Copping It

Parts 1 to 4

Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, northwestern China, is a massive city, very spread out, and with a population of about 3.5m. It's a super interesting city, partly populated by Uyghur, Kazakh and other ethnic groups, but Han Chinese are the overwhelming majority, accounting for about 75% of the population.

It's also the least cycle-friendly Chinese city I've visited on this trip. My hotel was over 20 clicks north of the city centre, so I either rode in every day, or took the BRT, a bus service that passed pretty close to where I was staying.

There were some really nice shady bike and pedestrian paths around, but it was all pretty random, and they never seemed to last for too long, and were pretty bumpy at times. Sometimes they'd suddenly stop, and there'd be busy pavements jam packed full of people, courier motorbikes, steps, curbs, and a million other obstacles. Plus the never ending traffic lights.

It took forever to get anywhere on the bike, but I still always prefer it to public transport (besides a really good underground), because it's so flexible. Of course, if you can put your bike on the subway you've got the best of both worlds.

I bumped into this great local market on my way into town on my first day.

Seeds are big here in China. Big, and big.

So are beans, nuts and eggs.

It's really an absolute pleasure for the vegetarian palate.

Crunchy sweets

This city is endless

Sometimes I had no option but to carry my bike onto overpasses over major roadways, as there were no pedestrian crossings, and no other way of getting across.

Bewdy spent a bit of time alone, while I went a-wandering.

I even went to a big shopping mall, what a novelty. I had a bubble tea, and sat and wrote for ages. And people watched. What an absolute pleasure.

The grocery lady recommended this beer. It was good.

Yeah, sorta to be expected in the shower.

The Dragon Files

Most Westerners know more about the history of Ancient Rome, about the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, or even the (current) Age of Folly than they do about China.

But to minimise or to disregard the history and influence of the Kingdom since it's inception over 4,000 years ago, is to well and truly have your head in the hot desert sand.

I mean, no judgment, it's completely understandable, as most of us were brought up in the West, and no one was talking about Shang, Tang, Ming or Qing when we went to school.

The Early Dynasties

The earliest Chinese texts ever discovered talked about the Shang kingdom, and have been dated at 1766 BC. The kingdom was small, and was soon usurped by the Zhou Empire. In fact, the whole of that Millenium was characterised by constant wars in this part of the world.

By the 5th Century BC the kingdom had become quite intellectually fertile, just as Ancient Greece was during the same period, all those miles away. The ideas of Laozu (or Laozi), the founder of Taoism, began to be incorporated into Chinese thought. His principles were based around living in simplicity, in harmony with nature, and balancing the unifying forces of yin and yang. The great Chinese philosopher Confucius also emerged at this time, and advocated for an ordered and ethical society, and to dispense with the chaos of the perennial wars that were crippling the kingdom at that time.

In 221 BC the Qin kingdom emerged, and the first Qin emperor brought many territories under his control, and then defended them by building the Great Wall, which was made of rammed earth in its first incarnation. The Emperor unified the written language and measurements, and created a national currency.

Next up in the dynastic procession was the Han dynasty, so influential that the name Han still refers to ethnic Chinese today. The Silk Road became a thing, and the empire grew very powerful economically and militarily, with a particular focus on Central Asia.

Between the 3rd and 6th Centuries AD, chaos and war returned, due to rivalries between various rulers, and the empire split between the north and the south. The northern kingdom fell to Tuoba rule, a northern Buddhist clan, and it wasn't until the Sui dynasty commenced in 580 that China was eventually reunified again.

The Tang dynasty (618-907) was a culturally and economically prosperous era, and China began to more fully embrace the culture of its western, Central Asian neighbours. For example, it became fashionable throughout China to wear Indian style and Central Asian clothes at that time, as it was such a cool and cosmopolitan empire at the time. Bloody hippies.

Chang'an (now called X'ian) became one of the world's most dazzling cities, and even had a trendy foreign quarter. It was a Buddhist kingdom too, but embraced all of the world's big religions.

The Tang eventually fell, there was a period of instability, and then the Song dynasty came to power, heralding a new area of prosperity, cultural openness and great vocalists.

Genghis Khan took Beijing in 1215, destroyed it, and then rebuilt it (go figure), and his grandson Kublai Khan eventually took all of China. The Mongols were really great at being scary, but were poor bureaucrats, and eventually their empire crumbled, and the Ming dynasty came to power.

