China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Silk Road oasis
Kashgar’s 2,000-year-old neighborhoods host legends that lurk in its backstreets and traditions that pave its main avenues. Erik Nilsson explores the Silk Road settlement to discover the ancient city’s new vim.
Ancient streets in Kashgar embrace new vim and diversity
Once upon a time, a demon haunted a neighborhood around Kashgar. It conjured floods that regularly devastated the ancient city, unless residents regularly sacrificed girls by drowning them in the river.
That is, until a young villager named Sulaiman trudged over the snowcapped Kunlun Mountains with a sacred piece of iron ore to forge a giant wok. He captured the demon in the wok and drowned it in the waterway.
The landscape surrounding Kashgar magically changed so that it was shaped like a giant “cooking pot”. Residents have continued to craft woks over the following centuries.
Indeed, this legend is just one of the stories of how the forces of nature and humanity have merged in this geologically and climatically hazardous, yet culturally diverse and flourishing, swath of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Another story tells of a once-in-a-century flood that, long ago, engulfed a neighborhood.
A crack miraculously formed in the earth, swallowing the water. The neighborhood was renamed Areya, which means riverside crevice.
Indeed, the mud-brick buildings were susceptible to nature’s brutality — quakes, floods and blizzards — until recent renovations.
A brittle cluster of crumbly, abandoned earthen buildings still stands near the bustling renovated section of the ancient city, where multistory buildings are adorned with a dazzling array of geometric patterns.
The 4.6-square-kilometer ancient city is a knot of alleyways that host bazaars, handicraft workshops and eateries.
A saying goes: “You haven’t been to Xinjiang unless you’ve been to Kashgar. You haven’t been to Kashgar unless you’ve visited the ancient town.”
The 2,100-year-old settlement possesses a stack of nicknames as tall and varied as the piles of goods that fill its markets.
Signs at the city’s gates announce such monikers as, “food town”, “fruit town”, “melon town”, “jade town”, “town of song and dance”, “town of longevity”, “town of beauty” and “bazaar town”.
Much of this diversity is due to its history as a Silk Road oasis.
It served as a trade center and a stopover for caravans, engendering an inn tradition for not only travelers but also their horses and camels that has evolved into a flourishing homestay industry for visitors from around the world today.
Most residents live on the second or third stories of their homes and operate shops at street level.
Again, largely for historical reasons, neighborhoods are known for particular products, and many families will proudly tell you they’ve worked in the same respective trades for generations.
Kantuman bazaar, or the ironwork market, for instance, hosts blacksmiths’ workshops and retail shops producing traditional folk arts and practical goods, ranging from traditional-style doorknobs bought by tourists to horseshoes sold to herders from the surrounding area. People can also request customized works.
Another street mostly hosts pharmacies selling traditional ethnic Uygur, Han, Kazak, Tibetan and Hui medicine.
Traditional Uygur medicine, which is largely informed by Persian and Indian influences since Xinjiang was a crossroads of ancient international trade, especially during the Silk Road era, contains over 1,000 ingredients based on plants, animals and minerals.
Locals attribute this pharmacology to the fact the area hosts a disproportionate number of centenarians. And many people from Central Asia visit the neighborhood for various treatments.
A nearby cafe even infuses Uygur herbs into its coffee.
The ancient city also hosts a centuryold hat bazaar, where people can buy the distinctive Uygur sheepskin or cloth “flower” hats.
A more recent addition is an oil-painting street, which hosts about 40 studios operated by local masters of the Western genre. The most popular motif is the ancient city in which the works are produced.
On streets and in workshops, travelers can watch locals framing, frying and forging their wares.
Woodworkers burn intricate designs into walnut-wood goods. Potters throw clay on special wheels that enable them to lower their legs beneath the floor. And painters perch behind easels as they slather canvases with globs of color.
Visitors can buy local lutes, bundles of chicken feathers used to stab decorative patterns into naan bread and take a chance by purchasing stones that may — or may not — contain jade.
Indeed, travelers who make it to Kashgar will discover why it has so many nicknames — and exactly how it lives up to all of them.