Summer in Asia 2007

Biking around Kashgar Aug 17, 2007

Today I hopped on a bike and set out to explore Kashgar. I went to two different tombs around town, which were both pretty but not spectacular. For me, they were interesting because I've never seen much Islamic architecture, and both of these were good examples of it.

The highlight of my day was going to the Sunday Market. Kashgar's Sunday Market is one of the most famous in China. It is held even on the weekdays, and since I have to leave fairly early in the morning on Sunday to catch my flight back to Beijing, I decided to head over there today (there is also a livestock market that is held apart from this clothes/spices/kitchenware/fabrics/knives/hats/tires one that I plan to try to visit before heading to the airport on Sunday).

The market was huge, but as I first wandered through it, many of the stalls seemed closed- there would be large blankets thrown over the tables, or chairs blocking the entrances, with no vendors around. I thought maybe it was just lunchtime, or that maybe, since it was Friday, the owner had gone to the Mosque to worship.

I wandered out to one of the main roads, and as I neared an intersection, I saw small boys running around, selling large sheets of plastic to any man who crossed their path. Confused, I kept walking. As I approached the intersection and rounded the corner, I was faced with literally hundreds- if not thousands- of Muslim men, kneeling on small rugs or the sheets of plastic, worshipping. That was where all the sellers from the market were! They were all facing towards me, shoes off, square-shaped caps on their heads, filling the entire wide sidewalk and stretching back along the road for hundreds of meters. On the roof of the building next to the crowd was a man dressed all in white, who would periodically sing something at the top of his lungs.

The men are usually the ones who participate in the worship ceremonies- the day before, I only saw men praying at the Mosque. At the market, all the women sat on the sidewalk across the street, waiting for the service to finish. I joined them, watching the men as they stood and bowed and knelt and bowed, fascinated.

When the service was done, they all stood up and dispersed. And sure enough, as I made another walk through the market, the stalls were all open and ready for business.

In the evening, I was at one of the Western cafes around town returning my bike when I ran into two of the other people sharing my dorm room at the hotel. Upon talking to them, I found out that they had just completed their two years teaching English with the Peace Corps in China. I sat and talked with them for a long time, finding their experiences almost as interesting as I found the Muslim men worshipping. One of them had been teaching in Lanzhou, which, he informed me, actually is a dangerous town! (see July 7 entry) Apparently two other Peace Corps volunteers were involved in a bar fight there with a gang earlier this year, and one of them got stabbed and ended up in the hospital. Sooo... maybe the iNOW people knew what they were talking about when they didn't want us going out on our own...