- 3 days ago
In Episode 3 the trio set their coordinates for Xinjiang’s far west. Here, in the Kashgar Prefecture, they discover a multi-ethnic melting-pot where people eat differently, dress differently, yet still manage to live in harmony. While Nico joins a Kyrgyz camel caravan for a jaunt up Mt. Muztagh and Neil lifts the veil on the ancient city of Kashgar and the world of Uyghur music, Hasnaa gets busy sampling all the different ethnic cuisines! What a way to explore the facets of the unique cultural gem that is Xinjiang!
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Whoa!
00:01Oh, wow.
00:03There's a new world that opens to you.
00:06Impressive.
00:07Look, they're fighting.
00:08They're riding their horse and at the same time
00:10fighting for the sheep.
00:11How are they keeping balance?
00:16I'm here in Shacha, which is near Kashgar.
00:18And I've come here because I'm interested in investigating
00:21a particular type of music, mukham.
00:25If you want to understand Kashgar,
00:27you need to understand the geography.
00:30I'm starting to really feel the altitude.
00:32As soon as I take one step, I feel like I run a marathon.
00:37Kashgar seems in some ways in the middle of nowhere.
00:40But in fact, it's the center of everything.
00:43I could understand these years of history
00:46and artistic expression through all the spaces that
00:49surround me while I'm visiting the city.
00:52Still trying to learn around the fire this time.
00:54It's crazy to think that so many people
00:56live in this same region, but have very different cultures,
01:00dress differently, eat differently, think differently.
01:03Because here we have two lines of the Silk Road
01:07meet here in Kashgar.
01:08Those Silk Roads have brought a variety of people,
01:12cultures, traditions, ideas, and religions
01:14into this one place.
01:16You want to see?
01:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:18Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:21Got some.
01:24The frontier of China, the heart of Eurasia.
01:28I'm at the foot of Mount Muzagada in Aktau County, western Xinjiang.
01:44It is one of the many mountains that surrounds the Pamir Plateau.
01:48My name is Nico de Rouge, I'm French.
01:51I specialize in reportage and documentary photography,
01:55which takes me around the world.
01:57This region is famous for a group of Kirghese people
02:03called the Kamakorps.
02:04They help the tourists on their ascent of the mountain.
02:09It's only the beginning of the season,
02:10but it looks like they're already helping some tourists on their ascent.
02:13The business seems to be doing pretty good.
02:15Let's go say hi.
02:16Hi, Nico.
02:17Hi.
02:18My name is Dili.
02:19We are the登山隊 and the駕駛隊.
02:22Are you all of them?
02:24On the駕駛, we have our登山 equipment and equipment.
02:27This is a place of the land.
02:29This is special.
02:30Yes, it's a place of the high-fledged, cold-fledged area.
02:33So it will be more of its hair.
02:35That's so warm.
02:37That's what I want.
02:38Yes, yes, yes.
02:39That's what I want.
02:40Can I come with you?
02:41Yes, yes, yes.
02:42All right.
02:43Let's go.
02:44Let's go.
02:45In this area, it's wild.
02:47It's empty.
02:48It's raw.
02:49It's rough.
02:50It's hard to imagine that such a desolate place can be so close
02:54to a vibrant city like Kashgar.
03:02Kashgar, or town, is the center of Kashgar.
03:05Here, you can find residential buildings of several hundreds of years old.
03:11I'm Hasna.
03:12I come from Morocco, from Casablanca.
03:14I came here to China to be working in architecture.
03:18Here, you can find residential buildings.
03:19Since 2009, Kashgar, old town, has undergone a major renovation program.
03:25And I'm on my way to meet Pazilati, an architect who has led the project in this area.
03:30Hi.
03:31I'm Pazilati.
03:32All these architectures are new ones.
03:35Yes, new ones.
03:36It's very impressive, because we really look old in all its detail, even the windows.
03:41Oh.
03:42The frozen facade.
03:43Yes.
03:44We give it a better foundation, better structure.
03:46We made the look as same as before.
03:49It kept the same architectural technology of a maze-like streets and narrow alleyways and beautiful
03:56game of lightings and shadows, just all leading you through the historical place of this culture.
04:03I'm here in Shacha, which is near Kashgar.
04:12And I've come here because I'm interested in investigating a particular type of music, mukam.
04:22My name is Neil Schmidt.
04:24I'm an American and a historian of China.
04:28Mukam is essentially a divertimento, a combination of song and dance, folk and classical music.
04:35And I'm here with a young researcher by the name of Wang Jiangyang, who spent years of his
04:40life recording mukam throughout Xinjiang.
04:44In the mukam, we have the history, poems, the love, the life about the people.
