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Kyrgyz villagers, views and vomit

Published 26 June 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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funny pictures

We went to sleep the second night feeling a bit more acclimated to the altitude and with bellies full from a delicious dinner. All seemed well in the world as we dozed with goats grazing nearby and the babbling brook slipping past our tent. That is until round about 6:00 am when Steph was suddenly taken from us by an acute bout of gastrointestinal troubles. We’re still not exactly sure where she picked it up, but some combination of altitude sickness, sun poisoning and perhaps some under-boiled water created within Stepho a world of hurt.

After some negotiations with our guides we decided strapping Steph to one of the camels and having it carry the increasingly ill lady up the mountain would not be advisable. So, hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, we holed up in a local’s two-room house and began to exorcise the demon from Steph. When I imply that Stepho was possessed I do not exaggerate. The normally boisterous, opinionated and vivacious Stephanie was rendered mute, limp and utterly compliant. It was quite a worrisome scenario.

While the rest of the group ventured up to Muztagh-Ata’s base camp, Steph lay swaddled in blankets in a Kyrgyz villager’s house with a bucket nearby and a worried Crank at the bedside. Not only was dehydration from the copious and multi-sourced effluent a serious concern, but there were whispers among the villagers that these sick American tourists had brought with them to the far reaches of China the dreaded swine flu which that week had been officially declared a global pandemic.

This village was home to semi-nomadic Kyrgyz people who moved up and down the mountain with their flocks of goats, sheep and yaks according to the seasons. About half the structures in the village housed livestock and the nearby cemetery was equal parts headstones and grazing goats. Our incredible host was a family with two beautiful children and a grasp of Mandarin as tenuous as my own. The kids gawked at the foreigners shacking up in their “guest room” and I mostly smiled and nodded with the mother and father.

After about 12 hours of seriously scary sickness Steph stabilized and started drinking and nibbling again. With more fluids going in than coming out I stepped outside for a bit to wander the dusty alleys of the village, photographing the sights and attempting to chat with the locals. I shared my Western candy with them and they offered me freshly baked bread and wide smiles.

By the next morning Steph had returned to the land of the living, but was far from 100 percent. We regrouped with our trek and bussed back to Kashgar where a real bed, a shower and plenty of fresh water returned Steph’s strength before flying on back to Beijing.

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Pack camels and heavy cameras

Published 25 June 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Because we went trekking with camels I had the luxury of packing some heavier items — which, in this case, and to my supreme delight, included the weighty Hasselblad camera. Below are some favorite photos that were captured on film:

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To the Desert Planet (trekking beginnings)

Published 24 June 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Mutzagh-Ata. Or, cooler: "Father Ice Mountain"

After our initial foray into Kashgar, we left the next morning to head for the hills (literally). Our whole trip was organized with the help of the Beijing Hikers, so all we had to do was role out of bed in the morning and head down stairs to meet our local guides and bus, along with our four other traveling companions (Steffan, Chuck, Han Ye, and Jo).

We drove out of the poplar-lined city of Kashgar and towards the Pamir mountain range on the far western border of China. The 3 1/2 hour drive along the Karakoram Highway was beautiful, through fruit market filled towns and past golden fields of wheat (we were there during harvest time), towards white, snow-capped mountains. After stopping for a few photo ops along the way (at the red and sand mountains, respectively, pictured below), we ended at the incredibly beautiful Karakul Lake. The lake is home to a large Kyrgyz settlement and is the starting point for many camel treks into the surrounding mountains. As such we were no novelties to the locals, who swarmed around our bus and seemed to haggle with our local guides on all manner of camel-loading (I think…) related issues. For our four-day trek around Karakul Lake and to the base of Mutzagh-Ata we loaded up five camels (who did not spit at me, despite several warnings to the contrary, and who I thought were pretty awesome) and set out from the lake at just before 2 o’clock to begin the trekking part of our adventure.

The first day we hiked about five hours around the lake and through a dry riverbed to our first camp of the trip. After getting in to camp we were all pretty exhausted and a little out of it from the altitude (about 3,900 meters), so we spent most of the (very chilly) evening resting in our tents. By the time we had rolled in to camp the clouds had rolled in, too, so it was an awesome surprise to wake up in the middle of the night to a serenely starry sky lighting up Mutzagh-Ata (Father Ice Mountain, in Uighur) in the background. I made Craig get up too, and we wandered out of our tent to spend a cold twenty minutes admiring the moonlit mountain and the incredibly quiet beauty of the valley. In the morning we poked our heads out of our tent again to see the picture above — soft sunlight rolling across the snowy mountains, shaking us from our sleepy stupor with its beauty.