Ming treasures from the Ürümqi Museum.

Carved brass mirrors from that era

The Ming established a big maritime presence, and even sent fleets way over to the Middle East in the 1400s, which eventually heralded the end of the Silk Road as the primary trading route. It also brought foreign ships to China, with traders, missionaries and, eventually, armies.

The Manchu clan from the north eventually overcame the Ming, and they morphed into the Qing dynasty (1644 - 1911), the last in the dynastic conga-line.

Eventually the ing became no longer a thing.

The Qing dynasty period was a time of huge expansion for the kingdom, particularly in Central Asia, and also included the incorporation of northern Mongol kingdoms into the Chinese empire.

18th Century China became one of the most advanced economies in the world, but you'd never know that if you just read the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

Actually, from the 1850s the Qings really had troubles on their hands. The anti-Qing Taiping Rebellion 1850-64 led to the deaths of 20 million Chinese, and foreign powers like Britain, France and the US took advantage of the chaos to snatch coastal cities like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau.

Then the Japanese came, crushed the Qing navy, and gobbled up Korea and Taiwan.

Super Power

China eventually became a republic in 1912, and held its first ever general election. The Kuomintang (Nationalists) emerged as the largest political grouping, but foreign powers were reluctant to relinquish the control they had over large parts of the country.

Shanghai in the 1920s was one of the great glitzy global cities at that time, but the obscene and decadent wealth it ostentatiously displayed was accompanied by absolute squalor all around the city, and this became fertile ground for the newly established Communist Party to gain support.

Eventually the Kuomintang, under Chiang Kaishek, did a deal with the Soviets (and the Chinese Communists, who were under Soviet control), and they joined forces to rid the country of the foreign powers. But then Chiang Kaishek double-crossed his allies, rounded up Communist leaders, and massacred thousands of them.

What a guy.

The Japanese invaded again, in 1937, and grabbed a huge part of eastern and southern China, which I already talked about in a previous blog. They were nasty nasty buggers, and the Communists and Nationalists joined forces to fight them. The Japanese eventually withdrew, after the horrors of nuclear weapons were unleashed on their homeland by the US, and the Russians invaded their Chinese territories.

More pics from the Museum. This is Mao and Chiang Kaishek after negotiating a peaceful union. The peace didn't last long.

After the Japanese surrender and withdrawal in 1945 the Kuomintang and the Communists resumed fighting each other, because they both loved war so much. After a further three years of brutality, Mao Zedong’s Chinese Red Army finally got the better of the Nationalists.

Once defeat was inevitable Chiang Kaishek got the hell out of there, and went to Taiwan, with as much loot as he could get his hands on, including all of China’s gold reserves, loads of historical treasures, and whatever was left of his airforce and navy.

Communist forces entering Beijing, known in those days as Bei Ping, or Peking to foreigners.

Communist Rule

Mao’s new China was the first to be strong and unified under a central government since the 19th Century. He immediately kicked out whatever bourgie foreigners remained, and 40% of China’s total land mass was immediately redistributed to peasants. One million so-called ‘landlords’ were massacred.

Yeah, murdered.

One million.

Mao embarked on the “Great Leap Forward,” a massive industrialisation program, which was a complete failure, and resulted in the deaths of up to 45 million people. Yay.

I also talked all about that in a previous blog

Industrialisation propaganda

The workers are happy

And, as if all that weren’t enough, Mao then launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, another brutal campaign to reestablish his own power, based on an ideology of destroying traditional values, culture, art, architecture and ideas. It was a violent bloodbath.

Mao’s young Red Guards, and then the Red Army, massacred up to two million people during this period.

It’s inconceivable, but Mao is still hailed as a hero in some Chinese quarters, despite the unfathomable tragedy he bestowed upon his own people, and despite the fact that he was a pathological megalomaniac.

Sound familiar?

When Mao finally kicked the bucket, they buried him hundreds of metres below the ground, because deep deep down he was such a great guy.

China Post Mao

Mao’s successor, Hua Goafeng, didn’t last long, and after him Deng Xiaoping ruled for many years. Deng was a reformer, and allowed farmers to sell part of their land on the free market for private profit, and also introduced other major capitalist reforms. Suddenly it was on for young and old, and over the next few decades already well-off and well connected east and south coasters began to make obscene amounts of money in China, creating huge wealth disparities in the country.

