking experience in industries or even in life.
They are quite innovative.
Life experience comes with age.
But the idea is they're being quite proactive in celebrating their culture, asking other people to celebrate their culture with them in their new and modern ways, and they're getting very successful.
Just the other day we were in the International Grand Bazaar and I noticed that many of our team members have made a lot of purchase, buying all these cute souvenirs, the little bag with local characteristics.
Magnets the tiny little purse to put coins in it, even though you do not use coins anymore.
If you want to buy the purse because it's in the shape of a naan or a flatbread and it's just so cute, you cannot resist buying it, and all that.
Oh, and also the afanti, which you can find in Chinese folktale stories this season.
It is also featured in a lot of different forms magnet, like Limey mentioned, and also different types of Xinjiang style carpets, the ones that the little ones they use as even a decoration, as a coaster, or as a decoration that you hang on your wall, and also notebook pen decoration to put on your pen.
All these kind of cultural recreational product.
Did you buy anything, Yushan?
Just magnets.
Of course.
For raisins and grapes, I was warned by my parents that we've got tons.
Do not spend money on those.
But if it's your first time here, like many of our crew members this time, of course, these are the best gifts.
And yeah, you made a very good point Holin, earlier that we've encountered a lot of young people that's so passionate about these respective industries that they're working here.
Regarding tourism, regarding introducing their culture to people who are not from it here.
Just a few days ago, back in Terpeng, we visited the Kerben's Folk Museum, or Kerben Folk Museum, where this 25-year-old young Kalbinor girl she just came so warmly and welcoming us to go upstairs show us around the private collection of his father.
And she shared some very funny anecdotes with me that her as say, the second generation of the family to inherit all the say, collected old household objects.
That's collected by the entire family.
Mainly her dad is just carrying the main management task of the family every time when it's summer holiday and winter holiday.
Her two younger sisters, after getting back home and enjoying the holiday, are always so pressured by their father to have to clean each and every one of those old household objects and clean off the dust of it and make sure they look shiny and polished to welcome tourists, especially during summertime.
I remember that part when she said that, though she's complaining in a certain way, she's very proud of all the objects.
And she said that at the very beginning it was only around, the collection number was only around 3000 and now it's approaching 30000.
And she got the objects not only from Turpan, not only from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but from the entire country and she was very happy to show all of those items to us.
I was particularly impressed by her eloquence, her ability to to explain the items on display at the museum, to tell the backstory behind it and also, in doing so, the pride that she displays in her own culture to think that she's so young and knows so much about her own family and also her tradition.
That really is respectable.
And nowadays in Xinjiang, there are more and more of such private museums that's being established?
They're all starting from just private collections, but as more items are being collected, the local people just feel like hey, we've got this, so why not introduce it to more people and have them just know what our life is like used to be back in decades ago.
And there's another one, located in the Altai region, where local nomad families are collecting their just like horse training tools and also still local old household objects to just showcase their culture and tell their stories back, say from 50 years ago, to the local people.
And they take pride in it.
A private museum owner, also shared that in recent years they've come to this very prosperous era where over 20 local households have had their youngsters coming back to the Altai region in order to build their own houses into BBs and homestays to welcome more tourists in the future.
So that's just how enthusiastic these Xinjiang young people are getting nowadays.
Definitely.
I was here around five years ago and that's when I followed a lot of vloggers bloggers, young content creators from Xinjiang.
And, on top of demonstrating their cultures quite well, they are also trying to establish the real, authentic identity of Xinjiang.
Because we do also have some generalized label for the place.
When we think of Xinjiang, we think of, of course, Nouns.
Yes.
Fruits.
Those are not wrong, but those are not nearly as enough as the Xinjiang culture.
And what these young content creators are doing is to show people the real Xinjiang in their own ways.
They write different articles, they take shorter videos and put them on new media platforms so that we understand the autonomous region even more.
Through our journey here, we went to Rumuki, the International Grand Bazaar.
We went to Turpan, the Grape Valley, the Flaming Mountains and now we're in Kashgar, a living 1000-year-old city.
What's your overall impression approaching to the end of the journey?
Wow.
As commented by our driver back in Turpan, I am a third-generation Xinjiang-er.
Yes, you are.
Very interesting.
To be honest, I feel so proud of this place, not only because of how a deep bond is formed on my family-wise, but also just witnessing how modern Xinjiang in general has become nowadays.
Again, like I mentioned earlier, back in 20 years ago, there weren't so much tall buildings in Urumqi.
There weren't so many people coming to southern part of Xinjiang and Kashgar and cities like this for tourism.
There were barely rows, good enough rows to connect one city from the other, across all the mountainous regions and the different landscape and prefectures.
Now there are trains.
Nowadays, there are trains, there are airports in many different cities, from the northern side all the way to the southern side of Xinjiang.
So it's just how fast developing this place has become in the past few decades.
And yeah, I just feel very touched and also passionate about how it's going to turn to in the future, in the next say, five decades.
So yeah, as a third generation Xinjianger, that's my most sincere thought about this place that I call home.
My impression is summarizing one word, and that is confidence.
Because I was most impressed by the chorus, that we saw yesterday during our trip.
And it's an irrigation system or a water delivery system that might expand several kilometers, if not several thousand kilometers.
Yeah, it could go beyond 1000 kilometers, extending from the densely populated region to the Tien Shan region, if not the Flaming Mountain region.
So it's very sophisticated. a very ancient way of water delivery system.
I couldn't help but think about the hardship and the challenges that the locals had to overcome in order to eke out a living, a means of living, to have their basic needs, such as water, satisfied and met.
So when I saw our predecessors had the guts, the wisdom and the will to overcome these challenges, these tremendous challenges, I know they will still have it.
They still have it all going forward.
Looking down the Kashgar ancient city.
There are many parts of the city that's still not as posh as we see, for instance, in downtown Shanghai.
There's still a lot to do.
We mentioned the difficulty of renovating the ancient city that was built thousands of years ago over thousands of years.
There's a lot of work to be done.
I know that in five years, or maybe in three years, things will look a lot different.
Well, and for me, my feeling is that there's just too much to explore.
I was here five years ago.
I stayed for 40 days.
I went to so many different places and I even talked to our guide today and I told him the places I went and he said I have been living here for quite several years.
I haven't even visited that many cities here in Xinjiang and still for this trip I was amazed for so many times by the new development, by the kind of shops that are newly opened these years that I haven't visited the last time.
I was here, even in the ancient city of Kashgar, and I thought I did enough research.
I thought I did enough research five years ago, but I was totally wrong.
There are so many different culture items.
There are even so many new things being established every single day, or even every single minute.
And I cannot wait to come back here in Xinjiang and explore more, learn more and enjoy more.
And I guess that could be your feeling as well.
Once you set your foot on this land, you will be addicted and you will want to revisit again and again.
And that brings us to the end of our roundtable special series, China Horizons.
Thank you so much for being with us.
I'm Niu Honglin with Lai Ming and Yushan.
We'll see you next time.
Bye.
