Old Town, new promise
Young Uygur entrepreneurs bring fresh energy to their small, storied neighborhood
When Mardan Ablimit opened a coffee shop in the Old Town of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in 2018, many warned that his venture was unrealistic and bound to fail.
Now, the 34-year-old is considering opening branches outside the region, exporting a taste of Kashgar nationwide after the shop successfully integrated with the Old Town, becoming part of local life.
Mardan said the 4-square-kilometer Old Town, with a history of more than 2,000 years, is “the birthmark of Kashgar” in southern Xinjiang. Traditional Uygur architecture and culture are well-preserved around the neighborhood and by its 43,000-plus residents, 97 percent of whom are members of the Uygur ethnic group.
“The Old Town has been a window into Kashgar ever since the city was an important stop on the ancient Silk Road. It has never stopped embracing new things and ideas,” said Mardan at his coffee shop, Kashgar Corner.
“By having a cup of Kashgar Corner Special, made with coffee and traditional Uygur herbs and presented in a mug handmade by Uygur pottery craftsmen in the Old Town, I hope visitors will see both the traditional and modern sides of Kashgar.”
In the past, the area’s people and old buildings were threatened by the risk of fire and earthquakes.
In 2010, the central government started a 7 billion yuan ($1 billion), four- year renovation project to earthquake-proof the buildings while maintaining their traditional Uygur charm.
Nearly 50,000 families had their dilapidated houses renovated under the project. Modern infrastructure and amenities have made people’s lives easier and cozier. Moreover, many young Uygurs like Mardan have recognized the potential of and discovered a passion for the Old Town.
Opening the coffee shop helped Mardan reconnect with the city where he was born and raised, he said.
After graduating from a university in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, he chose a career as a film producer there, believing Kashgar could not offer him a platform for realizing his dreams.
“I did not believe that Kashgar, China’s westernmost city, could ever be as open as other cities in the country,” he said.
Returning in 2010 at the request of his parents, who wanted him to take care of them, he started making documentaries about Kashgar prefecture for the local TV station.
Making documentaries about the Old Town, Mardan witnessed its transformation. “Many elderly residents have told me that the improvement in their lives has been beyond their imaginations,” he said.
Some Western observers criticized the renovation project, calling it a move to “extinguish the Uygur culture”.
Mardan, who considers himself “a new member of the Old Town community”, said: “The fact is that the traditional Uygur architecture has all been preserved. The project has just modernized local people’s lives. People who have doubts should come and see for themselves and ask the
locals what they think.”
He added that prior to renovation, the house of a craftsman who makes the coffee mugs used at Kashgar Corner collapsed during a heavy rainstorm.
“Luckily, no one was hurt. He had to move out of the house during the renovation work. After he moved back to the reinforced house, he continued to make traditional Uygur pottery. Nothing has changed,” Mardan said.
The project changed the lives of Mardan and his wife. In 2017, while strolling with his wife, who dreamed of opening a coffee shop in Kashgar, Mardan noticed a recently renovated two-story building being offered for rent at a crossroads in the Old Town.
Falling in love with the dusty building,
the couple believed they had found the ideal location. They filled it with old furniture and decorations they had collected from flea markets, including a sign from a 1980s tailor’s shop. They used old doors as tables and hung pictures of Kashgar in old window frames.
“I just want the coffee shop to be a place to showcase Kashgar as it was in the old days. It’s my responsibility to preserve our culture and present it in a modern way,” Mardan said. At the time, many doubted that tea-loving Uygurs would accept coffee; even the couple wondered if people would come to the Old Town to try it.
Nonetheless, Kashgar Corner opened for business in 2018, just as the city’s tourism boom began. Last year, Kashgar hosted more than 8.8 million tourist visits, a rise of 59 percent year-on-year.
In 2018, Xinjiang’s social situation gradually stabilized after several antiextremist and anti-terrorism measures were enacted. For a period, terrorist attacks happened frequently in Kashgar prefecture, preventing people from traveling there.
The coffee shop’s first customers were mainly tourists, often packing the premises at peak times. Gradually, residents of the Old Town developed a taste for coffee, just as they have grown accustomed to young musicians playing Western pop music on the rawap (a traditional five-stringed Uygur instrument) at a famous centuries-old teahouse in the Old Town.
Dilnar Akbar, Mardan’s wife, is no longer surprised to see 70-something locals ordering coffee instead of tea.
“They told me that the decor in Kashgar Corner reminds them of the old times, and they find the aroma of the coffee quite alluring. For them, it is always a good thing to have another place to have a chat in the afternoon,” she said.
Dilnar left Kashgar at age 16 to attend a senior high school in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, before going to a university in the northern port city of Tianjin.
During this time, she became a coffee lover. “My experiences outside Xinjiang opened my eyes. I am glad I can bring new ideas back to our city, which is thirsty for development,” she said.
When Kashgar Corner opened, it was one of only two coffee shops in the Old Town, and the rival was struggling. Now there are seven establishments, Mardan said. “Drinking coffee is no longer an exotic thing, but a part of the daily routine in the Old Town.”
When COVID-19 broke out in China, the couple was worried that their shop would be hit hard from a sharp drop of tourists. Despite their fears, local customers have kept Kashgar Corner afloat.
Mewlan Turaq, 27, owns a clothing boutique in the Old Town. He designs and displays over a dozen pieces of Uygur clothing in the shop, illustrating its evolution during the past century.
The clothing is very popular with tourists, along with such products as vintage accessories, bags and mobile phone cases decorated with Uygur patterns.
Travelers enjoy renting the clothes and paying photographers to take their pictures in the Old Town.
Inspired by the popular 100 Years of Beauty video, which highlights changes in fashion trends in a country or region over time, Mewlan and his team released their own video in 2017 showing trends in Uygur women’s fashion over the past century.
In the two-minute video, Mewlan illustrates the evolution of Uygur fashion in Kashgar from the 1910s to the 2010s.
“We can see that time has left different marks on our clothes, and different cultures have blended. The cultures of East and West have met and melded in Kashgar, an important trading post on the ancient Silk Road, and that shows in the evolution of local fashion,” Mewlan said.
He said his inspiration comes from the Old Town itself. While wandering down the winding alleyways, the shape of a window, the patterns on a carpet or the intricate carving on a wooden ornament become his muse. “The more I get to know about the history of the city and the beautiful stories about it, the more I come to love it.”
Mardan, Mewlan and other young Uygur entrepreneurs in the Old Town often get together and discuss how they can bring out the modern side of Uygur tradition and help people learn more about it.
“The Old Town is a platform for us to share our values and ideas. It inspires us in the exact same way it has inspired the traditional craftsmen of pottery, bronzeware and musical instruments for generations,” Mardan said.
“The Old Town is small, but it’s also big enough to carry our ambitions.”