I mean, economic reforms and development also lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens out of poverty, there's no doubt about that, but the progress was completely lopsided.

Capitalists at heart. Deng with Maggie.

This unequal development didn’t sit well with many people, and in 1989 students began huge protests in Beijing, as they craved for more equal wealth distribution and greater political freedoms.

But the party wasn’t coming to that party.

Deng’s response to the protests was to call in the army, and they killed the students in warm blood. They killed them in Tian’anmen Square, in front of the international media, and they killed them during the purges that followed.

China still deals with protests and dissent in this way.

In 2008 there was a major uprising in Lhasa, Tibet, which spread to many other Tibetan-populated regions in other Chinese provinces. There were hundreds of protests, which the Dalai Lama said were rooted in the “deep-seated despair and disillusionment of the Tibetan people,” after decades of oppression, discrimination and violent rule by the Chinese government.

The Chinese army responded to the protests with force, surprise surprise, and hundreds were massacred. Over one thousand are still missing from that period, presumed dead.

Since then, hundreds of monks, nuns and lay Tibetan people have continued to make the ultimate protest, and have self-immolated - basically set themselves on fire in public - to protest against the brutality of Chinese rule.

And the Chinese government’s response? More brutality, more arrests, more torture, more disappearances, more murder.

In Xinjiang similar protests erupted in 2009, with a similar government response.

In 2018 it was revealed that since 2014 the Chinese government has imprisoned one million Uyghurs in internment camps, without any legal process whatsoever.

Just think about that for a minute. There’s one million Uyghurs in prison, for no other reason than the fact that they are Uyghurs, and want to continue to have control over their own land, their own religion and their own culture.

The army and security services have deployed tens of thousands of people to control the whole of Xinjiang Province, installed cameras everywhere, and use facial recognition technology so they know where everyone is all of the time.

I’ve seen the fleets of police cars in the cities and on the highways. They sit at major intersections, the lights on their vehicles flashing, and just watch people.

They walk around the streets armed to the teeth, and question people at random. Or just pull them over in their vehicles. There’s police checkpoints all over the place outside the cities, every single vehicle is stopped, and people are interrogated and photographed.

And you can bet your bottom kuay that it's the minority groups that are the ones that are constantly hassled, not their Han cousins.

The fact that the Chinese government’s methods of controlling both the Tibetan and the Uyghur populations are almost identical is no coincidence whatsoever.

The architect of both crackdowns is a guy called Chen Quanguo, who was the government top dog in Tibet from 2011 to 2016, and then held the same post in Xinjiang from 2016 to 2021.

Chen has instigated a huge control and surveillance program in both provinces, built hundreds of new police stations, and instigated programs that force workers, teachers, neighbours and friends to spy on each other.

Reaping the economic rewards of the hugely rich mineral reserves in the provinces has been a key priority for the Chinese government. Development is happening at lightning speed, and many Han Chinese have migrated to the regions, having been offered lucrative financial incentives to do so. But the local ethnic groups see very little benefit from the huge financial windfall.

Because of his human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang, Chen and a few other top Chinese officials have had personal sanctions placed on them by the US government, barring them from coming to the country, and freezing their assets in the US.

As if they really care.

The government, of course, is very keen on portraying its economic development of these areas as hugely beneficial to minority groups.

Hans showing Uyghurs how it's done.

New roads and other infrastructure for random cyclists to get through the mountains and deserts.

The glitzy new city of Ürümqi, where I am now.

Urban development, Chinese style.

Party officials listening to the locals. If only.

Old Uyghur man. I'm sure he'd put a Uyghur flag up if he could.

Patriots (for the camera)

Uyghur cultural festival.

It's almost laughable. If it wasn't so sinister.

Of course, every provincial governor answers to Xi Jinping, the current president, who came to power in 2013, after having been VP for 5 years. Xi’s rule has been characterised by extreme brutality, hugely increased government control and surveillance of the population, and a growing effort to control the social behaviour of China’s citizens.

He's instigated party policy changes that have now allowed him to rule for life, just like Putin, and he fosters a bit of a personality cult in China. From the outside though, there's very few posters and billboards of him on the streets - it's not like Modi in India, whose smiling presidential mug is plastered all over the Goddessdamn place.

