Wednesday, September 20, 2006
NIYA, CHERCHEN
We are both astonished by what we find. Joan had accused me, 'You're travelling this southern route for travel's sake' thinking the uncertainties were too great. Maybe she no longer thinks this but can see some virtue in exploring.
We got to the East Bus Station in Hotan a little too late for the 9.30am straight through bus to Niya. Rather than wait until 1pm Beijing time for the next one we took a bus part way to Keriya, and then did the second part of the trip by minibus, though we had to wait 1.5 hours until the minibus was entirely full. As expected the road was good as this is the lead in to the new road across the Taklamakan desert.
Uneventful in large part except when the lad opposite Hao Chao La started talking to practise his English. He was a teacher who had been sent to Keriya to teach Mandarin in the schools. Like Rui he had recently re-located from Jiangsu near Shanghai, part of the Chinese attempt to integrate Xin Jiang, a province which traditionally was Uighur with its own language and own writing and customs, related as it was to Turkey and the 'Stans' of central Europe. Whilst I can generally make myself understood with the obviously Chinese part of the population I have considerable problem when trying to talk Mandarin to Uighurs, and not just because they object to things Mandarin. Hao Chao La has a job on his hands.
NIYA
On arrival at Niya a rickshaw took us to the Niya Hotel, our booking was at the New Niya Hotel, just across the road (170Y including breakfast). Opened in 2005 as a high class tourist hotel this was not far off the standard of the Holiday Inn in Beijing. More importantly it was a very friendly place, particularly Xiao Zhang, the young man who ran the sales desk with its fine display of jade and other ornaments, and the waitresses. We purchased a book of pictures of best finds at the large desert Niya Town site, and the following day he took us to the Museum, and got it opened up for us. Another small but interesting museum, concentrating solely on artifacts taken from the old largely buried city of Niya. A Japanese student who was touring some of the 20,000 archaeological sites in China helped us understand some of the exhibits from their written explanation in Chinese Characters. They included a small waterwheel grinding material to extract cooking oil, and the several well preserved mummies.
New Niya hotel had a considerable inflow of tourist bus groups each night, mainly from Japan and Taiwan. On the second night there was a small party of four, travelling independently, we went over to their table to find what they were eating, being incapable of making any sense of a menu entirely in characters. The Chinese haven't realised that we have some chance if only they would also write in Pinyin. English translations where they exist are not very helpful. The older man at the table came over to talk to us he was Jean-Pierre Augremy a Frenchman who had been a member of the first French Embassy in Beijing which was set up in 1964, just before the start of The Cultural Revolution. He loved China and his daughter lived in Beijing, where she ran two art galleries in a suburb called Da Shan Zi where there were over 60 galleries. He had been a diplomat all his life and spent 12 years in London, hence his fluent English. By way of a separate life he was a novelist, writing under the pen name of Pierre-Jean Remy.
' Do you know a small village in Wales called Hay-on-Wye for 'I'm a friend of the owner of the very first bookshop there'.
We really connected when he talked of Dylan Thomas as being an important influence in his young life and said he had an LP of A Christmas Story.
"I too have a record of him which I bought in New York in 1958.
He replies 'I was there too in 1958'.
I wonder if we both bought our copies at the AA Bookstore, the Amazon.com of its day, with a seemingly inexhaustible display of books and records at discount prices. Camden records issued three LPs of Dylan Thomas at the very start of 16 2/3 rpm for speech, when Columbia were issuing the early High Fi or 360 degree sound as they advertised on 33 1/3.
That encounter started me thinking, indeed I spent a sleepless night mulling over the old days in North America. Although fresh from three wonderful years at University in London, New York seemed like the centre of the earth, everything of importance seemed to be happening there and everything seemed full of hope. The hard days of the depression were left behind and the Second World War was won. A symbol of the hope of the age was the new elegant skyscraper of the United Nations building. In the Greenwich Village of Dylan Thomas and the White Horse would-be poets or actors would recite Shakespeare, the pitch black Village Vanguard throbbed to the sound of saxophone colossus Sony Rollins, or to the lyricism of the English pianist George Shearing and his Basie's Macement. The Off Broadway movement was beginning its experiments with minimalist Theatre in the Round.
Politically it was the end of Macarthyism for the views of Arthur Miller had prevailed over the pursuit of communist sympathisers. The noble rhetoric of John Kennedy 'Think not what America can do for you , but what you can do for America' was offering new horizons. The American Dream was so alive in 1958. It was just one year on from the school segregation riots at Little Rock, a sleepy town where we over-nighted in 1957 on our way across America, just a few weeks before the start of the new school year had thrust it and Governor Fabius into the world headlines.
It was the era when Martin Lurther King rose to prominence with a power of rhetoric to surpass Kennedy's. Nothing in the political arena affected me so much as the assassination of those two icons and started me on a path of political cynicism which has never left. How did the optimistic progressive America of industrial giants, turn into the intolerant monster we see today.
