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It's a very English tradition to talk about the weather. So, naturally, one of my first inquiries into the region I would be staying in for a year was to check what the weather was like. And, well, it's quite different...Despite being further south than where I live now the winters are much harsher; falling to an average of -12.6C across January. Yet Fukang is only a couple of hundred kilometers from Turpan, where the temperature hit 49.7C in 2008. As you can imagine packing for a year in this variable climate has been a challenge.
So now we have the important information out of the way, where am I actually staying?
Firstly, I will be living in Xingjiang, an autonomous region (see: Tibet), to the far North-West of China. The name Xingjiang literally translates to 'The New Frontier' in Chinese and for much of the regions history it would live up to its name. This region is most famed in the West for its role in the Silk Road. As the snaking routes of merchants, traders and sellers attempted to avoid the Himalayas to the south, the desolate Siberia to the north and the deadly Taklimakan desert in the centre they moved from oasis town to oasis town; giving birth to the great cities such as Turpan and Kashgar. Many of the relics of the world's first wave of globalization are still existent today, and I can't wait to see them!
From there, however, the region suffered. Many warring empires and independence movements disrupted the region's role in West-East trade, from the Mongols to the Tibetan empire to several Chinese dynasties. Jumping forward a couple of centuries and the region again began to play a vital role on the world stage. Firstly in 'The Great Game' between the British Empire and the Russian Empire where both attempted to gain influence in Central Asia. Then again during the Cold War, contributing to the Sino-Soviet split. The Xingjiang War (1937) began as an Islamic Rebellion but was hijacked by the Soviets who won and created the Second East Turkestan Republic. This newly formed soviet didn't last long and was signed back over to China, who created the Xingjiang autonomous region rather than reinstating Xingjiang as a province (an important distinction).
This leads us nicely on to today, when history seems to be returning to the region. The (relatively) newly found resource wealth of Xingjiang has reignited a clash of empires, with the USA, Russia, India and China all attempting to buy up oil, gas and rare earth metals for the future. All this is set against a background of 'The New Silk Road', a phenomenon talked about here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/global/hauling-new-treasure-along-the-silk-road.html?_r=0
Yet all is not rosy on the new frontier... The indigenous Uighur (pronounced We-gur) people claim that the region, which they view as their fatherland and refer to as East Turkestan, should be independent. This separatist movement has caused various clashes with the government; the most notable of which occurred in July 2009 when 197 Uighur's (according the the government) where killed and over a thousand injured. The tensions in the region continue to this day, outlined here by Amnesty International;
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/urumqi-riots-three-years-crackdown-uighurs-grows-bolder-2012-07-04
So that is a whistle stop tour of an absolutely fascinating region. Now Fukang, the city which I will be working in. Any Google (other search engines are available) of 'Fukang' will lead to information on the amazing meteor found there in 2000. Fukangs next claim-to-fame is its location, situated north of the Tian Shan mountains (made a World Heritage Site in 2013) and south of the Gobi desert. Additionally it's located on a route of the Silk Road, is roughly an hour from Xingjiang's capital Urumqi and is 30 minutes from the 'Heavenly Lake'. I'm going to leave the detail out of this section of the blog, as hopefully I can give a good report from the places themselves!
So I hope that gives a good taster of my project, it's certainly made me more excited writing it!
I will be writing about my hopes/fears/expectations/goals and such on Wednesday from Heathrow airport. Sorry this post was a little late, had a lot on my plate...
'Til next time,
Stephen
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