Urumqi: a place where Han China meets Xinjiang. A relatively young city by Chinese standards, Urumqi was established in the Tang Dynasty- the same time period that Xi'an was in its prime and the Dazu Caves and Leshan Buddha were carved. Urumqi is a primarily Han Chinese city because the government has been promoting many Han Chinese people to move west to prevent Xinjiang from seceding. For example, my roommate Jia Lin is originally from Shenzhen but moved to Urumqi for her dad's career in real estate development. Xinjiang has a tumultuous political past. The province has been a part
Scary Karaoke and China’s Caucasian Mummies Posted by Richelle Nov 25, 2012 3 Comments Share Tweet Pin 9 9 SHARES Urumqi: a place where Han China meets Xinjiang. A relatively young city by Chinese standards, Urumqi was established in the Tang Dynasty- the same time period that Xi’an was in its prime and the Dazu Caves and Leshan Buddha were carved. Urumqi is a primarily Han Chinese city because the government has been promoting many Han Chinese people to move west to prevent Xinjiang from seceding. For example, my roommate Jia Lin is originally from Shenzhen but moved to Urumqi for her dad’s career in real estate development. Xinjiang has a tumultuous political past. The province has been a part of the Chinese empire on and off, varying with the power of each dynasty. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Xinjiang claimed that its allegiance was to the emperor, not the Chinese republic. The Uighur population was not ethnically Chinese, did not speak the Chinese language and had no interest in Chinese nationalism. However, under the control of the CCP, Xinjiang is once again part of China. This union has not always been a peaceful one. There have been terrorist attacks, protests and bombings. My roommate told me about a recent protest in 2009- the government shut off her internet for a year and she could only make phone calls on her cell phone. I can’t imagine living my senior year of high school without internet, texting and reliable news! I was shocked when she told me how she had to call her friends in Shenzhen to let them know that she was alive but wouldn’t be available online or through text messaging. While I heard about the conflict on the news, I never imagined that China would put those sorts of restrictions on a whole province- especially a cosmopolitan, primarily Han city like Urumqi. FREE GUIDE 7 STEPS TO FINALLY MOVE ABROAD! (IN 2021). The proven 7-step system to help you break out of the status quo and finally move abroad! DOWNLOAD IT NOW! We arrived in Urumqi in the evening, around 7pm. We were met by our lovely 20-year-old tour guide who, thankfully this time, did not try to explain to us in broken English that Uighurs are black. We headed up the stairs into the hotel and Joe warned us, “Don’t go to the Karaoke place here”. When we asked why, he told us that it wasn’t a very upstanding establishment. Confused, we made our way to the elevator and went up to our rooms on the 22nd floor. Margo and I squeezed into our tiny corner room, complete with a bathroom with one of those giant awkward windows. That’s 3/4 hotels in Xinjiang in case you were wondering. Unfortunately, the door to the bathroom wouldn’t close and Margo didn’t make that fact any better by trying to pull up the blinds while I was in there. As I was washing my hands I heard a gasp from the room, “Oh my god Richelle you HAVE to check out these beds”. I ran out and saw Margo sprawled out on her bed surrounded by pillows. I threw myself on my own bed and sank into a fluffy cloud. After months of sleeping on rock-hard beds this bed was even better than the cloud bed in Ikea. (Our Field Trip to Ikea). While the cloud bed was tempting, even more pressing was our desire to explore the bustling night market that had appeared over the course of a half hour. From the 22nd floor we could see a large traffic circle. Directly below us was a parking lot that had transformed into an outdoor dining plaza with stall after stall cooking food and hundreds of tables. Margo was exhausted, but the boys and I went downstairs to check out the scene. Here’s an example of what it looked like from my room Right outside the hotel were stalls selling perfume, accessories, jewelry, and small items like lighters and bottle openers. We then wandered through the tables, avoiding the stall selling stinky tofu. When we reached the end of the tables, we came upon another large area with racks of clothing and blankets laid out with sparkly hair accessories, bags, shoes, etc. One vender, however, caught my immediate attention. On the stairs were a few young Chinese people selling kittens! There were a few kittens and bunnies in small cages with a crowd of people hoping to buy or pet them. At first it made me very sad that these animals were in such small cages, but after talking to the young man selling them, he told me that he wanted the people who bought them to be able to take them home, hence, the little box cages. My favorite was a little white kitten, and I have to say, it took a lot of strength not to bring him home with me. After enjoying some chuar and purchasing some perfume (I’m still not sure if it’s fake or real), it was time for us to return back to our rooms. It was fairly late, so we were very surprised when there was a small crowd of 40-something year old men waiting for the elevator. We squeezed into the elevator and it stopped on the fourth floor. The door opened into a brightly lit karaoke club with about twenty young women in skimpy, sparkly unifor...