Xianjiang Province

(written Wednesday, June 6)
While it is shortly after 11pm in Beijing, it is actually two hours behind here in Urumqi, which is the capital of Xianjiang Province - the most western province of China. Urumqi is notable for the fact that it is the farthest inland city in the world. Even though the country is officially on the same time zone, practically speaking Xianjiang operates two hours behind because of the obvious differences living four hours west of Beijing in terms of daylight. The Uyghurs (there are 9 million of this minority people group in this province) pay more attention to the rising of the sun than the Beijing government people... so on some places you see the business times listed both in Beijing and local time. While the ticket for our flight to Kashgar says it leaves at 20:55, the flight actually leaves here at 18:55 - something I wouldn't have known if I was here by myself!

The flight out here was fascinating as the make-up of the people on the plane was so varied, so many minority peoples. This is such a different China - yet it is still China. My friend and former student from Wheaton, Carolyn, met me at the Urumqi airport last night. Today, one of Carolyn's contacts took us to a Uyghur restaurant with live traditional Uyghur music and dance - and then Carolyn who speaks Uyghur quite well went up to the three musicians who are actually from south Xianjiang - near Kashgar - talked to them about their instruments and introduced me as her teacher and it was really cool. They respect teachers a great deal and were fascinated that I wanted to take video of their music so I could share it with my students back at school. Then after our conversation with them, we walked down the street to the Xianjiang Arts College; we heard all the students practicing and easily found the music building. We wandered a little further and heard a large group rehearsing so we slipped in and heard a dress rehearsal for a concert tomorrow night (which we have to miss because of our flight to Kashgar). It was a Uyghur orchestra - very, very unusual. All traditional Uyghur instruments (several varieties of string instruments) plus western cellos and basses, 4 Uyghur flutes, one oboe, a girl playing timpani and 3 dap (frame drum) players. They played some arrangements of western orchestra music and some music written by a Uyghur composer. It was amazing! Afterwards, Carolyn approached the conductor, one of the faculty soloists and the director of the music division and spoke to them in Uyghur and got into a wonderful conversation. The conductor is Uzbeck and has only been at the college two months and he started this orchestra and it is excellent. Carolyn said one can find Chinese orchestras but a Uyghur orchestra is so unusual and she was excited for the opportunity for these young Uyghur music students to get this kind of training and experience! They invited us back to their rehearsal tomorrow (I will bring enough tape this time - we had no idea this would happen!). And we had a picture taken and they want a copy of it. It was just an amazing day - both Carolyn and I are feeling exhilarated by the opportunities we had today.

We are staying in a 5-star hotel, for a pretty small amount of money. We have a corner room on the 26th floor so we have a great view of the mountains and the city (except the windows need washing). As Carolyn said, you can tell this is a 5-star hotel because there were rose petals in the toilet after they cleaned it! :) Never saw that in our student-oriented hotel in Beijing!

It is such a different feeling here - everything is in Chinese and Uyghur (Arabic script). When we are in the taxi, it feels like we are in the Middle East in so many ways. The only English is in a few places run by Americans. Last night we had dinner at a Texas/Mexican place and Mexican food never tasted so good - the quesadillas, rice and beans were a welcome change!

Tomorrow night we fly to Kashgar and then another hour drive to the town of Yengisar, where Carolyn and James live. It is then another 20 minutes to the farm where James works as a manager. So I will have a full range of experience of China! More to follow...