Kashgar 1

It was Saturday, April 10^th, and we were en route via plane to Urumqi. A Han man sitting next to me was going there for work, and taught me how to greet people in Uighur, the language and ethnicity most common in Xinjiang: “Yakshimsi”. Whereas in most of China, the population is about 90% Han and 10% the 56 minority nationalities recognized in China, in Xinjiang it’s about 90% Uighur and 10% other things, like Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and, of course, Han.

We weren’t staying in Urumqi, only connecting to another flight heading to Kashgar, the most inland city in the world. If you look at a political map, the northwestern tip of China is where it lies, nestled in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. On the flight there, I talked briefly to a Han government official who happened to be my seat neighbor. In both his case and that of the last Han, they decided that my ability to ask for water from the stewardess was enough to maintain a conversation. To my credit, I managed, but barely. The official asked me how many characters I knew. I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I guessed, 200? He scrunched his nose as if I’d just spit up, and I said, 300? Most of the time I just read my book. I hate talking on planes in my own language, much less in another.

At the airport, we met our tour guide in Kashgar, a Uighur man named Mamatjian. I’m not sure if it was all one word or not, but that’s what we called him. He was great, a very professional guide. We took a tour bus (our main mode of transportation throughout) to our residence for the next few nights: the Seman Hotel. The name in Chinese means colorful, which, while comically true, was not what we were snickering at. It used to be a Russian embassy, I don’t know why it still isn’t, and I’m not sure if the interior décor is original or revamped by the local fashion sense, but let me give you some words: Glitter. Pastels. Trees made out of drywall. Okay that’s enough. It was a trip. But also a great sleep and decent breakfast, so, hey.

The next day, April 11^th, we set out on the bus for Lake Karakul. To get there, we drove through the Taklimakan Desert, here with black gravel and brown mountains. We stopped at what seemed to be just a street, called Opal Township. This town seemed to have an economy based exclusively on goats. They were everywhere it was ridiculous. We wandered around a bit, eating delicious nan bread that we saw being taken off the inner wall of a massive dome oven. Everyone was indeed Uighur, though strangely enough, another tour bus stopped right behind us and when I returned to ours I talked to a couple of guys from Indiana. Apparently This street gets a lot of traffic.

We drove on and got to Lake Karakul. Upon exiting from the bus I peed behind an abandoned brick structure, which left me separated from the group, which was already walking toward the coast. As I walked to catch up, I caught the eye of a Uighur man, or possibly Kyrgyz, and walked past him. I was about 50 paces away from the group, not really in a rush to catch up, just enjoying the scenery and looking for cool rocks, when he came up and said hello. I said hello back, not expecting anyone to speak English out here, and he held out a bluish egg stone that shone orange when you put it to the light. I said it’s very nice and he put it in my hand. I didn’t really know how to react, as I hadn’t said anything about buying it, but neither had he. Nobody said anything about buying, and there was a rock in my hand. Was he giving it to me? I asked him. He smiled. I thought, “maybe?” But then he raised a hand, palm open, and said five. Now I understood, five hundred kuai, a little out of my price range, and I said no thank you, and tried to put the rock back in his hand. But he wouldn’t take it back, he simply pushed my hand away and said, “you like, you like, how much”. He wanted me to haggle. I HATE haggling. It just doesn’t fall in my skill set. I always end up feeling like I’ve been had, and I was not in the mood to be had on rocks. So I tried to politely walk away, but there appeared another man, standing where I wanted to walk, holding a scorpion buried in amber. He yelled, “hello! You like!” I tried to walk another way, but there was another man, holding out a bracelet of fragrant rocks. He rubbed them together, smelled them, and shoved them under my nose. I smelled them, it was nice. I was getting a little overwhelmed. I looked around and there were at least 6 or 7 of them, all trying to sell me rocks, yelling “hello! You like this!” I still had the egg stone in my hand and realized it was the only thing preventing my escape. I told him one hundred, and he nodded, and I gave him a bill and muscled my way out of the writhing rock monger mass and jogged to the group on the coast. I thought I was free. But they followed. And now they were bothering everyone. In a way, I was relieved, but I also felt a little guilty, as if I had brought sickness to the group while feeling getting healthier myself. But I had one or two men locked on me all the way back to the bus, and ended up buying far more rocks than I ever needed to buy.

So that caught me a little off guard, and now I had two pockets full of really nice rocks (they are really nice), and I thought, “that was a little unsettling”. I realized I actually paid way too much for the egg stone, and vowed not to look at it because it simply angered me. I hate hate hate haggling. It just puts a taint on the object when you’re no good at it. Then Darren said, “Okay! Onward to Lake Karakul!” I was a looking confused by that, because I thought we were already there, but was okay with a little more driving. God knows how many more stones I would have bought from those guys.