Kashgar - Sunday Bazaar #3

As promised, this is the third and last post about the Sunday Bazzar, specifically the local/outside section. 
 

Dude, what an awesome place. The spices and herbs and nuts in massive sacks along the path were almost cliche in how poetic they were. The old men in their caps and the women with their headscarfes meant that not for one second could you forget where you really were. Donkeys and scooters clipped my feet constantly, there was dust in my eyes, and the sun was beating down. I don't think this place could be more stereotypical if it tried. AND IT WAS GREAT!!!
  



   
For the first half hour we had a wonderful time going from shop to shop and stall to stall. I tried all the different kinds of nuts before settling on some mini almonds and I smelt all the different kinds of chilli before buying a jin (half a kilo) of the one that didn't make my eyes water too much, but has a wonderful strong spicy scent. It tasted delicious in my dinner last night. The best thing about the purchase process is that they use these wonderful big steel scoops to weight and serve you your choice. The worst thing is that you can't afford to think about how many people have touched the food before you put it in your mouth, and you also have to put the dusty taste (thanks to an actual layer of dust) aside before you get to the actual food you're eating. I like to think it's all part of the experience, and I didn't get sick! I'm pretty sure the fact that I survived the food in Xinjiang means I will never get sick ever in my whole life, but more about that later in another post about the food.






   
The next part seemed to be where the Kashgarians bought their clothes and homewares. All around was suddenly packed full of women and children. There was second-hand stuff and new stuff and people-making-the-clothes-right-there stuff, too. People had bags full of towels and sheets and material and there was also a crazy amount of socks for sale. A little further on and we hit a whole street full of hand-made kitchen things! Pots and pans and mini stoves and even take-home versions of the stand alone barbeques that are so famous in the area. Seriously, this market was like the Wal-Mart of Kashgar. Anything you could ever want or need for life, you could find here... if you knew where to look!

So then we bought a soft-serve from this lady. She was just sitting there. In the middle of the whole market place. With a soft serve machine. It was the shittest icecream I have ever tasted in my life (as though it was made from out-of-date powdered milk) but the cold nature of it was muchly appreciated. Nothing to complain about considering it was only 1 kuai.

Things seemed to get a little rougher from here on in. I'm not sure why, but suddenly there was nothing new or clean, there were more donkeys than bikes, and the people were a little worn around the edges, to put it nicely. In this part there were tradespeople, you know, locksmiths and shoe repairs and sewing machines and the like -

  - but it was no way near as horrible as the final aisle. THE MEAT AISLE. 


HOLY CRAP. SO MANY CARCASSES. SERIOUSLY. DUDE. TOO MANY DEAD ANIMALS HANGING ALL UP EVERYWHERE ALL OVER THE PLACE ALL UP IN MY GRILL.

Seen enough of that flesh yet? Yeah, I'm sure you have. I know I have. Seen enough raw meat hanging in the street and covered in flies for a lifetime. The chopping boards were the worst though - they would just get a big log. Thats it. Just a big log. Oh, and they used axes instead of knives. I know. Each time they chopped something, it would make another groove in that log, and it would splinter and mash the fibres of the wood as the blood and guts got caught up in all the roughness. No way those things ever got cleaned. They were just deadly  surfaces ready to give weak bellies food poisoning. Also just super super duper duper GROSS.

It was well past midday by the time we reached that last meaty aisle, and the sun had been beating down hard on us for several hours, so we decided to call it a day and head over to that big pretty mausoleum for a slice of much-needed peacefulness.  


All in all, I think the Kashgar Sunday Bazaar definitely earns it's stripes. No wonder it's so (read: kind of) famous. It's awesome. Back when I was lying on that couch, looking at that little bubble on the Lonely Planet map, I could not have imagined such an amazing thing to be real. This Bazaar was just one of those places that could have been straight out of a movie, and yet again, I just feel so damn lucky to have been able to experience it.

Then again, I also feel lucky to have survived without my entire digestive system going kamikaze on me. 

"architecture"

To escape from China whilst still being in China was something remarkable. I have spoken already about the things that made Xinjiang province different from the prevailing image of current China. It is of course, primarily the people, but I also realise now that for a traveler, one of the most informing aspects of their location, is the architecture. The buildings you see upon arriving at a new destination shape the fundamentals of your first impressions, and have absolute power in establishing the way you remember the ‘vibe’ or the ‘feel’ of the place.

 

I recall the buildings in North Korea. They were, every single one of them, images from the past. The infrastructure so incredibly outdated I felt as though I was on a movie set. They had less than a handful of metro stations, and each one was a beautiful testament to the Art Deco movement of the 30’s. The apartment blocks were, however, in classic communist style. Large, concrete, uniform.

The metro station in Pyongyang. 

 

I remember visiting Rabbit Island off the coast of Cambodia and walking the whole island in a few hours. The beach made me happy, the local kids made me smile, the island itself was incredibly quaint, but the small shacks that scattered the shore were the icing on the cake. Small bamboo structures facing the best sunsets. They had small extensions for their animals. They were built on stilts to accommodate for the tide. They were falling apart. They were full of life.

I also remember seeing the scary buildings that remained from the French Colonisation... Remember this?

The human habit to create structures is a remarkable thing. So much understanding of the occupant can be gleaned from a look at their home. Infinite conclusions can be drawn about society according to what they choose to build. You can learn about the environment by looking at the materials. You can learn about the socio-economic status of the people living inside. You can learn about how damn cold it gets in winter. You can learn about society’s priorities by looking at how lavish their holy structures are.

Does this structure have large spaces designed for group interaction? Does that structure use its space for a large kitchen or a large bedroom? Is it possible that this city celebrates its wonderful weather, and so this café is almost entirely alfresco? Does your family’s home have large separate bedrooms, or large dining and living room areas? Could you actually quantify the balance between form and function shown in the buildings of your capital city? Does your kitchen have a pig sty just below the window? Why don’t people walk in your local cemetery?

Going back to Kashgar, I want to just show you a few photos of the buildings in the Old Town and the houses we saw in the regional areas and the beautiful mosques. They are certainly nothing like what you see anywhere else in China. They make me want to go to Turkey and Morocco and pretty much the whole Middle East so badly!! 

I couldn't choose which pictures out of the hundreds to put up, so instead of doing any hard thinking and culling, I just created a new format of post. If you like the small image you can click on it and see it full size!

How can it be that humans, all of us needing the same things and living such similar lives, choose to build such remarkably different structures? Incredible. 

Architecture is truly fascinating, and I have such intense respect for its masters. I can say for sure, though, that had I not travelled, I would not harbor such opinions. It is only by seeing the remarkable differences that I have come to appreciate the phenomenon it is. I’ve not even been to Europe yet, which probably makes you laugh because I couldn’t possibly ‘understand’ this unless I had been to the ‘home’ of architecture itself. If you honestly think something douchey like that, though, I feel like you are missing my point.

 Architecture is something that has grown on me because of it’s relation to and interaction with humanity and society. I appreciate the beauty in the architecture of the Louvre as I would a painting inside it, but the insight I can gain into the human experience from looking at how the Masai, as nomads, build their houses in Tanzania, is what will continue to fascinate me about buildings for the rest of my life. As usual, it all comes back to the inherent humanity of the subject.

I really want to talk more about this. But I have to go make some spaghetti and watch Buffy.