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Here we are late into Sunday afternoon, the Kashgar night market, which in fact moves along quietly all day then revs up in the evening . The street vendors setting up in every available square meter of pavement. Packed, vivid, a colourful array of people and their produce.
Starting along the rag trade pavement, stalls that boasted, trinkets, shoes, constantly sorting through the piles, bargaining, packaging, paying, the cashier at the busy spots keeping an eye on the money. The crowd is a wonderful array of differently dressed people, the men are typically all very much similarly dressed, The older men wearing the felt hat. The elderly woman covered head to toe only lifting her heavy face cover to answer her phone, some prefer talking through the head rug.
On the other end of the spectrum is the younger woman wearing a beautiful silk head scarf, long and flowing, colourful silk full length dress, walking gracefully in high heels. No Chador but a lot wear a face mask or traditional veil, for some its protection against the sun.
From this walkway I moved into the side streets with the more permanent shop front stalls, "spice alley” aptly named
for the vast array of spices, dried goods with wonderful aromas wafting through the street. As with the wider streets yesterday the stalls are sorted into specific groupings. The vivid colours of the scarves and materials warm you with their glow, further on are the colourful dresses and a very limited traditional men’s clothing area, really fancied the long silk shirt, silk pants combo suit affair , I would be sporting one now if I hadn’t left the purse behind.
After the pots and pans alley, a toy alley, fine china and jewellery alleys we emerge back on the larger street frontage where all the food stalls are setting up and here is a wide variety of sometimes indistinguishable food stuffs. I strolled around watching people devour Sheep heads with chop sticks, all manner of Kebabs coming off the coals, Pigs nose, Pigs skin, Vegetable, Beef, Chicken , Kebab being the preferred street food.
Melons everywhere, ice cream stalls, cold fountain milk, all manner of Dumplings and Samosa, some have been very nice, like a mince pie but the tender meat is nonexistent. The worst Samosa being the ones we took up to Shiptons arch, these were filled
with just fat, my little team were not happy... with their Uyghur brothers.
What will happen to all this as the glass tower city encroaches, will it disappear to smaller side streets here and there as it mostly has become in other large cities. A traditional part of their way of life will be lost, one that they revel in. It provides a pivotal sense of community and social interaction. Groups of mostly older men sit around shooting the breeze in the sidewalk cafes, meanwhile the women are moving around in little groups, some with the kids, gossiping , shopping. It's not uncommon to see men arm in arm or even holding hands.
Fast paced, High Rise Glass Towered China will continue to attract the young and so the traditional way of life will fade, a generation at a time.
I have really enjoyed my stay in Kashgar with its variety of cultures and people,
It's time to move on to one of the Big Glass Tower Cities, Chengdu, where I will experience some contrast.
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Pattycake
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Fantastic
Hi Bo, what a great blog, it is so interesting, can almost imagine being there. The photos are great also. Selina showed us the book of photos you gave her, what a treasure to keep they are beautiful. I will see her this weekend as going down to good old Porangahau a world away from were you are that's for sure. Take care my friend and keep up the good work, just great. Love Patty xx