Views From The West

Table Rock (Back to Oregon)

Administrator — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 08:27:35 +0000

While we were in Oregon over Christmas vacation, I had the opportunity to hike up Table Rock. Even though I grew up in the area, I never took the time to hike up Table Rock, so I was glad of this chance. Maybe I could find some Indian arrowheads! (Nope, didn’t find any.)

Actually, there are two Table Rocks near my parents’ home in southern Oregon - Lower Table Rock and Upper Table Rock. They’re just a couple miles away from each other, and they both have a flat top. Thus the name “Table Rock.” I hiked up Upper Table Rock.

Here are a few pics that will give you an idea of what it was like. As you can tell from the pics, my hike occurred during the balmy days of winter rather than the snowy days.

The trail on the way up was lined with many of these Manzanitas.

This dead tree was sticking up through the brush like a church steeple.

These little fingers of ice were growing UP out of the ground!

The mountain behind me is Mt. McLaughlin if you’re looking on the map and not from the area. It’s known as Mt. Pitt to us locals.

Another view of Mt. Pitt, through the trees

Looking at Lower Table Rock from the top of Upper Table Rock

I’ll Miss You!

Administrator — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:40:42 +0000

Today I visited the orphanage for one last time before we leave for the US. It was tough saying goodbye to all those lovable kids.

For the past year I’ve had the privilege of visiting a group of about 30 Uyghur orphans at the orphanage every Wednesday evening to teach them English for one hour. I had loads of fun with them; I think they made me laugh as much as they laughed at me, the crazy foreigner. But it wasn’t just fun and games, even though that was my primary teaching method, because their English definitely improved.

And today I had to say goodbye.

As I talked with the older ones, every now and then one of the little ones would quietly sidle up to me and put their hand in mine, just for a few minutes, and then they’d walk away. And all during the time I was there, I would look at one or another of them, and they would give me a big smile, as if to say, “I love you, teacher!” Yes, it was hard to say goodbye to kids that somehow worked their way into my heart.

Counting to four…

“What’s your name?”

Singing “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes…eyes and ears and mouth and nose…”

The whole group, including the director (in the back row to my left)

What Moves You?

Administrator — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 03:42:33 +0000

Recently I found myself riveted to the TV as I watched the rescue efforts in Sichuan, and I found myself moved almost to tears as I witnessed the unfolding drama:

The ever-mounting death toll (which now stands at over 60,000 dead and 25,000 missing)
Rescuers from all over China and many foreign countries working side by side
Heroic stories of miraculous rescues
Heart wrenching stories of schoolchildren crushed in collapsed schools
Heartbreaking stories of people pulled from beneath rubble, only to die minutes later
Heartwarming story of a rescued boy reunited with his father
Premier Wen’s emotional visit to the area
Observing three minutes of silence in memory of the dead (I was in the Urumqi airport, the first time I’ve ever seen it quiet!)

I asked myself, “Why am I moved to tears at this tragedy when the higher numbers of dead in the Myanmar typhoon didn’t affect me nearly the same?”

Sure, I have friends in some of the hardest-hit areas (thank God they’re safe), but that alone doesn’t account for my response.

After thinking about it for the past few days, I think I have come to love China more than I realized.

After living in China for the past fifteen years, my wife and I are planning to leave China for a few years so I can work on a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology with a focus on Uyghur folk music. In the process of getting ready to leave, I think it’s hitting me that I won’t be here for a while, and with the situation the way it is, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to return anytime soon. We hope to return (Duh! That’s the whole point of getting this degree!), but sometimes decisions are made for you, and not necessarily the way you would prefer.

So I’m already grieving over my departure from China, my second home.

Yarkand Revisited

Administrator — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:10:08 +0000

I was reading over some of my previous posts, and I realized that, while I had posted some videos of my trip to Yarkand, I had not posted any photos. To rectify this situation, here, in full glorious color, are a select few. I hope you enjoy.

This statue represents Amanisahan, the 15th century Uyghur princess who compiled the 12 Mukam

A Uyghur acrobat balancing on a tightwire 50 feet above the ground

A group of Uyghur farmer musicians performing a part of the Mukam

Grape arbors overarching the road to the desert just outside Yarkand

The edge of the Taklamakan Desert, one of the largest in the world

The line where the desert meets the Yarkand oasis is very clear to see.

Camels ready to be ridden

Alibaba and I became good friends after I rode him across the desert.

Are You My Friend?

Administrator — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:23:16 +0000

How do you define friendship? Who are your friends? Who can be your friends? We don’t often contemplate questions like these, but recently we’ve had reason to do so.

In American culture, it is possible for a person from one generation to become friends with a person from another generation. For example, it wouldn’t be considered strange if one of my son’s classmates at college became my friend. Likewise, it wouldn’t seem strange for me, when I was in college, to become friends with one of my professors.

