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I love store signs in Lhasa.

Someone, somewhere, has decreed that signs outside stores in this town must be trilingual (and colored red). So, fire up the online translation service. Input Chinese characters (themselves loosely translated from Tibetan) and there you are! Nonsense of the first order.

There's a new batch this season that includes the two signs in the photo, plus "Amdo Tibetan Restaurant First Pakistani Grass" and "East Side Shop One Pressure". I checked out the restaurant but the fare in no way lived up to the delights hinted at by the sign.

Some classics of yesteryear, especially "Tibet Ancient Food" and "Auspicous Rabbit Shop" are sadly no longer with us, but these new signs more than make up for the loss of those gems.

Philip K Dick, who predicted it all, would have liked them too.

Once in every generation an invention comes along that not so much changes the world as redefines it. An invention so subtle and pervasive that we can no longer imagine life without it, no longer think back to a time when it was not part of the fabric of our lives. An invention that is so fundamental that access to it becomes part of our basic rights as human beings.

Well, this is not it. What it is however is a new type of instant drink that combines three old favorites into one ... coffee, milk and tea! I sampled it in Lhasa airport a few weeks back while waiting for a flight back to Beijing and had nearly forgotten about it, until I re-discovered the empty sachet in the pocket of my overcoat this morning, along with some fluff and a paperclip.

Desperation drove me to it. Hot water is freely available in Lhasa airport, but no cups! So I bought the sachet which came complete with styrofoam cup and a nice no-spill lid, so that I would have something to put the water in.

I can confirm that this sachet, when mixed with hot water combined the flavors of the three famous beverages quite convincingly, along with another flavor that is hard to place but resembles malted baby sick. There were some strange looking chunks in the packet too (see illustration) but I decided to leave those out when I added the water. One can have too much adventure and excitement in one day.

So there you have it. The world's three famous beverages that nourish and comfort three quarters of humanity are now available in a single sachet, obviating at a stroke the need to buy any of them separately again. The world's homemakers rejoice, Nestle and Kraft execs are fired for missing this one while Progress marches ever onwards.

I was in Lhasa a few weeks ago and saw this unusual sight: a storyteller using a thangka painting and telling (or rather, singing and chanting) a traditional story.

Previously I only knew of this custom from old photos from the period from around 1900-1930, when itinerant storytellers who hung up paintings and told a tale seem to have been a relatively common sight. I had assumed that this custom had vanished.

This storyteller used a long iron pointer bound with ribbons to tell the life story of a religious teacher with the aid of the thangka. The painting is so worn that it is difficult to see any details on it. The story is told in chanted verses, pointing at the relevant part of the painting. In between these sections the teller bows, puts down the pointer and chants a prayer while holding rosary beads.

From time to time the storyteller succeeded in gathering a small crowd in this Lhasa back street. The box in front of the painting is for donations and he seemed to be doing quite well. Perhaps because of his great age and the fact that this is by no means a common sight these days.

More on this disturbing topic.

The Beijing CHP (Cultural Heritage Society) has revealed that the Kashgar local government are claiming that UNESCO supports their plan to level and rebuild the old town. A large billboard pictured on CHP's website publicly proclaims this as "fact".

It seems extremely unlikely that UNESCO would support such a plan. More likely in fact that their name and reputation are being exploited without their permission to lend support to this scheme.

I hope that someone in UNESCO is able to respond to this quickly, if only because their reputation seems to be at stake.

I have not visited Kashgar personally since spring this year ('09) but I hear reports from travelers to the region that the destruction of the old buildings has already begun. I hope it isn't too late to halt this plan and save what is left. Kashgar's future as a tourist and historical site depends on it.

(photo: a balcony in the old town, with characteristic arched openings, openwork carving and geometric tiles behind. Similar wood-framed balconies can be found on the houses formerly owned by wealthier Kashgar citizens in many parts of the old town. The style is a unique local synthesis that is not found elsewhere in China)

Earlier this year I posted an entry in this blog about my visit to the old city of Kashgar, and remarked that the ancient mud-brick town was still in remarkably good shape.