'What's Good for General Motors is Good for America'
and General Electric's proud boast
'Prog..gress is Our Most Important Product'
Will China with its incredibly fast optimistic development sour in the same way? If so we fear that our children and grandchildren may be facing an awful awakening from their hitherto easy existence.
Niya town is an example of that progress. To the west of the inevitable Mao pillar lies the as yet still Uighur town, to the east huge piles of sand as they dig across 3 metre deep trenches right across the two main crossroads in order to lay 600mm concrete sewage pipes to replace the open trenches. In the morning it was simply a sandy mess and almost impossible to pass down the main street on foot let alone by vehicle, by evening they were already starting to back fill those trenches to a level no doubt ready for water, electricity and all the other services of a modern city.
Given the pace of development a year later you will find instead of an incredibly dirty sand blown town a gleaming modern city. We hope they can find a way to preserve the best of the Muslim town. Side by side with the huge earth moving machines three men were demolishing one of the few old buildings still existing on the East side, with a pickaxe, a shovel and a broom, in a cloud of dust. By nightfall that too had dropped from two to a single story, to reveal our spanking New Niya Hotel, the new Town Hall and the new Sports Centre, built to supplement the rows of outdoor pool tables in the main street.
But when all is said and done we preferred the diversity and life of the old sector of town, not least because its narrow streets were so cool under the shade of the ancient trees. Then there was the interest of seeing an old fashioned hardware store where everything was apparently haphazard, but everything could be found by the owner. There was a similar hardware store called Griffiths when we first came to Swansea in 1970, but it has long since disappeared in the cause of progress.
In the small fruit and veg market I took a picture of a diverse pile of gourds on the floor, seeing me the women stall holders encouraged me to take a photograph of a nearby stall-holder who had a pile of particularly large water melons on display. The moment I raised my camera he disappeared, when he returned I playfully raised the camera again and he ducked under the counter, I raised it again and again and by which time he hid his face behind a convenient piece of sacking. The market was in uproar at this piece of slapstick comedy, and to be fair the target was joining in the fun and grinning from around his sacking. Slap-stick humour crosses boundaries of nationality and sophistication.
A very old man sat forlorn in the sand at the site of the roadworks, presumably begging because he held a1Y note in his hand, and an old woman sat a few yards away without even as much to her name. I virtually never give to beggars, but the thought crossed my mind to offer them 5Y each and yet I rejected it. Nevertheless on reflection it remains as a symbol of the degradation, that the poverty stricken old should be seeking 5p and not getting it from the likes of me. Who ought to blame China for the attempt to improve the lot of its people? We saw less poverty there than in the rest of Asia, or Europe.
CHERCHEN Next morning knowing nothing of what lay ahead we set out early, before the town was awake, for the area where the buses park, where we believe they are just starting to build a gleaming bus station, in what will become an important road hub being equidistant to Urumqi north across the desert, and to the major tourist attractions of Turpan (east) and Kashgar (west). Anyway there was no bus, but a young man, an official driver at the outdoor station, offered to to drive us to Cherchen for 500Y. We jumped at the chance for there a seemed no other way to proceed promptly.
We had expected the road to be difficult, it was after-all on the boundary of the Taklamakan one of the Silk Road's most feared deserts. What we found was a brand new wide highway stretching the 400km to Cherchen. I counted the traffic in the last of our four hours on the road, just ten vehicles passed going in the opposite direction, the earlier hours had been even quieter. One local Hutong bus passed us on that journey, a sign that with boundless patience there might just have been another way instead of taxi. A few lorries, rather more cars and two long vehicles much like American School Buses. These dropped a pair of workers at one kilometer intervals, one of each pair walked back the other forward, sweeping the road as they went to keep it clear of sand. For the moment sweepers outnumber vehicles, but not for long I guess.
Interestingly the desert sand at the side of the road was divided into a network of squares, with about 600mm sides, by Marram Grass planted round the perimeter of each square, an attempt to stabilise the sand. At some places the desert gave sustenance to old large trees, whose trunks showed how wooden cities like the buried Niya of 1500 years ago could have been built.
In continuation of the renewal theme Cherchen city has been almost entirely rebuilt. It is a fine example of a modern Chinese new town, spacious like the rest, but with modern buildings of style, many of which were erected in the year 2000. There is a large park with flower beds, an outdoor gym with man powered exercise machines, at the centre is a fine bronze artwork and to one side an new 'Roman Ampitheatre' built of marble surrounded by pillars beautifully carved to depict the various influences on the area, Uighur and Chinese for example. The only part of the development which seems not to have worked is the substitution of a modern two story shopping mall of lock up shops to replace the old Uighur stalls. It is not just in buildings that the new spirit shows but in road training, they actually wait for the green light before crossing - in spite of the fact that at present there is virtually no motor traffic on the streets.
