Yengisar China Knife Making

[steeley]

It seem that every forum has a word or two about the Uyghur people in Xinjiang Autonomous Region
I thought i bring it up as what is happening with knife tourist trade of the region .
first a little about the people.

Uyghur (ooey-GHUR say Uyghurs, WEE-gur say Americans), also spelled Uighur, is the name of an ethnic group of people mainly live in Xinjiang (means "new frontier" in Chinese) Uyghur Autonomous Region of China , and their language. Historically the term "Uyghur" means "united" or "allied", and was applied to a group of Turkic-speaking tribes that once ruled what is now Mongolia. The Uyghurs were one of the largest and most enduring Turkic peoples living in Central Asia.

This is a great article about them and how tough it is now to ship or bring knives back.
http://www.latimes.com/world/great-reads/la-fg-c1-china-uighur-knives-20140917-story.html#page=1

and now some photos.

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[steeley]

cont..

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[steeley]

cont...

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some the kitchen knives that before the clamp down brought back.

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[steeley]

Hotan Sunday market.

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The blacksmith

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[steeley]

In the Hotan market they sell jade from the near by mines.
I read the that a group of jade collectors sent in there buys to be analyzed and half were fake .
they wondered why it was so cheap.

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[Noodle Soup]

I was in Chengdu a few days after the big attack. The army had basically occupied the city, patrols every where and snipers on the roofs. But they weren't stopping sales of any of the normal Chinese culinary knives. I brought my usual suitcase full home. I might also add there were a lot more of these terrorist knife attacks than western news reported. Just not as large as the one in the train station.

 

[larrybard]

As a former New Yorker, couldn't help notice what looked like bagels. BAGELS??? Is that some local variation, but much different? Next door are they selling nova and a schmear?

 

[steeley]

I was in Chengdu a few days after the big attack. The army had basically occupied the city, patrols every where and snipers on the roofs. But they weren't stopping sales of any of the normal Chinese culinary knives. I brought my usual suitcase full home. I might also add there were a lot more of these terrorist knife attacks than western news reported. Just not as large as the one in the train station.

That is interesting . Pick up anything worth a photo.

And i was trying to see what they called the bagel things . so far bagel.

 

[Noodle Soup]

I watched them make the bagel things on a BBC Chinese cooking program about that region but I forget what they called them. I save the program so I might be able to hunt it up.

 

[Noodle Soup]

I watched them make the bagel things on a BBC Chinese cooking program about that region but I forget what they called them. I saved the program so I might be able to hunt it up.

 

[Sambal]

Uighur bagels from a sunken tandoor oven! Must have the flavour like a bagel-naan? Did you try them Steeley?

 

[Sambal]

The best travelogue I've read of Xinjiang (or Sinkiang as it was called in the past) is 'News from Tartary' by Peter Fleming, Ian's brother, of his journey from Peking (as it was called then) to Srinagar, Kashmir, India in 1935. This was an adventure involving all manner of travel - camel, yak, mule, horse, raft, lorry - traversing the "roof of the world" as it were, going from Beijing to Sian, Sining, Teijinar, Cherchen, Khotan, Yarkand, Kashgar, Gulgit and Srinagar. Very evocative writing on the culture, people, food, landscape, history and even some skullduggery from operatives of the colonial powers - Russians, English, French, Chinese - all trying to get a slice of the place. Fleming himself I'm certain was an English operative. Spying and adventure must run in the Fleming DNA.

My copy of this book (a treasured First Edition from 1936) even has some really good b/w photographs.

Some of the memorable chapter headers:

The Forbidden Province
Winds and Wild Asses
Borodisshin Takes Charge
Thalassa Thalassa
Rebels Don't Care
Hoboes on Horseback
The Pass of a Thousand Ibex

A short excerpt:

"We travelled for two reasons only. . . . One was implicit in the title of this book. We wanted . . . to find out what was happening in Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkistan. It was eight years since a traveller had crossed this remote and turbulent province . . .

The second, which was far more cogent than the first, was we wanted to travel because we believed . . . that we should enjoy it. It turned out that we were right. We enjoyed it very much indeed."




Steeley:

MIA for so long and then back with a BANG without missing a beat with even more fantastic photographs!
Thank you!