05:03In Shacha, we have 12 mukams.
05:06When you've been to Hamming, Japan, also have different kind and different styles.
05:13Mukam has been a way for readers to understand their culture over hundreds of years.
05:18Even people who couldn't read can enjoy and listen to.
05:22It's been an evolving encyclopedia in many ways because it contains so much of culture.
05:34We went to visit one of the houses that she renovated 10 years ago.
05:38I was really, really impressed.
05:40There's a new world that opens to you that you can expect from the simple facade.
05:45And now you end up seeing this.
05:47Tell me how.
05:49So you chose by yourself how you wanted the interior design of your house to be.
05:53Yes.
05:54Very nice.
05:55Very nice.
05:56They chose the typical Uyghur style.
05:58They prefer the style.
05:59They prefer the style.
06:00They prefer the style.
06:01They prefer the style.
06:02So you chose by yourself how you wanted the interior design of your house to be.
06:07You don't know how much you were here.
06:08You asked me how.
06:09And you left the interior design of your house.
06:10They played the interior design of your house.
06:11It's such a nice the whole thing.
06:12Your house also used to be Velocity.
06:13It's like a nice.
06:14It's even the same.
06:15You don't know how to define the interior design of your house.
06:16It's normal.
06:17It's just one of those two types of people that you want to.
06:20Yes.
06:21It's the typical Uyghur style, and they prefer this style.
06:28Karkerz-Zo-ren, do you have any other names?
06:33Karkerz-Zo-ren, we used to have a lot of people.
06:37We used to have a lot of people in Karkerz-Zo-ren.
06:41We used to have a lot of people in Karkerz-Zo-ren.
06:44We used to have a lot of people in Karkerz-Zo-ren.
06:48We used to have an ancient legacy in Karkerz-Zo-ren.
06:54It's a typical name of the city.
06:58I had a very good name on Karkerz-Zo-ren.
07:03I had a really good name on tape.
07:06We used to have brand new Prya-Zo-ren.
07:09We used a lot of people.
07:12We used to put a wall in Karkerz-Zo-ren.
07:16It was a very hard time for us to make it worse.
07:20I was a kid, I was a kid and I was a kid.
07:28Even though I was a kid, I was a kid.
07:34The Kashi-Lal-Chunququ is a history of a hundred years.
07:37It is based on our own business.
07:39The business model is to protect our own life.
07:46So last year, December, I recorded this.
07:51It's beautiful.
07:53Yes.
07:54It's like 11 years that I have interviewed and recorded 3,000 musicians.
08:02That's a lot of work.
08:04Yes.
08:07For me, it was particularly interesting because I saw instruments in Dunhuang that are still played here today in Xinjiang.
08:14We have the biggest music, like mukam.
08:17We have the Kazakh music, Tajik music.
08:20The culture is, like, mixed.
08:22This music is a very important part of the Chinese traditional music.
08:28The database is incredibly valuable because he's preserving culture that's fast disappearing,
08:33and he's preserving it in a way, digitally, that he can share with future generations
08:38to create new forms of art to maintain this tradition.
08:42Yeah.
08:43Yeah.
08:44Yeah.
08:45Yeah.
08:46Yeah.
08:47Yeah.
08:48Yeah.
08:49Yeah.
08:50Yeah.
08:51After many years, we can listen to it.
08:54We can see it.
08:55Otherwise, I think the youngest haven't been interested in this traditional music.
09:00Yeah.
09:01I guess it's time for school.
09:02They're all getting ready.
09:03They're all getting ready.
09:04Bye-bye.
09:05Bye-bye.
09:06Bye-bye.
09:07I'm bringing the kids to school.
09:09They're running faster.
09:11All right.
09:12All right.
09:13Many people thought they were changing it and couldn't find it before.
09:15We want to protect the culture.
09:19If there's a storm, these things would be gone.
09:22It's a shame.
09:23We're using another way to keep it longer.
09:28Yeah.
09:29What's interesting about this place is that it's the perfect scenography of what existed
09:33before.
09:34It looks like a theme park, only it is real.
09:36It is real people, real lifestyle.
09:38My head, a little headache.
09:45It's been tough to breathe.
09:47As soon as I take one step, I feel like I run a marathon.
09:51For them, it's just like a walk in the park.
09:53I think they do it quite often.
09:55And walking around in altitude like this is something that they're used to.
09:59For a city boy like me, it's not the same.
10:01One of the main characteristics that jumped out to me was their resilience.
10:05That people who live in these kind of harsh conditions turn out to be a bit tough.
10:11When you look at them go, you feel like you're going to make it.
10:15Because they're going to make it, no doubt.
10:16And they're with you.
10:23Wang Yangjung took me to a perimeter.
