Travelling in Xinjiang

Xinjiang was an impressing and unique place.

It was broad and open, the uninhabitable nature. Within view were nothing but endless extensions of Gobi, prairies, and mountain ranges. In Gobi, big white windmills with large flabellum were a common sight. It was said that each flabellum was much longer than a bus. Some few fell on the ground. Sometimes, there was a little shallow creek flowing, loaded with many pebbles at the banks. Grass was scare, low and colorful with green, reddish and yellowish colors. In the prairie, herds of cows and sheep strode about and grazed the grass. Humans and houses were rare. But, now and then, there were construction sites with little colorful flags waving.

Most of the ethnic minorities there were descendents of Caucasians and Asians, with deep set eyes and high nose. Men were fat, tall, and strong with bushy black moustaches. The Hui wore white turbans, or little round white caps. One big and ruddy Hui man had a big moustache which curled like a fan. He had heavy eyebrows and small eyes. The Uygur men wore small white caps with flowery patterns and the women wore colorful headscarves. Some Uygur girls were very beautiful. I saw one with long black curly hair, tilting jaw, cute small nose, big brown eyes, and sweet thin mouth.

People there had different personalities with Chinese in the east. They were straight-forward and frank, not overly civilized. I talked with a Hui boy. When I complimented that he was smart, to my astonishment, he replied, “of course, I was smart, actually, I was unusually smart”. He also casually mentioned that he was ousted from the high school because of fighting with others. Another person talked about his stories of camping with his classmates in the mountain when he was in middle school. They stole one sheep, killed and boiled it in a big caldron. At night, they could hear the wolves howling. They took turns taking care of each other and the caldron. In the end, they were sent to the police station and stayed there for several days. He looked very happy-go-lucky. He said that, his biggest aim in life was to live a happy life, and raise a happy family. He used to be in the army, and he was so tired that he could fall asleep standing bolt upright. Now he was a politician.

As the train drew nearer to Urumqi, I could see the snow-topped mountain in the distance, a mark that seemed near, but quite far.

However, at last, it arrived. The city appearing in front of me looked a little dismal. It was not as developed as those prosperous modern eastern cities. But the many pots of small colorful flowers decorating some roads added some rich slashes to the city. Because of the dry weather, there were springs spurting water wherever there were lawns and trees in the city.

The weather was very weird with sharp ranges of temperature. For example, in the outside, when we stood in the shade for several minutes, we would get so cold that we had to move to the sun-shone place to get warm. But after several minutes, we would get so hot that we had to move to the shade to cool off again. It was scorching at noon and chilly at night. Because of it, fruits could accumulate large amounts of sugar, and were very sweet. So, Xinjiang was honored as the land of fruits and melons with some special fruits, such as flat peaches and Hami melon.

Meat and wheat were the staple. The dishes were generally very heavily seasoned, salty, spicy and oily, such as the common and delicious mutton shashlik. Pieces of lean mutton and a piece of fat were strung on the skewer, and roasted very hard and fragrant, then scattered with seasonings. There were also many kinds of flour-made snacks, such as the crisp Chinese doughnut and the sweet corn pancake. The corn pancake was strewn with golden and shining corn grains.

At night, colorful city lights twinkled. In the square, many people gathered, had fun and danced. A big screen in front shown shining red characters of Maintain the cooperation of different ethnics and promote the stability of the frontier.

The Xinjiang Provincial Museum exhibited a lot of artifacts excavated from the ancient Silk Road. Besides, it also shown the ancient mummies. Due to the dryness of the desert, some ancient bodies dated back to thousands of years didn’t rot. One woman mummy named “Loulan Beauty” was very famous. When she was found, she was still very well preserved to the point that her eyelashes could be seen plainly. But when I saw her in the museum, the whole body seemed to be cast of black copper, so I really couldn’t quite acknowledge her past beauty. But she had a slightly tilting jaw, and deep-set eyes. Her hair was in good condition, light yellow and blackish.

The Red Hill Park was considered the symbol of Urumqi. The red hills were of purple glutenite. The appearance of the hills was like a big dragon. At the hilltop, I could have a bird’s eye view of Urumqi. A big Ferris wheel with colorful seats stood out distinctly on the background of sprawling buildings.