KASHGAR, China — Barbershop floors were littered with the remains of men’s haircuts and beard-trims. Women in head scarves walked the dusty streets carrying plastic bags stuffed with food from the bazaars: melons, grapes, fried sweets, Frisbee-shaped bread, chunks of freshly butchered sheep. Children with generous parents strutted around in new clothes: suits for the boys, white dresses for the girls.
So went the preparations for Id al-Fitr, the three-day festival that unfolded this weekend to mark the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
Kashgar being Kashgar, the most Islamic city in the restive desert region of Xinjiang, the occasion was also marked by more somber moments, as the Chinese authorities kept a close eye on events.
At dawn on Friday, the first day of Id, a convoy of military trucks and police cars with flashing lights rolled past the public plaza outside the Id Kah Mosque, where thousands of men and boys were congregating outdoors for morning prayers. Police officers blocked foreigners trying to go to the rooftop of the Orda Hotel, which overlooks the distinctive yellow mosque, the largest in China, to watch the prayer ceremony.
“It’s not as tense as last year, but the police are still worried about problems,” said one ethnic Uighur man who, like many in this city, spoke only on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.Continue reading the main story
The remote city of Kashgar, at the crossroads of Central Asia, has existed under a pall since Chinese security forces tightened their grip here after deadly ethnic rioting in July 2009 in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. But there was a respite over the weekend, as the religious festivities around Id reinforced for the Uighurs their sense of tradition and culture.
“This is a time when we are supposed to be happy and think of God,” the Uighur man said.
In recent months, the authorities in Xinjiang have let up on some of the harsh security measures they took after the rioting — Internet services have been restored, for example — but officials here still believe they have plenty of reasons to be anxious.
Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in the region, bridle at discrimination by the Han, who govern all of China. Some demand a Uighur nation called East Turkestan. Last month, an explosion in the town of Aksu killed seven people and injured 14 others, officials said. The police detained a Uighur man.
Kashgar at the start of Id appeared to be a city at peace, though, and offered a vivid taste of civilization for those traveling here from the desolate Pamir mountains of Central Asia: teeming bazaars and restaurants packed with families gorging themselves at iftar, the daily breaking of the fast at sunset. Grilled lamb kebabs, roast chicken, mutton-stuffed dumplings, oily rice called polo, doughy noodles called laghman — all were in abundance, as they were in the days when Kashgar blossomed into a Silk Road oasis town, overflowing with the wealth that comes from trade between empires.
In a new concrete home on the edge of the old city, a young woman, Guli, invited two foreigners to try freshly baked lamb-filled pastries that her family was eating at twilight. A stove burned in the courtyard.
Almost all the traditional, mud-walled dwellings around Guli’s home had been razed as part of a government plan to build new housing that began in early 2009. It appeared that at least two-thirds of the labyrinthine old city south of the Id Kah Mosque had been destroyed, leaving nothing but lots full of dust where some of the most atmospheric neighborhoods in Central Asia once stood. Guli said her home had been spared because her parents had built it just last year, at a cost of $4,400.
“The government’s plan is to make Kashgar into a developed city, like other parts of China,” she said.
She added that she did not know where her neighbors had gone, but that they would return once the government built new quarters here. “They look forward to living in new homes,” she said.
But one Uighur man said most people were opposed to the destruction of the old city. “The government is doing it no matter what people think,” he said.
He opened a picture book with an old photograph of the Id Kah Mosque. In front of it was a green park that he said had been destroyed in the mid-1990s to make way for a modern plaza. “Our history is being lost,” he said.
On Friday morning, ethnic Han policemen stood on the corners of the plaza as Uighur men carrying prayer rugs streamed there from all corners of the city for the first prayer of Id. Many had gathered before sunrise at their local mosques, then walked with their white-turbaned imams to the Id Kah Mosque.
The prayer started at 7:30, the head imam’s words flowing from mosque to loudspeaker to plaza.
At once, thousands of men bowed their heads, then knelt on the ground, surrendering to God.
The ceremony ended after a half-hour. The men poured back into the streets and alleyways. It was time to feast at home with the family, the first meal in a month that they would eat during daylight hours.
One Uighur grinned at a French man walking beside him.
“Today is a good day,” he said in English. “There are no Chinese in the streets.”Continue reading the main story