political projects of modern times. Uyghur Art Music and the After Russian and Qing expansion divided Central Eurasia into Ambiguities of Chinese discrete empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, their * Silk Roadism in Xinjiang twentieth-century successor states hardened the border James A. Millward between Chinese and Soviet Georgetown University, Central Asia and further sub- Washington, D. C. divided the heart of the Silk Road into peoples and lands organized The Silk Road is at once an The performers themselves, on national lines as “republics” object of scholarly inquiry, a as well as the audiences, learned and “autonomous” administrative romantic notion, and a potent much from the unprecedented units. As Theodore Levin has metaphor. Its metaphorical juxtaposition of related tradi- shown in his Central Asian impact was clear from the 2002 tions; musicians attended each musicological ethnography Ten- Summer Smithsonian Folklife other’s performances, and using thousand Fools of God, Soviet Festival in Washington DC, which whatever common languages nationality projects had a deep was devoted to Silk Road they could (mostly Turkic and and complex impact upon the cultures. The two-week event Russian) they shared songs, musics of the Central Asian was staged in a series of lavishly techniques and fellowship both republics (Levin 1996). Below, I decorated tents and pavilions on during the festival and after- explore a similar process at work the National Mall (the open hours at a local Holiday Inn. And under the PRC in Xinjiang. space between the Smithsonian over it all shone the smile of Yo- Popularity, Utility and Irony of the Museums) while Al Qaeda Yo Ma, whose intellectual and Silk Road Notion in China terrorism, the on-going Afghan musical contribution to the war, and the crescendoing festival was great, and whose Though the Silk Road idea has campaign for war against Iraq own Silk Road Ensemble proved popular in many places, were not far from anyone’s mind. produces disks found under perhaps no country has em- “world music” as well as in the braced it as thoroughly as China. Against this implicit back- classical bins (Ma 2002). A Google search on the ground of violent events and characters sichou zhi lu (“silk fearful prospects, the festival and Though the Silk Road remains road”) reveals one dimension of its catalog’s message was a potent symbol of trans- this: the notion is a promotional explicitly pacifistic and nationalism and interconnections bonanza, especially for the transnational, under the formal between societies, the physical tourism industry, which entices title “The Silk Road: Connecting territory through which it passes Chinese as well as foreign Cultures, Creating Trust” has been carved up by some of tourists with the promise of Silk (Smithsonian Institution 2002). the most pointedly divisive Road exotica (Fig. 1) and Look, it said, at all that connects rather than divides human cultures across Eurasia: our textiles, ceramics, stories, dances, foods, musical genres and instruments. Long-necked lutes and vertical fiddles know no national boundaries; all are variations on an ancient design, the stations of their Silk Road journey mapped by materials used in their construction. The curves in their bodies, numbers and tunings of their strings, a fret here or there, the movements of the performer’s hand, the notes in his or her scale all tell a tale of centuries of interplay across the Eurasian continent. Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1996 Fig. 1. Silk Road exotica at the Seaman Hotel in Kashgar. 9 historical flavor. (At least one tour consolidated his control of There is an irony inherent in company even promotes the Kashgar in 87 by getting the local these various Chinese enthu- eastern Chinese cities of ruler and his men drunk and siasms for the Silk Road Shanghai and Suzhou as Silk slaughtering them at a banquet. metaphor, however. What stirs Road “stations.”) Clothing Pantuo City, as the park is called, the greatest global interest in the companies, software retailers, has become a new station on the Silk Road is not so much military restaurants and other enter- Silk Road, at least for some exploits or even commerce along prises are also fond of the tourists. its length, but the cultural associations evoked by the term. exchanges and continuities The top panel on the website across vast tracts of inner More creditably, the Silk Road www.silkroad.com.cn is a bulletin Eurasia that it represents. This idea also resonates positively board posting classified ads for is what was celebrated on the with developments in Xinjiang apartment rentals and second- National Mall, and is how world since the beginning of the Deng hand goods. history textbooks in the US treat Xiaoping reforms in the 1980s. the