24/8/25
Waking for breakfast at 8am in Kashgar was more like 6am in real money. The breakfast was simple and Chinese. We couldn’t eat enough of it. Seeking a coffee we set off into the ‘old city’. What had happened to Kashgar was a travesty. The Chinese government had essentially destroyed what was once the largest earthen complex of structures in the world. An incredible history of several millennia had been wiped out. Pretending to do so under the guises of ‘earthquake safety’, the entire city had been gutted, residents relocated, and rebuilt as a shitty ‘scenic area’.
The streets had been widened. ‘Folk stalls’ full of tacky crap, being sold to the thousands of domestic Han Chinese tourists that poured into the security guarded zone. Complete with tourist map posts and electric car buggies to ferry the idiots around. It was like an enormous crappy German market. Funnily enough, the government did the same thing in the majority Han areas. Co-opting their historical monuments as weird Disneyland areas. What made this different was the insidious nature of the redevelopment. The goal was to erode Uyghur culture. To diminish its uniqueness and have just one, ‘better’ culture.
Determining what had happened was exhausting. We stared at the buildings, trying to ascertain if they were new or old. One lady invited us in to see her house. She claimed it was 100 years old. We didn’t know what the truth was anymore. Many buildings had obvious facades, some had been covered with a straw wattle. Some of it was covered in cracks, like it had been done poorly and in a rush. It was hard to see it as anything other than another Cultural Revolution. Another stupid mistake that would only be recognised in later years. Currently the Chinese government stated it was different. Ordered and deliberate, not chaotic like Mao’s reforms.
Another oddity we observed was the presence of Ughyer police officers. Forced by coercion to police their own. Not accepting the role meant you must be an extremist. Id Kah mosque was shut for prayer time. In a nearby street stood a large closed building. Outside it was described as a ‘Memorial Hall’ that explained the history of the city and the recent changes. Peering in, we could see a 3D model still glinting with lights. Otherwise it was empty of exhibits and unvisitable.
A major event in Kashgar, for hundreds of years, was the Sunday livestock market. Until recently it was located in the Old City. However, it had recently been relocated more than 10km away, on the edge of the city. Supposedly due to the smell of the animals, but obviously the true reason was far more nefarious.
We took a taxi, unsure of what we would find. Something was definitely going on. Cars drove in and out of the dusty gate. A trio of armed police stood guard outside, as people filed out of the huge metal turnstile. Inside, a vast and bustling array of stalls were before us. Mountains of fresh green figs that tasted like honey. Trucks fully of melons that gushed with water when cut. Every type of nut and dried fruit that we hadn’t seen since Turkey. Bags of gorgeous reddy orange saffron.
Cooked food options included traditional local jewelled rice dish with lamb. The lifeless heads of the animals lying around nearby. Dead fish span on 2 metre wide rotisseries. Toward the back, up a small flight of stairs, was the livestock market. Treading through the soft animal waste that littered the ground was far from the hardest part. Densely packed with equally boisterous animals and local men, we fought through the cattle that regularly bashed into us as they were led to be bargained for.
Bashing the cows in the head with sticks and fists was for some reason an enjoyable pastime. It was painful to watch but we knew what we’d signed up for. Most of the cows were attached to a metal post that held their heads tight. Sheep were being equally mistreated in pens nearby. Just like an open air factory farm we figured. Was it better that they didn’t pretend or hide it? Unexpectedly, we also saw a freshly decapitated cow, a man standing over the body, pulling out intestines with his bare hands. It was quite enough for us. We left with bags and bags of dried fruits and nuts for our journey as well as some rose petal jam. A Middle Eastern favourite of Jonathan’s.
Right outside the East Gate of Kashgar once stood the grand bazaar and the largest market in Asia. Another regretful victim of cultural erasure. Marked on Amap as ‘Grand Bazzar’ was an empty enormous new building. Desperate for dinner, Frankie remembered seeing a line of market stalls on our cycle into the town. Cracks of thunder suddenly roared and it began to pour with rain. Apparently we’d chosen to arrive just when some of the yearly 85mm of rain landed.
Up Zhongxiya Shichang Road were hundreds of little stalls. In a warehouse type building there was the opportunity to buy fabrics of every material and colour. We had read that many of the locally manufactured goods were now made in eastern China. It wasn’t long before we found some barbecue, roasted gluten and flatbread. Back in the hotel we discovered that what we’d thought was tofu, was in fact, chicken. Binning food was always a travesty. But no way were we eating distressed animal meat.
