My upcoming adventure in China
On Sunday, I will be flying off to KL and then off to China for a 4-week holiday. The trip will include 4 days in Beijing, 12 days touring several cities that were part of The Silk Road, 6 days in Shanghai and a couple of days in KL book-ending the trip.
The cities that I will be going to as part of the The Silk Road tour will include three cities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Urumqi, Kashgar and Turpan. Xinjiang as you would know is where some of the Uyghur minority has been fighting for an independent state for a very long time. And Urumqi is where they had riots just before the Beijing Olympics, and also last year when racial tensions between the Han Chinese and Uyghur spilled over and caused the deaths of over 200 people. And it was still tense there in July during the one-year anniversary of last year’s riots.
BBC News – China police on alert for Xinjiang riot anniversary.
So I’m a little bit apprehensive about going to these places. On the other hand, these cities are culturally significant as melting pots of Chinese, Turkic and Muslim cultures. The food I’m imagining to be awesome. I’m thinking Kashgar and Turpan may be less tense because the Han Chinese are the minority, rather than the other way around in Urumqi. Yeah either way, it will be interesting and I will try to stay safe.
At the start of The Silk Road will be Xian – a city more than 3000 years old, where they found the terracotta warriors. Though I have a sneaking suspicion that I will stand over the edge, spend 5 minutes looking down into the big hole where the thousands of terracotta warriors stand and go, “Ok, what’s next?” Hahah. It’s not that I don’t think I would be impressed – it’s gonna be mind-blowing, but I’ve seen them so many times in documentaries already. Maybe once I go and smell the stale dusty air in that place, I would be awestruck.
As if all of the above is not enough already, there will be the Olympic buildings, The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and the stupendous skyline and East-West fusion of architecture in Shanghai.
Oh, food. Have I mentioned food? Goes without saying right? Can’t wait. 
9 Responses to “My upcoming adventure in China”
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i’m Singaporean based in China for work. the places you are going are the richest in culture and you’ll surely enjoy yourself.
reckon you’ll be heading to World EXPO? buffer 2-3 days for it, if you can afford the time.
i almost fainted under the 38deg weather on 7 Aug during my visit there.
blacksnow: that’s what I think too. Definitely going with a wide open mind.
mf: I think we will be trying to but the queues look bloody horrendous.
oh yes, the Q was -_-
Took me close to 2hrs to get into China Pavilion cos we went there as Business Delegates, so got some kinda VIP treatment, imagine if u DONT HV VIP treatment.
But nicer weather would help I guess.
In the end I only managed to visit Singapore and China Pavilion, and left at 4pm :S
If u happened to have the time/energy to last the entire EXPO, do visit Germany Pavilion, heard it’s worth to Q.
Sweet! Thanks for the tip!
[...] peeps. I’m off to China tomorrow. The details of my trip were outlined [...]
Turpan is awesome…u are going during the end of hot season though so do hydrate urself with loads of water. Eat loads of Hami melons and watermelons when u are there…they are delicious. Food wise, try not to eat anything from the street vendors as i had the bad experience of sleeping next to the toilet bowl the last time i was there for work. Think their most common dish is “Da Pan Ji” so do try that out. Enjoy urself!
Woo. Thanks for the tips!
[...] accent. The intermingling between them and the Han Chinese that I saw made it easy to forget that racial riots here last year ended up killing a lot of people on both [...]