The second day we backtracked slightly from our riverbed camp and walked through the valley floor, stopping along the way at a Kyrgyz village where our local guide happened to know a family who let us in and graciously shared their food; bread and yak yoghurt, the local specialty, which were incredibly tasty after a long morning’s hike. Most of the area locals are nomads and walking out of the village we saw many herds of sheep and goats and yaks across the valley floor. It was walking among these many animals across the increasingly lush (and wet…) valley that we came upon our second night’s camp, nestled in the outskirts of another small Kyrgyz village. After an incredibly delicious dinner of a western pasta and a local lamb dish served with naan, we went to bed to rest up for our hard climb up to Mutzagh-Ata’s base camp the following morning.

For more photos from the trip (yes! there are so many more), view my Picasa page here. More updates on the remainder of the trip coming soon!

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Mosques, meats and Mao in Kashgar

Published 22 June 2009 Uncategorized 4 Comments
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We took an early flight out of Beijing and after a brief layover in Urumqi our plane made a dusty landing at the Kashgar International Airport. We were met by our local Uighur guide, Petidin Abdul Kiyum or simply “Patty,” and bussed downtown to our hotel. Although it’s thousands of kilometers east of China’s capital, the Xinjiang province, like the rest of the PRC, runs on Běijīng shíjiān (“Beijing time”) and the sun doesn’t set until well after 10 pm. With the extra daylight we got to thoroughly explore Kashgar’s deliciously-greasy, cart- and kebab-filled downtown.

In the center of town sits the Idgah Mosque, the largest in China, where the large Muslim local population comes to pray several times a day. The temple’s thick, orange walls and densely planted poplars make the mosque’s open air interior a true sanctuary from the hustle and bustle outside. We padded around in bare feet for a while before heading back out through the enormous, copper-covered front doors.

The nearby streets are cluttered with electric bicycles, hawkers offering fresh melon by the slice and the occasional livestock. Local Muslim women often wear a full veil while the recent Han Chinese immigrants are more partial to the miniskirt and heels. It was apricot season while we were there so we loaded up on the sweet little fruits and also noshed on some kebabs and salty bagels, but we steered clear of the stewed goat head being ladled up fresh and steaming.

Following a loud and constant tapping sound, we headed down the street to find several copper smiths hammering smooth some enormous bowls sold by weight. We picked up a beautiful slotted copper spoon, perfect for fishing cooked jiaozi out of boiling water.

After some fresh fruit, a new kitchen implement and one last shower, we got into our (“Chinese firm”) bed and nodded off at around 11:00 as the last streaks of sunset slipped over the horizon, right behind the gigantic statue of Mao looming across the street from our hotel.

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A week in Xinjiang…

Published 21 June 2009 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Stepho and Crank do Xinjiang!

Crank and I just got back from a week-long excursion to the Xinjiang province of China. Though many probably haven’t heard of Xinjiang, it is actually China’s largest province and has an incredibly rich history, steeped in the heart of the Silk Road, which I knew nothing about before visiting. Turns out: Xinjiang is hugely important to China. One-sixth the total size of the country, rich in natural resources like oil, gas and minerals, and bordering eight different countries, Xinjiang is a target for intense PRC scrutiny. Although it does not have the media profile of Tibet, Xinjiang has similarly been a target of ethnic conflict and at times cultural suppression. The area is ethnically quite different from the rest of the mainland, with a completely different linguistic family and alphabet (part of the Turkic languages). The majority of the population is Uighur (Turkic Muslims), with small pockets of Kazakh, Hui, Kyrgyz, and other ethnicities. Over the last century more and more Han Chinese have moved into the west, so that now Han Chinese are the second largest ethnic group in the region (second to the Uighurs).

I feel ill-equipped to adequately address the political and ethnic tensions that underlie the vast Xinjiang province. I know that a similar story afflicts Xinjiang that is prevalent in so many areas where different cultures and politics come to a head. I can really only speak to our narrow experience, which introduced us to Han, Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz people. To us, evidence of tension seemed sporadic but was there — terse discussions of Mao’s influence on the Xinjiang people while driving past his statue looming over the town’s square; road signs that we learned were changed into a new language to prevent locals from learning English; our guide’s brief mention that he is unable to get a passport or leave the country. But for each strange tense episode there was evidence of different, less politically divided real life — our Uighur guide joking with our Han cooks; local Kyrgyz villagers conversing with American travelers in broken Chinese. For now it seems China’s relationship with the Xinjiang people and province will remain a quixotic one — them continuing to keep hold of an important strategic resource and encouraging development of the area while trying to protect the value of the region’s unique cultural history.