At dinner last night we were joined by a photographer's group with the young man who they introduced as Mr Cherchen, presumably the mayor. When they enquired if we found Cherchen beautiful, I merely said I found it modern. A day later I am fully aware of the justification in their pride. The marvellous thing about China is that the people who deign to come and talk have some knowledge of English, often not a much greater vocabulary than my 150 words of Mandarin but enough to get real contact. Contrast Sumatra where every schoolchild knew how to ask 'What's your name?', and 'What country?' and hardly ever any more, such mindless repetition becomes wearing.
This morning a very pleasant young Chinese girl Xiao Fan (literally Small Meal) showed us this Internet room where English pop music blares out, a haven hidden behind signs in Chinese writing and a curtain to keep the sun out. Moreover she offered to meet us at the hotel at 8am tomorrow morning and to take us to where the bus to Charlic can be found, to judge from yesterday's trip there may be one a day - if we are lucky.
Will tomorrow be the day we see the old roads along which the LP advises not to travel for fear of frequent problems, sandstorms and lack of transport? So far the latter is still true, but for how much longer. The photographers mission was doubtless to produce the evidence that this area is worth visiting. We may be seeing the area before a flood of tourism reaches the Southern Silk Road. Fingers crossed, we hope not to get them burned.
We are both astonished by what we find. Joan had accused me, 'You're travelling this southern route for travel's sake' thinking the uncertainties were too great. Maybe she no longer thinks this but can see some virtue in exploring.
We got to the East Bus Station in Hotan a little too late for the 9.30am straight through bus to Niya. Rather than wait until 1pm Beijing time for the next one we took a bus part way to Keriya, and then did the second part of the trip by minibus, though we had to wait 1.5 hours until the minibus was entirely full. As expected the road was good as this is the lead in to the new road across the Taklamakan desert.
Uneventful in large part except when the lad opposite Hao Chao La started talking to practise his English. He was a teacher who had been sent to Keriya to teach Mandarin in the schools. Like Rui he had recently re-located from Jiangsu near Shanghai, part of the Chinese attempt to integrate Xin Jiang, a province which traditionally was Uighur with its own language and own writing and customs, related as it was to Turkey and the 'Stans' of central Europe. Whilst I can generally make myself understood with the obviously Chinese part of the population I have considerable problem when trying to talk Mandarin to Uighurs, and not just because they object to things Mandarin. Hao Chao La has a job on his hands.
NIYA
 |
| NIYA |
New Niya hotel had a considerable inflow of tourist bus groups each night, mainly from Japan and Taiwan. On the second night there was a small party of four, travelling independently, we went over to their table to find what they were eating, being incapable of making any sense of a menu entirely in characters. The Chinese haven't realised that we have some chance if only they would also write in Pinyin. English translations where they exist are not very helpful. The older man at the table came over to talk to us he was Jean-Pierre Augremy a Frenchman who had been a member of the first French Embassy in Beijing which was set up in 1964, just before the start of The Cultural Revolution. He loved China and his daughter lived in Beijing, where she ran two art galleries in a suburb called Da Shan Zi where there were over 60 galleries. He had been a diplomat all his life and spent 12 years in London, hence his fluent English. By way of a separate life he was a novelist, writing under the pen name of Pierre-Jean Remy.
' Do you know a small village in Wales called Hay-on-Wye for 'I'm a friend of the owner of the very first bookshop there'.
We really connected when he talked of Dylan Thomas as being an important influence in his young life and said he had an LP of A Christmas Story.
"I too have a record of him which I bought in New York in 1958.
He replies 'I was there too in 1958'.
I wonder if we both bought our copies at the AA Bookstore, the Amazon.com of its day, with a seemingly inexhaustible display of books and records at discount prices. Camden records issued three LPs of Dylan Thomas at the very start of 16 2/3 rpm for speech, when Columbia were issuing the early High Fi or 360 degree sound as they advertised on 33 1/3.
That encounter started me thinking, indeed I spent a sleepless night mulling over the old days in North America. Although fresh from three wonderful years at University in London, New York seemed like the centre of the earth, everything of importance seemed to be happening there and everything seemed full of hope. The hard days of the depression were left behind and the Second World War was won. A symbol of the hope of the age was the new elegant skyscraper of the United Nations building. In the Greenwich Village of Dylan Thomas and the White Horse would-be poets or actors would recite Shakespeare, the pitch black Village Vanguard throbbed to the sound of saxophone colossus Sony Rollins, or to the lyricism of the English pianist George Shearing and his Basie's Macement. The Off Broadway movement was beginning its experiments with minimalist Theatre in the Round.