10:25I was incredibly touched because here I was a stranger.
10:28And they welcomed me like a good friend.
10:35You're from America.
10:40I'm from China.
10:41And he's from Spain.
10:42You don't know him.
10:43But when you play the music together, maybe one minute, five minutes will be all the friends.
10:50Music also builds community, right?
10:52Yes.
10:53Yes.
10:54It's important.
10:55So they're on their way now to C1.
11:00And then C2 and C3, I think.
11:03And then in the end, they'll reach the top of the mountain at 7,000 meters.
11:06I hope it all goes well.
11:09For thousands of years in the Kashgar region, different cultures have existed and they continue to exist.
11:15Not only do we have Uyghurs and Kyrgyz in this area, but of course we have Han, Hui and Tajiks as well.
11:22I'm here on Karakoram Highway to Karnyong village, which is a Tajik village with more than 400 years history.
11:31And it took a while on the road to get there, but the scenery is so amazing that it felt like a flash.
11:37It's one of the most elevated highways in the world and the highest paved road that ever existed.
11:43It starts in Pakistan and ends in front of me in Kashgar.
11:49Kashgar was the center of trade on the ancient Silk Road.
11:53And today you can still feel its trading history through its active bazaars full of life and culture.
12:01I am on my way to the food bazaar and I'm going to meet Wang Pan.
12:05He's a food blogger with hundreds of thousands of followers on the internet.
12:10And today I am the lucky one who will discover his magnificent food culture.
12:14Do you have any other things that you like to eat?
12:17It's sweet.
12:18Do you like it?
12:19That's so good.
12:20There's a grocery store.
12:21I'll take you to try it.
12:22This is Zongzi?
12:23Zongzi.
12:24Do you know this?
12:25I know it.
12:26Do you like this?
12:27I know it.
12:28Zongzi is a very traditional holiday food in China.
12:31At the end of the weekend, whether it's in China or in the West, it's in China.
12:36But at that time, we don't have these noodles.
12:41Good. I'm looking forward to try it.
12:43We're good.
12:45Let's try it.
12:47They take something that already exists.
12:53Because the one I tried in Shanghai was different.
12:55It had egg yolk and other fillings.
12:58It looks fantastic.
13:14It looks fantastic.
13:15It looks fantastic.
13:16This is what I like to eat.
13:17It's really nice.
13:18My grandfather came to Shanghai.
13:21And I'm proud to be proud of my hometown.
13:24It's a very important road for me.
13:25It's a very important road for me.
13:29It's a different food.
13:30After that, we all love it.
13:32We all love it.
13:36I'm arriving now at Canaryang Tajik village.
13:39I was so lucky to see the Tajiks dancing and they're playing music.
13:43The whole village is here for their traditional sport of sheep grabbing.
13:51Look at it.
13:52It's insane.
13:53I don't know how they don't get hurt.
13:54I had heard about this tradition before, but seeing it was completely different.
13:59Brave men on their horses throwing these sheep around, speeding to the goal.
14:04There's a lot of collisions between riders, between horses.
14:09How are they keeping balance?
14:12The energy, the resilience, just the motivation it takes to do this sport.
14:16It was very impressive.
14:18Oh, right.
14:19Look.
14:20They're about to score.
14:21Okay.
14:23And that's a goal.
14:25So they have to throw the dead sheep into this basket over there.
14:30And it's 1-0, I'm guessing.
14:32Coming together of so many different ethnicities in Kashgar has enabled literature, art, to develop in a very, very rich way over a long period of time.
14:55Yusuf Qas Hajib, this incredibly important poet and scholar, originally from a place called Balaskun, is buried here in Kashgar.
15:03He moved here because of the rich culture.
15:06Mr. Liu Bing translated Yusuf Qas Hajib's work into Chinese and also studied it for decades.
15:21He represents the blossoming of culture in this area.
15:47And that culture being a result of all these traditions coming together in the Tahle Makan and being centered in Kashgar.
15:54I met this guy, Tony, who talked to me and introduced me a little bit to the Pajiks.
16:03And this is the tradition of the Pajiks.
16:06Today was our traditional tradition of Pajiks.
16:08So we will be able to play the tournament.
16:10It is our tradition of the Thai-kishishness and power of power.
16:13At Pajiks, it is the time we are still in the family.
16:16We were still in the family.
16:18And we were still in the family.
16:19And we were still in their house, and we were still in the hotel, and they were still in the hotel.
16:22And we were still in the hotel.
16:23And we were still in the hotel.
16:24Today I'm not planning.
16:25I'm not planning.
16:26I'm going to welcome you to join Pajiks.
16:28And you're welcome to our wedding.