More posts soon on some of our specific exploits in camels and kebabs and windy old town streets, but for now a brief itinerary of our travels and some teaser photos:

    Day 1: Flew from Beijing to Urumqi (capital of Xinjiang), and then on to Kashgar.

    Day 2: Left Kashgar for the incredibly beautiful Karakul Lake, close to the border of Kyrgysztan. Met up with our camels and began trekking!

    Day 3: After breaking camp from our riverbed site (with amazing views of the mountain) we continued trekking, today through two new Kyrgyz villages.

    Day 4: The plan: Walk up to the basecamp of Mutzagh-Ata, camp for the night. The reality: Stepho gets horribly ill, we spend the day and night camped out in the home of a Kyrgyz nomad while Stepho lies unmoving for 36-hours, trying to recover. Family thinks she has swine flu. She does not.

    Day 5: We drive back to Kashgar. Some people continue to explore the city, others continue to explore the fascinating reaches of the hotel bed.

    Day 6: Spend the morning visiting the Old City of Kashgar, filled with winding roads and hundreds of Uighur families, and then head to the airport for our flights back home.

Valley floor, hiking around Mutzagh-ata

Lake Karakul

LOLpandas

Published 16 June 2009 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Cause sometimes LOLcats just aren’t cute lazy enough.

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The Baby-Butt Phenomenon

Published 15 June 2009 Uncategorized 6 Comments
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Butt-less chaps!

Among the many interesting cultural phenomenons we have come across in our time here, one of my all-time favorites is the butt-less baby pants. Perhaps you’ve seen them before — all manner of clothes, from baby-snugglies to cargo shorts to girls’ leggings (a personal favorite, see photo above), simply missing their middle.

To me it started as a comical site — adorable children, running around with their baby butts hanging out. What could be cuter? But I have grown increasingly curious about this custom, including its cultural background, its health implications, and its impact on the economy of diapers.

Though it seems that the trend might be slowing, particularly among the upper-middle class, the butt-less pants are still incredibly prevalent almost everywhere in China we’ve traveled, on children ranging in age from zero to three. To me one of the most fascinating things is the implications the clothes have on the rearing and potty-training of children. Where most parents in the U.S. slap a diaper on their kids and wait until they are around 24 months to start potty training, it seems many Chinese parents begin this conditioning right after birth. (Except it’s not really potty training, it’s often training to potty in the most public of places). Probably my favorite viewing of this in action was atop the Summer Palace, where a mother was encouraging her diaper-less, semi-clad infant to pee in front of a crowd of dozens and dozens of people passing by. Besides trying not to step in his pee, I was mostly in awe that this several week old child was being conditioned to go to the bathroom on command.

Perhaps I am amaze by these things because I was a late bloomer when it came to potty training (I stubbornly refused to take off diapers until my preschool threatened to not enroll me at the age of over three…). Nevertheless, it has made me question our insistence on diapers and makes me wonder at the capabilities of children to absorb conditioning and knowledge from such an early age.

Also, I think it will just be one of those cultural differences that never fails to make me smile.

A wee babe on top the Summer Palace

Just some stairs

Top 5 iPhone Apps for Traveling in China

Published 12 June 2009 Uncategorized 3 Comments
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While the iPhone hasn’t officially yet come to mainland China (to the glee of black marketeers) Apple’s shiny wonder brick is the modern traveler’s best friend. Beyond the conveniences of Skype, news and weather, here are some Sino-specific apps that have been helpful during our travels in China.

iphone qingwenQingwen Chinese Dictionary – This impressively large dictionary contains over 80,000 entries, ranging from “check please” (maidan) to “Stephanopolous” (“Sitefannuopuluosi”). Mr. Stephanopolous has yet to come up in conversation, but I like to be prepared. Qingwen has been utterly indispensable in our studies here. We downloaded it when it was free, but today at $4.99 the app is still a total steal. Many of the students at our school are using extremely similar dedicated electronic dictionaries that cost upwards of a hundred bucks that don’t do too much more than Qingwen. DianHua Dictionary is a good, free alternative. It’s not as slick as Qingwen but its search function does allow for mixing characters, Pinyin and English.

iphone currencyCurrency – There are many currency converter apps out there that want to charge you 99 cents. This one is free, simpler and, therefore, better than all the rest. Enough said.