Xi's rule has also been a period where China has begun to assert its huge military power to stake claims for new territories, such as in the South China Sea. China’s decades of wielding soft power is over. Now it’s going hard.

Xi doing what politicians do. Looks friendly and benign doesn't he. His approved nickname in China is "Uncle Xi." His unapproved ones are "Xi Beetle," "Xi Tiger," and, my favourite, "Xi Dung Beetle."

As with any country, the political and foreign policies of China’s leaders, and the subsequent actions of its government, are sometimes completely at odds with the average person’s values. But any form of public dissent is not tolerated in China, and is very dangerous. As a foreigner, I hear very little political commentary from the locals, because it's too risky for them to talk to me.

But a few Tibetans, Uyghurs and Huis have told me, in vague terms, that the situation's pretty desperate. Their cultures are being wiped out. Their kids are being indoctrinated at school, discriminated against at work, and everyone's movements are completely controlled.

On a personal level, the Chinese people I’ve connected with here, whether Han, Hui Muslim, Tibetan, Uyghur or Kazakh, have been so incredibly warm, generous and curious. I’ve made some really special friends here.

As usual, it's just the crazy bastards at the top that are doing the damage.

And the damage is extensive in this country, and very very serious.

Xinjiang Museum

This amazing museum impressed me big time. It's absolutely huge, jam packed full of incredible art and artefacts from prehistory right through to the present day.

And the most incredible thing there was a bunch of actual Chinese mummies. I'm talkin' about the real Egyptian-style preserved ancient corpse type.

The lobby

Traditional regional attire

Bronze axe from about the year dot

Pottery from around the same time

4,000 year old figurines

It won't last forever

Tang dynasty Buddhist sculpture from about the 700s, the golden age of the Mogao cave grottoes.

Temple guardian from the same era

Statue of a cameleer unearthed from a cemetery, also dated from the Tang era

Ming Buddha, from around the 1400s.

Qing dynasty silk work. This design is still common on Uyghur ladies dresses.

Other Qing treasures

Get ready for gruesome.

Believe it or not, but Xinjiang has the largest number and best-preserved mummies in the whole world.

In 1979 archaeologists unearthed a number of preserved corpses in a cemetery in Gumugou. They're around 3,800 years old. The unique super dry and saline environment has helped preserve the corpses till now.

The display hall in the museum houses 6 of the ancient corpses and related relics excavated from ancient tombs in Shanshan, Lop Nor, and was the most popular part of the museum.

Infant.

Woman.

Male adults

Photos of the original discoveries

Hongshan Park

Ürümqi has a huge number of beautiful parks scattered around the city, and Hongshan is the pick of the bunch, because you can climb the hill and get a view.

The selfies never end. Never ever.

Not exactly sure what you would ever need to escape from up here, but, maybe .... ummm .... a terrorist attack?

Set up for families

There's a couple of beautiful temples and a tall pagoda in the park.

With stellar views from the top

These were in the pagoda. Imagine posters of Hitler up in the cathedral in Berlin, that's sorta what this feels like.

Give me a lake in a park in a city, and I'll give you paddleboats.

Uyghur dancers trying to entice customers into their family's restaurant.

Erdaoqiao Bazaar

The Erdaoqiao Market is a really beautiful and super interesting place to visit at night, it's jam packed full of tourists, locals, and wares from all over Central Asia and Pakistan.

The slow spin through downtown at peak hour

Meaty street stalls are everywhere. At least this one had chick peas.

It took me ages to find somewhere to actually park my bike. At one point I tried to lock it to a post outside a small police booth, but an old cop came out and told me not to. When I asked him why, the translation came out as ....

Was he worried about terrorism?

Bringing kitsch to a new level

The Erdaoqiao markets have been situated in this place for centuries, near the mosque compound. These days it appears the beautiful mosque has been completely swamped by the market development.

School Uniforms of the World #354

It's a super great place to peoplewatch

This isn't a mannequin

Veg jiaozi without the veg

The goats' bodies aren't hidden beneath the silver counter. They're all stewed up in the big tray.

Who knows what lurks beneath these murky waters

Mandarin getting his hands dirty for a change

Slicing up Buddha-knows-what

Sweeties with sweeties

Beginning a lifetime of posing

Modern bricklaying

Last Days In The Middle Kingdom

So now the time has come for me to leave China, even though I feel like I just got here.