Silk Road (e.g. Bentley and The Silk Road metaphor also Under these reforms, and Ziegler 2003; Bulliet et al. 1997). serves another sort of marketing especially since the collapse of Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, goal: promoting the ideological the Soviet union, the Xinjiang Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, agendas of the Chinese state. region has enjoyed renewed Islam and associated ideas and Popular histories, textbooks, and communications with Central arts all entered China via tourist sites associated with the Asia and increased autonomy Xinjiang, as did Sogdians and Silk Road emphasize the silk from Beijing in dealing with other Central Asians. Many trade, Buddhism, and the high foreign tourists, trade partners, “traditional Chinese” musical imperial periods of the Han and investors, governments and instruments are themselves T’ang Dynasties, when Chinese NGOs. The general preface to a originally Central Asian or Indian influence in what is now Xinjiang series of “Silk Road Researches” 1 imports, including the pipa lute, was at its pre-modern peak). published by Xinjiang People’s possibly the sanxian three-string Official China represents “the Silk Press makes the relevant lute, the yangqin hammer Road” as a stage on which China connection: plays the leading historical role. dulcimer, various spike fiddles Just as early Euro-American collectively known as huqin, the scholarship on southwest Asia . Some authors [in the dizi transverse flute, the double- and India once focused on traces series] have attempted to reed suona, and several small of lost classical civilizations and combine their [silk road] percussion instruments (Thra- ignored or denigrated the more studies with the reform and sher 2000: 36-56). recent Islamic past, archaeology the open door policy of China in in the Tarim has de-emphasized hope that the past can serve the last, Islamic millennium in the present and show what favor of Buddhist and pre- we can learn from our Buddhist antiquity and Han and ancestors. There is no T’ang-period artifacts. Documen- demand that the views of the taries such as the NHK Silk Road authors should be in series and tourist itineraries conformity with that of the generally follow suit. In editors. Instead, we Xinjiang’s westernmost, and still appreciate the contention of predominantly Uyghur and different schools and ideas in Muslim city of Kashgar where old the studies, for we believe Central Asia neighborhood that it is the only way to mahallas and bazaars are giving promote the Silk Road way to urban renewal, studies. It is not a developers recently built a faux coincidence that the ancient city-site commemorating [UNESCO-affiliated] Centre for the Han Dynasty general Ban Silk Road Studies, Urumchi, Qiao, complete with a mini-Great has been founded in Xinjiang: Wall, “spirit road” flanked with the most important section of life-size figures of soldiers and the Silk Road. All this proves ministers (reminiscent of those at that a new age to rediscover Copyright © Daniel C. Waugh 1995 the Ming and Qing tombs in and revitalize the great Silk Road Fig. 2. Dutars, Kashgar rawaps, and Beijing) and a statue of the has come to us [emphasis other instruments for sale in a stall conquering general himself, who added] (Zhou 1993: 12-14). in Kashgar. 10 Yet despite the silk road categories were in some cases authorities. Nevertheless, since boosterism, Chinese authorities more theoretical than real on the 1949 the national PRC and today are not terribly interested ground, cultural projects followed regional Xinjiang governments in cultural exchanges or non- to collect, isolate, edit, canonize have made collection, codification commercial linkages over the and promote the supposedly and republication of both classical revitalized Silk Road. In fact, one discrete language, dance, music and folk forms of Uyghur music a of the top priorities of Xinjiang’s and literature of each nationality priority. The explicit rationale security apparatus today lies (Roy 2000). Sheng’s government behind this project has been to precisely in preventing religious in Xinjiang followed the same preserve, order, develop, and and political influences, people, policies, also using political modernize the Uyghur musical news, and certain trade items appointments and education to tradition. In practice this has (drugs and arms, understandably give political meaning to the involved several steps: col- enough, but also video tapes fourteen nationalities into which lection, including recording, by and cassettes) from crossing its it taxonomized Xinjiang peoples. local teams; selection of the western borders. Far from The Eastern Turkestan Republic, “best” songs or, in the case of the rejoicing in transnational Silk which controlled northern