Politically it was the end of Macarthyism for the views of Arthur Miller had prevailed over the pursuit of communist sympathisers. The noble rhetoric of John Kennedy 'Think not what America can do for you , but what you can do for America' was offering new horizons. The American Dream was so alive in 1958. It was just one year on from the school segregation riots at Little Rock, a sleepy town where we over-nighted in 1957 on our way across America, just a few weeks before the start of the new school year had thrust it and Governor Fabius into the world headlines.
It was the era when Martin Lurther King rose to prominence with a power of rhetoric to surpass Kennedy's. Nothing in the political arena affected me so much as the assassination of those two icons and started me on a path of political cynicism which has never left. How did the optimistic progressive America of industrial giants, turn into the intolerant monster we see today.
'What's Good for General Motors is Good for America'
and General Electric's proud boast
'Prog..gress is Our Most Important Product'
Will China with its incredibly fast optimistic development sour in the same way? If so we fear that our children and grandchildren may be facing an awful awakening from their hitherto easy existence.
 |
| OLD NIYA LOST TO THE TAKLAMAKAN SANDS |
Given the pace of development a year later you will find instead of an incredibly dirty sand blown town a gleaming modern city. We hope they can find a way to preserve the best of the Muslim town. Side by side with the huge earth moving machines three men were demolishing one of the few old buildings still existing on the East side, with a pickaxe, a shovel and a broom, in a cloud of dust. By nightfall that too had dropped from two to a single story, to reveal our spanking New Niya Hotel, the new Town Hall and the new Sports Centre, built to supplement the rows of outdoor pool tables in the main street.
In the small fruit and veg market I took a picture of a diverse pile of gourds on the floor, seeing me the women stall holders encouraged me to take a photograph of a nearby stall-holder who had a pile of particularly large water melons on display. The moment I raised my camera he disappeared, when he returned I playfully raised the camera again and he ducked under the counter, I raised it again and again and by which time he hid his face behind a convenient piece of sacking. The market was in uproar at this piece of slapstick comedy, and to be fair the target was joining in the fun and grinning from around his sacking. Slap-stick humour crosses boundaries of nationality and sophistication.
A very old man sat forlorn in the sand at the site of the roadworks, presumably begging because he held a1Y note in his hand, and an old woman sat a few yards away without even as much to her name. I virtually never give to beggars, but the thought crossed my mind to offer them 5Y each and yet I rejected it. Nevertheless on reflection it remains as a symbol of the degradation, that the poverty stricken old should be seeking 5p and not getting it from the likes of me. Who ought to blame China for the attempt to improve the lot of its people? We saw less poverty there than in the rest of Asia, or Europe.
CHERCHEN Next morning knowing nothing of what lay ahead we set out early, before the town was awake, for the area where the buses park, where we believe they are just starting to build a gleaming bus station, in what will become an important road hub being equidistant to Urumqi north across the desert, and to the major tourist attractions of Turpan (east) and Kashgar (west). Anyway there was no bus, but a young man, an official driver at the outdoor station, offered to to drive us to Cherchen for 500Y. We jumped at the chance for there a seemed no other way to proceed promptly.
We had expected the road to be difficult, it was after-all on the boundary of the Taklamakan one of the Silk Road's most feared deserts. What we found was a brand new wide highway stretching the 400km to Cherchen. I counted the traffic in the last of our four hours on the road, just ten vehicles passed going in the opposite direction, the earlier hours had been even quieter. One local Hutong bus passed us on that journey, a sign that with boundless patience there might just have been another way instead of taxi. A few lorries, rather more cars and two long vehicles much like American School Buses. These dropped a pair of workers at one kilometer intervals, one of each pair walked back the other forward, sweeping the road as they went to keep it clear of sand. For the moment sweepers outnumber vehicles, but not for long I guess.
Interestingly the desert sand at the side of the road was divided into a network of squares, with about 600mm sides, by Marram Grass planted round the perimeter of each square, an attempt to stabilise the sand. At some places the desert gave sustenance to old large trees, whose trunks showed how wooden cities like the buried Niya of 1500 years ago could have been built.
 |
| CHERCHEN |
This morning a very pleasant young Chinese girl Xiao Fan (literally Small Meal) showed us this Internet room where English pop music blares out, a haven hidden behind signs in Chinese writing and a curtain to keep the sun out. Moreover she offered to meet us at the hotel at 8am tomorrow morning and to take us to where the bus to Charlic can be found, to judge from yesterday's trip there may be one a day - if we are lucky. Will tomorrow be the day we see the old roads along which the LP advises not to travel for fear of frequent problems, sandstorms and lack of transport? So far the latter is still true, but for how much longer. The photographers mission was doubtless to produce the evidence that this area is worth visiting. We may be seeing the area before a flood of tourism reaches the Southern Silk Road. Fingers crossed, we hope not to get them burned.
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