I spent my last couple of days exploring more of Ürümqi and getting myself organised for my onward journey.

My street in the burbs. My hotel is the grey low rise on the right.

My street corner and fruit supply.

A pagoda and a little bit of untouched bush, swamped by the "development" of the city.

Local rattlebus. You don't see so many of these in Chinese cities these days.

Both of these were flashing at the same time. I didn't know what to do. It was like leading an Irishman into a round room and telling him to piss in the corner.

It's still about 800km from Ürümqi to the border with Kazakhstan, and I don't have time to ride it before my visa expires.

So I rode way out to a random bus station and bought a ticket to Almaty, the main Kazakh city over the border. They told me I can take my bike for free.

The bus station already felt like I was on my way out of the country. There were piles of Kazakhs outside, and signs were in both Chinese and Russian. The one for the Kazakhs explains that ticket purchases and the waiting room are on the second floor. The Chinese version is way more flowery, surprise surprise, titled "Kind Tips," and lists all the different types of people that may wish to use the lifts (sick, old, disabled etc) and then finally gives info about tickets and the waiting room.

There ain't no cutting to the chase in Chinese mate.

Made me think of the famous drummer Pete Wilkins. Boiler Room was the nickname Andrew gave him, for his indefatigable solid, tight and driving rhythms, always ready at any moment to explode to the next level of intensity.

There wasn't a boiler room in the building by the way. Just a place where you could get boiled water for your tea and noodles.

There's bikes around, but the number of riders is pretty small in this city, it's often only kids and young students riding around.

I sat in a café in a shopping mall, had one of these delicious drinks, and spent time writing and people watching. The translation called the drink "Domineering perfume orange."

It was dress-ups afternoon.

Late evening in the burbs

The view from my room

My last 24 hours in China were the perfect way to end my trip.

I went to a little eating place near my hotel, and got chatting to the women there. The food was unbelievably tasty, some of the best I've had in China.

Best in the west.

But actually the women make most of their money by doing a live stream, where they wander around with their camera chatting and doing stuff, including teaching people how to make the most amazing and elaborate culinary delights.

Once they heard I played music they asked me if I'd come and sing a few songs on their stream.

As much as I hate the limelight, and as introverted and shy as I am, they really twisted my arm and I said yes.

Haha.

I came back with my guitar and played a couple of songs, and they showed me all the lovehearts and kisses from their followers immediately pinging away as I sang. Not bragging, but there were lots. They must have a lot of followers, which I assume is quite easy in China, and I guess having a foreigner singing songs in English from the random back streets of Ürümqi isn't the most common sight for them.

After that I spent a couple of hours chatting to their 13 year old daughter, while they streamed away and made these incredibly delicious food dishes and juices, all of which they gave me copious amounts to try.

The daughter was so enthusiastic and so sweet, and was initially completely overawed by chatting with a foreigner for her very first time. But she eventually relaxed, and I got a great insight into teen life here, which is pretty much like teen life everywhere - except that, at 13, she's completely following the path set for her by her parents, and already has her life all mapped out.

A million miles away from my life as a 13 year old.

So, of course, the women insisted that I didn't pay for all the food I'd ordered and eaten before we even started chatting. Typical beautiful Chinese hospitality.

It rained in the evening! Yay! Haven't seen the rain for so long.

The air was clean and clear as I checked out of my hotel, loaded up, and headed to the bus station.

I stopped for lunch, had more delicious jaozi, and the young owner and I chatted away. As I went to leave he insisted I didn't pay for my food. Unbelievable.

And a fitting end to my China journey.

The Chinese people I've met, which includes people of all ethnic groups, have been some of the most incredibly generous and hospitable people I've ever met.

I can't count the number of times I've been invited to huge meals, drinks, snacks, and have enjoyed every manner of hospitality you could ever dream up.

I've starred in countless videos and selfies, sat with all sorts of different people, and had hundreds of random conversations. And every single one of them has been insightful in some way.

I've also made some very special deeper connections with people and families here, and that's been the most special thing.

What a hugely inspiring time it's been. And that's before I even think about all the incredible places I've visited, the rich culture I've been immersed in, and the magnificent landscapes I've been fascinated by.

And as for the Chinese government, well, that's another story.

One I've already told.