16:29Really?
16:30Yes, thank you.
16:31I'm going to take a look at the restaurant.
16:33You should join us.
16:35This is our country's famous.
16:37Welcome back to the新桌.
16:41It's huge!
16:43We have to eat a lot of food.
16:47We have to eat a lot of food.
16:53It's very spicy, right?
16:55I see you sweating.
16:57Actually, I've tried this kind of meal,
17:00but it was in a Sichuan restaurant.
17:02I have a way to say it is from Sichuan.
17:04Because the Chinese people use the辣椒,
17:07it's a lot of the people who use the辣椒.
17:10The Chinese people use the辣椒.
17:12It's been a long time for the 20th century.
17:14In New Zealand, there is a country called 312.
17:16It's a very important road.
17:18There are many cars that drive by big cars.
17:21They like to eat the food,
17:23and they can eat the food.
17:25Noodles.
17:27Yes, we can eat the Chinese and add the rice.
17:29Let's take a招呼.
17:30Let's go.
17:31More sauce.
17:36Mm.
17:38Yes.
17:39The big part of the world is because of the New疆 is a key transport route
17:45and there are also many other places in the country
17:47that we have the same language of the country
17:49and we have the same big part of the world
17:51This means that the New疆 is a community of the people
17:57Abbas Hadith
17:59Yes, yes, yes, yes
18:02So the end of Ramadan is coming, and can you tell me a little bit about what happens here at the mosque?
18:32The Islam that developed here was incredibly cosmopolitan. We had Buddhism, we've had Zoroastrianism, we've had Manichaeism, even Christianity, and of course Islam. The cultures that flowed into this area mixed and blended and created a really unique form of Islam.
19:02In Zoroastrianism, fire is cleansing, and so what you might see in a ritual where they wash their face with fire is cleansing the impurities out. These Zoroastrian influences that continue to exist today are not so much religion but heritage that's been passed down for thousands of years.
19:21Kashgar had this complexity of religions that worked together harmoniously, and that created a wealth of traditions of cultures.
19:32Look at all these people. If you want to make a business that is successful, choose food business in their bazaar.
19:43I love from Manichaeism.
19:46Kashgar is the most popular food in the world. We all have to protect the food in the world.
19:53Now, I have to drink the food in darüber, and eat it.
19:56It's the food in the world.
20:00Seriously?
20:01It's it's a dog.
20:04It's delicious.
20:07I'll take too long, but if you can take just another meal to you.
20:11Oh my God, this is a mix of different kinds of eggs?
20:14It's a bunch of eggs, but I hope it's our menu.
20:17Yes, it's cooked.
20:18It's pretty hot.
20:19Okay.
20:20You don't eat?
20:21I've eaten so many times, so you can eat this.
20:25They're trying to teach me the eagle dance, and I'm struggling.
20:35I'm really struggling.
20:38This is the celebration of the fire.
20:40They're just dancing around it, playing with it.
20:45Better, right?
20:46Come on.
20:49Come on!
20:50Come on!
20:51Come on!
20:52Come on!
20:54Come on!
20:56Come on!
20:58Come on!
20:59Come on!
21:00In the past, everything was in the past,
21:02and all the people have been selling on the Earth and the Earth for a few years.
21:08This Earth was my view of the Earth and the Earth for a few years.
21:11This is the mooncake.
21:37Yes, this is the mooncake.
21:39There's a very useful word, communitas.
21:55Communitas is a universal human phenomenon,
21:59which means that coming together people for a performance or event,
22:03during that performance, everybody's equal.
22:05This book's fourth book,
22:07he made a picture of a picture of the world.
22:11There are some birds in the sky.
22:13Some people from the north have brought a lot of animals.
22:17Some people from the north have brought a lot of animals.
22:19Some people from the north have brought a lot of animals from the north.
22:21And still alive!
22:31It's super fun, actually.
22:33I'm very happy that I came all the way here to meet with the Tajiks.
22:37They have a very distinct culture, very singular and very strong.
22:43In this Kashgar trip, I had the chance to intimately discover the lifestyle of the local people.
22:49And I could realize how much they enjoy it.
22:53When you love food, it means you love life.
22:55It means you have a lifestyle that is lively, that is communicative, social, open.
23:01That says a lot about a culture.
23:03Coming to Kashgar was revelatory.
23:06To see a continuation of Islamic culture over hundreds of years,
23:11that's still alive, that's still appreciated, was incredibly meaningful.
23:15People may think that the Silk Road is something distant in time and place.
23:18But in fact, you can come to Xinjiang and you can experience many, many aspects of the Silk Road today.
23:24And exploring them, I can gain a much, much deeper understanding of Xinjiang as well.
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