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October shenanigans part 1: Animal Sacrifices, Japanese Meditation Flutes and a complete lack of res
Kashi(Kaxgar), China
So...yeah, I meant to update this blog almost a month ago after I came back from Kashi (Kashgar) on the 4th...oops. :S There's way too much to put in one entry, so I'll divide it all into two parts. This part will be about my october break, just talking about what I and the other vols did, and the second part will be about what I'll gotten up to since I've come back, what things have happened in and out of the classroom and other such.
Well, there is lots to for me to patter on about, so let's waste no time! The October break started on the first and lasted a week and during that time, our group of Xinjiang vols decided to make a little trip to the land of Kashgar. So silly old me said "Good stuff! No problem, we'll take a trip down the road to Kashgar, spend a few days there and then head home. Couldn't be simpler!" That was, of course, before I found out that we would have to take a crowded bus from Urumqi to Kashi which would take a total time of thirty hours. Yay!
So, this bus ride should have been torturous and uncomfortable and filled with black thoughts involving lots of sharp objects and screaming people, but contrary to what I thought, I actually found myself quite enjoying it. Then again, that may be due to the fact that there were no stops for breakfast, lunch or dinner, so I was forced to spend a day and a bit eating nothing but crisps, cereal bars, these weird Chinese macaroni things and drinking a massive bottle of pepsi. I was one frisky little monkey afterwards, let me tell you. However, after putting so much delicious crap into one's body, it can be expected that it would at some point emerge from the other end in the form of not-so-delicious crap, and that brings me onto the toilets on our pit stops. Sweet Jesus...holes...just holes...and a mountain...a big gelatinous poo mountain...and the smell...the smell burned my nostril hairs. I hope nobody is eating while reading this.
Haha! Who am I kidding? Nobody reads this blog...
So finally, we arrived in Kashgar and checked into the hostel after having a friendly old man invite us to climb onto his wagon so he could personally escort us there. He went completely the wrong way and set us back six yuan, but it's the thought that counts, right? The hostel was just fantastic; there was no roof in the main courtyard which coupled with the sandy and simplistic architecture gave the whole thing a very middle eastern feel. Actually, just about all of Kashi felt middle eastern; it was very hard to grasp that we were still in Xinjiang. After arriving, we pretty much crashed for the rest of the day.
The next morning when we were all bright and refreshed, we decided to just wander and explore the city (we found camels) and we found a beautiful spot by a lake where many lovely pictures were taken, many laughs were had and many items of food were consumed. Slightly after three o'clock, we decided to go back to the hostel. The rest of that day I spent playing guitar with Laura and Harrison on the roof (because I'm just so totally deep and emotional, broski) until a curious man with an even more curious instrument appeared; the instrument looked a little bit like a beaten up recorder, but it only had about five or six holes in it. The sounds this guy could make with it were absolutely beautiful though. I could almost feel myself being transported to a Bhuddist temple while the soft, soulful notes escaped from the mystical instrument. The man (I can't remember his name, I'll call him Conroy) was gracious enough to let Laura, Harrison and I have a go on it. I think it was about 20 minutes before any of us figured out how to get a sound out of it, but it was totally worth it because when we did...it sounded awful. Conroy was a very interesting guy though, he seemed to know a lot about Japanese culture and talked about how he had lived in Henan for about fourteen or fifteen years and then just decided one day that he'd start exploring Xinjiang for a while. That's what I got from it anyway; Conroy's broken English combined with my broken Chinese made conversation very interesting. So we chatted for a while and ended up doing a bit of Wing Chun on the roof as well, a Chinese martial art. It might seem like something that needs to be talked about in detail, but for some reason the whole thing just really stayed with me. Conroy seemed like quite a wise person. It's a shame that I forgot to ask for his contact info. Still, after we finally came down from the roof, we played some cards with Conroy for the rest of the evening and then headed to a club which was too terrible to talk about here. I'll just sum up the night in five words: Nightclubs with raffles and bingo. Yay?
We had arrived just before Eid, which was very lucky because that meant we would be able to watch the people sacrifice a sheep for the occasion. I mean, who doesn't love to bleed, gut, skin and hack up a sheep? Good blood-stained fun for the whole family. The sacrifices were supposed to take place on the morning we were leaving, but as it turned out, our hostel was going to perform one the day before in the evening and serve the sheep for dinner, so it worked out well. Dinner and a show, right? Now, I should point out here that most sheep in Kashi were ugly, and I mean really ugly: they had these massive ghetto booties which bounced all over the place and if their faces didn't look diseased, they looked disfigured. I however, think that this hostel deliberately picked out the fluffiest, most adorable, sweetest sheep in the entire world for this thing just so everybody would feel a little bit worse about watching it die. I got a picture of little Billy (yes, I decided to name him. I'm incredibly gay, shut up) before he was killed, but I couldn't bring myself to take a picture after his head had been ripped clean from his body. To be honest though, I expected the whole thing to be a lot nastier; it was more interesting than sickening. One moment Billy was lying down and the next I could see his jugular pumping life juice out of his neck, which was then swiftly broken. I feel like a monster for saying this, but it really didn't phase me seeing all that. I was just noting how quick the whole thing was and how much blood there was pouring out of Billy's body. Then came the smell. Ughhh...I was standing right next to Billy when he was bled and the aroma of sheep poo and and very metallic blood just overcame me. I had to take a minute just to recompose myself - it was that bad.
