The Ever Lasting Keyton

Sheilah Bright’s “The Last of Kenton” not only was well written but brought back my moments of memory about Keyton. http://thislandpress.com/09/19/2012/the-last-of-kenton/?read=complete

I visited Keyton this past summer with the Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education (OKAGE) and made a stop at the community center and the museum.  The lady in the museum showered us with a lovely local treats: beef jerky from Perkins, Oklahoma and I sat on the steps by The Merc. store sign and ate a homemade sandwich prepared by Vicki and Monty Jo.  I was there before I read anything about this westernmost town in Oklahoma – consequently, did not embrace the town geographically and culturally as I could have. I remember the quietness, the bright sunlight, and the empty streets surrounded by mountains; I remember that it was a comfortable place to make my own moments of being. I also wish I had known more about the only funeral home in Cimarron County that is run by the Axtell couple and their Rockin’ A café.  I, as a person who does not have an anchor to any place, or anything in my bones (Tulsa? Oklahoma? Brooklyn? New York? Taiwanese? Chinese? American?), it is a luxury to think of having a cemetery in a place I love to bury myself with my family.  By the way, I hate to be a tourist.

Better In Than Out: Behind the doors of Kashgar Old City

The end of one Silk Road

Before the discovery of the sea route to India, the Silk Road was the most important connection between the Orient and the West. Its last great era was experience during the time of Mongols, when the entire route from China to the Mediterranean was part of one collective empire. Interestingly enough, the trade route was never known as the Silk Road historically. It was given this name by a German geographer Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen in 1877. The overland link quickly lost its importance as trade across the seas developed. Today it has been replaced in China with the railway line Lanzhou-Hami-Urumqi.  While in China, my traveling group was supposed to board an overnight train from Liuyuan, Kansu to Turpan, Xinjiang.  Ultimately, this trip never came to fruition due to a safety concern on the rails.  Just two weeks before we arrived in the city, at least 27 people died during rioting in a suburb of Turpan. The security presence was heavy everywhere in Xinjiang and no one wanted a bunch of educators to get stuck in the cross fire between Uyghur’s overwhelmingly Muslim ethnic minority and China’s Han majority.  As far as my vision of taking a train across the desert to experience the hardship of journey to the west, it disappears without a trace.

On October 2^nd, U.S. law enforcement officials shut down Silk Road, the online drug market.

(More Information available at: http://nation.time.com/2013/10/02/alleged-silk-road-proprietor-ross-william-ulbricht-arrested-3-6m-in-bitcoin-seized/#ixzz2gc0xbCgv) For whomever is interested in exploring this website, it's too late.  However, I did.  Before my trip to Xinjiang, I asked my students to pick a catchy title for my blog. I got an answer the next day.  "anything but Silk Road, it's a website you can buy drugs, heroin even firearms”, and my student was absolutely right. I clicked the website for the first time and that was also the only time I have seen this deep sea home page.

Kashgar, Aleppo, Marco, and I

This is about convergence.

In 1271, 17- year- old Marco Polo joined his father and uncle on a voyage to the east to look for broader trade markets. The Polos took a merchant ship from Venice to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and by horse, camel, and sometimes by foot, crossed Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran. They crossed the vast desert of Central Asia, traversed over Pamir Highland, and came to the oasis of Kashgar (today’s Kashi in Xinjiang). In 1275, after three and a half years they finally arrived at the Yuan capital in China. Some of the incredible stories of Marco Polo’s journey have been cited in a recent fascinating book entitled Tracing Marco Polo’s China Route (China International Press, 2009). In Marco Polo’s footsteps I endeavor to do the same: tracing my short stay in the west.

I entered Kashgar near the end of a two-week trip on China’s historic Silk Road.  By this point, I had already hurt my stomach considerably through overeating.  I was in a food coma and walked through the old part of the city like zombie. Still, I remember the sky, the sun, the bricks, the dirt, and occasionally the children who poked their heads out from the curtains that provided the only privacy from the outside world.  The time is near noon, the atmosphere is peaceful, however, our nonstop pace more reminiscent to soldiers on a battlefield than anything serene. Perhaps it was because too many tourists wanted to see the “Old” part of the city, but our tour guide had to rush us similarly to a shepherd trying to keep up with a chaotic flock. Everywhere we went we had to walk through ruins and rubble. Later on (after I had read more about the cultural and political conflict between the Han and the Ugher) I realize I had stumbled upon a very controversial city plan: bull doze the old city to rebuild a better and safer new city in Kashgar.  What I saw before me was a place in the progress of simultaneous destruction and construction.

Even with my upset stomach, I can shut my eyes to the discoveries around every corner, I love this part of town and wish I could spend more time visiting every shop and snapping more pictures of people.  Whether this beautiful, charming, and historic part of the city would survive the seemly unavoidable urban renewal, in my opinion, lies not in a completely practical, but clear artistic vision: pentimento. If you prefer clean-cut shapes, brilliant color, modern design, and straight pathways, go head, rebuild the city and mold it into a perfect model. However, if you enjoy the layers of history on the walls and hanging off the rooftops, the organic dwellings, winding streets, then you ultimately choose to repent these new changes, and instead choose to allow a place to grow in its own bio rhythm. The old city in Kashgar not only represents a way of living but also involves political power dominance. As an artist, educator, tourist and world citizen, I really hate to see the old part of the unique life style disappear in Kashgar or in the world.  Please let the old city be, and do no more harm.

My convergence to this old city of Kashgar ends with a photo essay The Veils of Aleppo by photographer Franco Pagetti. As civil war rages around them, residents of Syria’s largest city use colorful sheets to shield their homes and streets from the rifle scopes of snipers. The veils of Aleppo are the final act against human despair in war.  I hope whatever the final solution is from the Chinese housing authority that instead of choosing a path of total destruction they instead decide remember those that have come before and to preserve the integrity of the old Kashgar.

Kashgar's Old City
www.farwestchina.com

Hats on Heads

It is not strange to take pictures of yourself when you travel along. However, holding camera with a short arm, resulting in pictures with close-up heads is just another opportunity for self indulgence. During my trip to China, I had to remind myself to let someone take pictures of me in the environment so I could use the photos for publicity.  This group of head thumbnails is, in fact, thumbnails of me with famous landmarks. These heads also act as an reminder to me of  three weeks of intensely hot weather. There is one thing my son gave me before my trip to China saved my life. A pair of shoe laces. I used one for my hat and one for the belt. In Shanghai, I had to throw away a lot of my clothes to make room for books: I kept the shoelaces.

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