It's going to take me a while to post a week's worth of material, but here is a little about Xinjiang in the mean time:
Official Name: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Alternate Name, if you're a separatist: East Turkestan
Capital: Urumqi
Geography: big old desert with some truly impressive mountains in the West, including the Fire Mountains and K2, the 2nd tallest peak in the world
Borders on: Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India
Natural Resources: Oil, sheep, grapes, culture, sand, melons, ethnic tension, small dirty children
Major Ethnic Groups: Uyghur (ethnically Turkic), Han (the Chinese majority ethnic group), Kazakh, Hui (a Chinese Muslim ethnic group), Kirghiz, Mongol
Local Cuisine: every permutation of sheep, nang (like Indian naan), raisins
Delicious: if made by Uyghurs, absolutely, if made by Han Chinese, not at all
Camels: yes
Bagels: yes, to my surprise
Non-sketchy bathrooms: no
More on that later...
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2 comments:
The unofficial name in the Porter household is "Uyghurville", pronounced "Weegerville". Perhaps "Uyghurstan" would be more appropriate. We'll update.
some people in the independence movement actually do want to have a uyghurstan, so it's not too far-fetched a name
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