I apologise once again to those eating while reading this post.
Apparently I looked rotten, literally like I was decaying, afterwards. Thanks for your kind words, Harrison. Always appreciated. Although, once the prospect of barbequed sheep was presented to me, I perked right up. The meat was just gorgeous, completely gorgeous. It was so succulent and juicy, and the onions with the meat just complemented the whole thing so well and the spices were just...oooooohhh it was soooooo good! Many foodgasms happened. There was something about the fact that we cooked our own kebab on the barbeque which made the food a bit better. I don't know, just for some reason getting lots of hot smoke in my eyes made the whole experience that much more rewarding.
The following day, after the melancholy death of Billy the sheep (though, to be fair, he tasted amazing) it was almost time to leave, but not before beholding the sights of the streets, which were running red with blood at this point. It was not as shocking as one might think however, as everybody was clearly used to this sort of mess and treated it as a totally normal day. Even the kids were getting stuck in. I saw two brothers - or perhaps friends - with a stomach and a liver in each of their hands. They appeared to be arguing over which one was better and kept shaking the organs in front of the other's face, until their father sternly told them to stop.
We decided to take a train back to Urumqi as it was far far cheaper than the bus. The seats we acquired were in the hard sleeper carriage, which sounded horrendous to me. Thirty hours of riding on a rock solid seat sounded like hell to me, but once again, I was pleasantly mistaken. Admittedly, the seats were rather uncomfortable, but they were tolerable. They even served as halfway decent beds (after a fair amount of squirming and fidgeting). Do not be misguided by my positivity of the seats, however. You must understand that this was not a nice journey. Not by a longshot. You see, I could tolerate the dodgy seats, I could tolerate the densely packed nature of the train and I could quite easily tolerate the stares. What I could not tolerate were the obnoxious, caffine dependent, infuriating little balls of impolite grossness that were the children I was sat next to. Ben and Laura know exactly what I'm talking about; they were also sat with me. I think these Kazakh children required attention twenty four hours a day, or else they would die. At first they were ok; they were just playing cards with us and we were all having a good time, then I decided to stop playing and read a bit of Frankenstein instead. This apparently did not sit well with Kazakh boy no.1 as he kept prodding and poking me to play some more, even when I told him to stop. Then came the touching, the play punching and play kicking from Kazakh boy no.2 . If ever there was a time I wished that child abuse was not only legal, but also encouraged, it was then.
Finally we were given respite after about halfway into the journey when we went to the food carriage to get some dinner, which was actually pretty good. Then, when I came back to my seat there were about twelve kazakh and uighur men crowded in and around my seat all playing 'guess who slapped the other person'. Which honestly looked really fun, so I budged up and joined in for a while. I thought an hour or so of this game would be quite nice before trying to get some sleep. They didn't play for an hour though. They played for over three. Not once did they get bored, not once did they let up and not once did anybody say "Ok, you guys, I'm getting a bit tired of this now. I think it's time to go to sleep", or words to that effect in Arabic at least. I think finally they decided enough was enough at about two in the morning when I was finally allowed some shut eye. The Universe has a sick sense of humour however, as the seat I was sitting in was located next to a window which couldn't be closed and as a result, the entire night was spent with me shivering furiously in an attempt to stay warm. I had the best night's sleep of my life on that cold, smelly, uncomfortable train. The occasional prod from one of the children in the other booth (I had moved to sit with Healy and Alistair about fifteen minutes before the men left my seat and moved on) made my sleep so much more enjoyable because it helped to induce dreams of them being massacred by a rusty chainsaw and a Parker fountain pen.
After the train journey from Hell was over, Callum and I decided not to stay a night in Urumqi and just headed back to Karamay, where life has since resumed to normal. That's not to say that life is boring though. I will be recounting the thing's that have been going on in the next part of the October shenanigans blog. Try to contain your excitement! Until next time, as always, remember to stay beautiful you cool cats.
I don't know if I'll keep calling you cool cats, or if I'll just discreetly let it die.
Probably the former, because I enjoy making myself look stupid.
Bye. :)
- comments
Jill Lots of people read this blog :)
Dad Indeed, I agree with Jill. I feel you face dramatic situations with admirable composure and ability. Thank you for sharing those experiences evocatively. :)
mum Great stuff. I would have asked if I could have helped kill a sheep. Bet it tasted fantastic. Keep the excitment coming.