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Silk Road, NW China Joseph Rollason

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Silk Road, NW China Joseph Rollason Alumni Grant 2016-17 Silk Road, NW China Joseph Rollason Joseph Rollason (2016 cohort) received an Alumni Grant funded by the TTS Foundation. During his gap year, Joseph had set himself the challenge to learn Chinese and live in China. He lived in Shanghai with a Chinese family, attending a state university and travelling with Chinese friends within the east and north-east of the country. He explored the Chinese section of the Silk Road in order better to understand minority culture as well as Chinese economic development and its 'One Belt, One Road' project in particular. Funding was earned through working at a hotel in Galle, Sri Lanka as well as teaching English in Shanghai. Click here to view Instagram. I set out to travel on land from Shanghai to Xinjiang province - the northwestern corner of China. This route takes you along the old Silk Road, an historic trading route, as well as through some of the most ethnically and culturally diverse areas of the country. I was particularly interested in the Uighur ethnicity in Xinjiang province, due to ongoing tensions and conflict with the government over their unique cultural identity and the CCP's aggressive reaction to it. However, the route also sees Tibetans, Hui, Tajiks, Russians and Mongols, as well as the enormous variety within these groups. I hoped that seeing these unique Chinese minority cultures and the local government surrounding them would provide greater context to better understand the fascinatingly complex country I was living in. Typical of my experiences of travel in China, things didn't go to plan. After 33 hours on a hard seat, I arrived in Qinghai's provincial capital to stay with a local IT shop assistant. This was Xining city, a typical 3rd tier city developing at an astonishing rate, drawing in an eclectic collection of people from across the province. There was a fantastic mix of food and the blossoming city was a fascinating insight into the megacities popping up all over the country. I then decided to visit for the day the 'Mirror of the Sky', salt plains sat beneath an ethereal mountainous landscape. However, I got stuck in a nearby village. This lead to a long ordeal to find accommodation involving a water bottle seller, his friends, his friends' friend, a non-existent tent in a military occupied zone, a pro-foreigner policeman and an anti-foreigner police chief. Ultimately, at 2 AM, I was snuck into the staff quarters of a nearby hotel and placed on the first bus out in the morning. I unfortunately became the centre of a local political power showdown between two officers. This lead me to reassess my going to Xinjiang due to the security situation and surrounding paranoia. Therefore, I decided to continue with my route towards the North of Gansu then loop back to the South of the province. I continued onto Dunhuang, the famous trading outpost of the old Silk Road lying on the outskirts of the Gobi desert, containing the 'Crescent Lake Oasis', a famous site closely tied in with the history of the Silk Road. The small desert town provided a good base to go out on camel and camp out in the desert. I then turned back towards Zhangye to see the famous Rainbow Mountains, multicoloured striped landforms just outside of the city. Interestingly, when walking through a Muslim neighbourhood containing mostly butchers, multiple people assumed I was Chinese from West of Xinjiang. This shows how ethnically diverse China is, and linguistically perhaps, if such people can be expected to butcher their Mandarin as much as I do. After this I made my way to the southern corner of Gansu which has a strong Tibetan and Hui concentration. Beginning in Xiahe I stayed beside the Labrang Monastery, an enormous complex housing monks and providing temples for surrounding villages to visit. An annual religious festival drew in many Tibetan spectators. This was the first time I'd encountered Chinese citizens that were unable to speak Mandarin. The first thing I was told upon arriving was 'you're not in China anymore, speak Tibetan' - though the government may disagree with that, as the Chinese flags almost smothering the small town proved. Langmusi sat in a valley on the border between Sichuan and Gansu province. The village could be divided into two halves, the Buddhist and the Hui side. From here I crossed 7 hours on horse through vast grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau, to my guide’s farm. We stopped for lunch in the yurt of his friend who spotted my $4 fake Casio watch and was astonished by it. After I told him it was from Shanghai, he asked what country that was in. It showed just how disparate some areas of China are. Upon arriving at the farm we first had to herd the yaks into their pen then joined the 3 generations of family in eating dinner. The guide’s family could only speak Tibetan. I was thoroughly tucked in through a cooperative effort of the entire family with a gentle note that if we leave the yurt at night the dogs will ravage our genitals. Then finally I was handed an umbrella to hold in my sleep for the oncoming storm and was covered, head to toe, in a sheet of plastic. The next morning they yet again treated me to the vast array of Yak-sourced products, Yak cheese, Yak milk, Yak jerky and luckily in the tea there was Yak poo that is used to fuel the fire. My next stop was Jiuzhaigou, however, I had booked my train ticket prematurely and decided not to change the ticket. Instead I headed to Linxia, the supposed Islamic centre of China and a predominantly Hui city. Unusual hybrids of classical minarets with Chinese architectural influences filled the city. Finally, I returned to Lanzhou, Gansu, and embarked on the train journey back to Shanghai. News broke on the train that Jiuzhaigou was hit by a severe earthquake. As a PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics) student for the next 3 years, this trip was very helpful towards appreciating the complex relationship between these three subjects. The range of challenges faced by China in trying to establish the modern Silk Road perfectly illustrate this. I look forward to tackling the subjects of PPE with the day to day consequences of public policy and influence of political ideals observed in North-western China in mind. 2 .
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