iphone LPLonley Planet Mandarin Phrasebook – There’s lots of phrasebooks scattered across the sprawling app store, but LP’s is the slickest one. With over 600 phrases, easy search and helpful categories, you can quickly find the phrase you’re looking for. Each phrase is written in English, Pinyin and simplified Mandarin characters and also includes an audio option where a native speaker says aloud the phrase. For getting around the country or ordering food it’s quite useful. World Nomads Mandarin Language Guide is a decent, free alternative.

iphone pandaPanda Words – Learning to correctly write Mandarin characters requires three things – practice, practice, practice. But to practice you’ve got to know what order to draw the strokes. Panda words has animated demonstrations of hundreds characters so you can see how it’s done. The app lets you practice write on the screen but if you don’t want your characters looking like they were drawn by a toddler using MS Paint, I recommend sticking with pen and paper.

iphone metroBeijing Metro – For 99 cents, it’s worth having a complete map of Beijing’s sprawling, and growing, metro in your pocket. All the stations are labeled in Pinyin as well as Mandarin characters. It’s even got a built in taxi card generator, so if you need to get from the hotel to the nearest subway station you can just show your phone to the driver and he’ll be able to read where you want to go.

The World of Chinese Warcraft

Published 9 June 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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In moving to Beijing’s Haidian district, we swapped California’s Silicon Valley for China’s own Silicon Alley. We live right next to Zhōngguāncūn, the city’s technology hub, and can see Microsoft, Google and Sun Microsystem buildings from our apartment. Lenovo’s global HQ is just up the street while AMD and Intel have side-by-side campuses around the corner. In the midst of all this are five technology bazaars where a geek with some hardnosed bargaining skills can haggle for anything computer related.

But in the basement of these mall-sized computer markets are huge playgrounds for video game nerds where hundreds of HDTVs have Wiis, Xboxes and PS3 dangling from them. Meanwhile, internet cafes full of PCs rent access to virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and EverQuest by the hour.

The Saturday afternoon I was there was particularly intriguing as two professional video game teams battled it out in front of an audience complete with streaming video to huge-screen TVs, bleachers and even commentators. Run by GTV.com.cn, the two teams of five each battled old-school style, in the world of WarCraft III’s Azeroth (pictured here).

The popularity of arcades and huge gaming halls is, like so many things in China, in part driven by harsh government regulation. Console video game systems (Nintenos, Xboxes and Playstations) have been officially banned since 2000. Meanwhile, PC games have to be approved by the State Press and Publication Administration. Games like World of Warcraft have been repeatedly denied approval and need to have “offensive” material removed before entering the immense and growing Chinese market. The government has also cracked down on unlicensed internet cafes, closing an estimated 15,000 “shàngwăng bā” last year.

Of course, like any good prohibition, these bans have simply made the business of video games all the more lucrative for the enterprising individual. The gray and black markets for video games, both real and pirated, have been flourishing. Console video game sales soared to $4.7 billion last year, up from $3.2 billion in 2007, according to a report by China Software Industry Association. Meanwhile, online gaming posted record sales in 2008 of $2.75 billion in 2008, up 61% over 2007, according to the research firm Niko Partners.

But the PRC will not sit idly by while its youth are sucked into virtual worlds. The government has been setting up internet addict clinics for youth who spend hours blasting foes online. “Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks.”

These draconian methods have not deterred gamers, who number nearly 60 million. And the number is growing quicker here than nearly anywhere else in the world, likely surpassing the number of US gamers this year, to the notice of game makers. Giant billboards for World of Warcraft soar above busy Beijing streets while WoW has even earned a spot in my electronic Mandarin dictionary – 魔獸世界 or “Móshòushìjiè.”

However, since this past weekend, Chinese WoWers have been without their fix as the makers of the game are sloppily transitioning from one licensing company to another to host their Chinese operations. When the lights in Azeroth come back on at the end of the month we’ll see how many Chinese paladins return to smite the nonbelievers.

China vs. the Internet

Published 8 June 2009 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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You’ve heard me complain about China’s internet censorship before, but with the recent twentieth anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square the PRC has redoubled its efforts to block a huge amount of content online that might fracture China’s official historical record.

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Consequently, Steph and I have been having a hard time logging on to update the blog. It seems that things are back up and working now so we’ll be putting up a bunch of new content soon. But first, here’s a list of recently blocked sites dubbed as threats to the peace and prosperity of the People’s Republic of China:

  • Self-indulgent ramblings of hipsters (Twitter.com)
  • Susan Boyle (YouTube.com)
  • Your eight-year-old brother’s blog (Blogger.com)
  • Ceiling and basement cat (icanhascheezburger.com)
  • Your vacation photos (Flickr.com)
  • Your grandma’s email (Hotmail.com)
  • StephoandCrank.com (WordPress.com)

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