Apparently, that’s not the case in Uyghur culture. A person from one generation would not consider a person from a different generation - whether lower or higher - to be a friend. Yes, they might act the same toward that person as they act toward their friends in their own generation, but they would not think of using the term “friend.” That would be disrespectful. The same would apply between a student and a teacher.

A couple weeks ago my wife Wendy was talking with one of her Uyghur college students, and in the conversation Wendy mentioned that she would miss all of her friends when we leave, indicating that she was referring to her students. The student responded, “Oh no, we’re not your friends; we’re your students.”

Then just last week she was talking with an older Uyghur lady when a younger Uyghur lady came up. Wendy introduced the older woman to the younger woman as “my friend.” That brought on gales of laughter from the older woman. Wendy thought that maybe she had pronounced something wrong, but no, it was the concept itself that brought on the laughter.

From this older woman’s perspective, Wendy couldn’t be her friend because of their age difference. She said Wendy should call her “Mother” instead of “friend.”

It seems that, in Uyghur culture, even though you might be friends with someone older than yourself, it’s not acceptable to call them your friend. You can think of them as your friend; you just can’t call them that. That would be disrespectful.

Uyghur people are very hospitable and friendly. They also have very strong cultural rules that determine how to show respect to someone older than yourself. To our American manner of being rather informal with almost everyone, these two values might very well come into conflict regarding how you could be friendly and yet at the same time show respect. But it works very well in Uyghur culture.

Hmm…comparing the way Uyghurs respect their elders with the way this value is often sadly lacking in American culture, maybe we could do with a bit more respect and a little fewer “friends.”

Why I’m Saying Goodbye To Facebook

Administrator — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:19:31 +0000

Kashgar Bostan

Administrator — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:51:37 +0000

Oregon Pics, At Long Last

Administrator — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:32:59 +0000

Facebook Loves Uyghur Folk Music!

Administrator — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:52:54 +0000

A Visit To The Nawai

Administrator — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 16:18:40 +0000

This past weekend I spent several hours observing how Uyghur nan (baked round bread) was made. It was a fascinating experience that highlighted the skill of these workers. It is indeed an art, to produce up to six different types of nan, day in and day out, seven days a week.

In this particular nawai (that’s the Uyghur name for “nan shop”) ten workers bake more than a thousand nan every day. They begin at 3:30 in the morning (yes, I was there when they opened this past Saturday!) by preparing a batch of dough that was left over from the night before. While several workers prepare the dough, a couple other workers begin preparing the next batch of dough, and a couple others begin heating up the oven (called a tonur) just outside their shop.

That first batch of dough from the night before becomes the first batch of nan, of a type called girde. It resembles a bagel, only larger and with a harder crust.

After producing two batches of girde (each batch having about 180-200 girde), they fire up the second tonur outside the back of the shop and begin baking mai nan, or oily nan. I’m not sure why they call it this, because it certainly doesn’t seem oily at all. A couple workers inside the shop busy themselves preparing the mai nan for baking. As they shape the raw dough into the proper shape, they toss it through the back window onto a counter where a worker sprinkles some chopped onions over it and then uses a pillow-like tool to stick it onto the inside wall of the tonur.

Meanwhile, other workers inside the shop prepare more dough for making a third type of nan called katlama which will be baked in the nan out in front of the shop. This is a special type of nan that only the boss puts into the proper shape by stretching a piece of dough until it’s paper-thin and then rolling it up. This roll is then squashed down and shaped into a circle, so that the finished product is a nan that is made up of many layers of concentric circles rather than a sold circle.

One of the fascinating things that I learned while watching them at work is that they used the same type of dough to make all the different types of nan. The difference was either in how much the dough was kneaded ahead of time (more kneading will produce a more firm finished product) or how it was shaped before it was placed into the tonur. But they were all delicious!

Below are several photos which illustrate some of the steps described above, as well as some photos of the workers who were having fun while they were working.

Rolling out that first batch of dough at 3:30 in the morning

Getting the tonur ready for the first batch - also at 3:30 AM

Uncooked girde stacked up ready to be baked - around 4:00 AM

The first batch of girde baking inside the tonur - around 4:30 AM

The worker taking the second batch of baked girde out of the tonur - around 5:00 AM

Kneading dough for the mai nan - around 5:30 AM

A worker at the tonur out back getting ready to put another mai nan into the tonur - around 6:00 AM

The finished product - mai nan - around 6:30 AM

Two workers keeping watch over yet another batch of girde baking in the tonur - around 7:00 AM

The boss (closest to camera) with other workers preparing the dough to make katlama - around 7:00 AM

The boss rolling up the paper-thin dough to make katlama - around 7:30 AM

A worker with a sample of the finished katlama - around 8:00 AM

Two young workers enjoying getting their picture taken - around 8:30 AM

Who says you can’t have fun while working? - around 8:45 AM