It seems my optimism was premature. The local government in Kashgar has formulated a plan to replace all the existing mud-brick dwellings with modern brick structures. This will eliminate at a stroke what is possibly the only surviving, virtually complete medieval Muslim walled settlement left within China's borders.

The issues of destruction of cultural heritage and loss of history, memory and place that this raises are highlighted in an article by Jim Stent and He Shuzhong of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, that appears in this month's edition of Orientations Magazine (October 2009), and also on the CHP's own website.

The pictures at left show a medieval doorway in Kashgar that I photographed during my trip earlier this year. Whilst this particular entry way might not seem very significant, it does contain clues to the great age of the old town. In particular the degree to which the kerbstone of the doorway lies below the current street level (it is "sunken" around 30cm) suggests that it is several centuries old. Over time the ground level of traditional towns rises slowly, as footpaths are re-made with new material. Sunken doorways are a common feature of traditional settlements across the world, and have even been used by urban archaeologists to make a rough estimate the ages of dwellings within such towns.

The other striking feature of this doorway is the carved lintel above it, with its carved vine motif. This is a classical Silk Road design, present on carved wood excavated from even earlier times than the old town at Kashgar. The lintel was probably painted at one time, but the paint is now entirely gone. The lintel might have been carved at the time the doorway was made, or it might be an even older piece that has been re-used from another structure.

Aside from the loss of a unique architectural gem, the re-building of the town is a potential economic loss to Kashgar. It is unlikely that foreign tourists will journey to Kashgar to see a Disney-fied version of the town. I urge those involved with this to re-consider before much is lost that will never be replaced.

Yesterday I went out looking at antique furniture on the outskirts of Beijing with Roger Schwendenman of the ACF company. Roger is a specialist in wholesale furniture and has his own restoration workshop, and it was interesting to go look at unrestored furniture "fresh from the countryside" versus the fully restored variety that we see at most furniture sellers in Beijing.

In years gone by furniture vendors from the countryside came right into the city to sell their furniture, but these days with increasing ground rents and lack of space in the city the trade is conducted much further out from the city, in this case about 45 minutes drive from Guo Mao. This spot is strictly a wholesale market, with unrestored items piled high in the warehouses of individual sellers from different parts of China. In a couple of hours we were only able to scratch the surface of what is a very large market. We visited several vendors from north China (Shanxi and Inner Mongolia), though apparently there are sellers at the market from most regions. It's been a long time since I have looked at wholesale furniture like this (the last time I looked at it seriously was back in the mid-90s) and it was reassuring to see that there is still old furniture out there! Vendors are now going a lot further afield for their old furniture than in the '90s and many are bringing in furniture from the border regions versus the central China styles that were more common in previous years.

Aside from carved coffers, money chests, cots for children, side tables and other typical Chinese furniture we also saw wood blocks for printing funerary "money", door hangings and weapons for defending against wolves.

Buying pieces independently from this market is tricky (you would need to find transport, then arrange for the piece to be cleaned and repaired), but Roger can help with that aspect, and has been taking wholesale customers from overseas to this market for many years. You would also need to be a little braver and bolder than the average customer since you will need to imagine what a dusty, unrestored piece will look like in its finished state (the difference can be dramatic!).

I am not sure if Roger plans to make these trips a regular event, but I can certainly recommend it to anyone who wants to trace antique Chinese furniture back to its source. (Roger is the tall one in the center of the photo).

From May 1st 2009 we reduced the prices of all our own-make Tibetan rugs by 33%, with no compromise in quality. This is a major change for us, and the culmination of three years of hard work. It's also the most obvious indicator of some more profound changes in the way we run our business.

To backtrack a little, when we first opened our carpet business in Beijing in 1998 it was a very different kind of operation to the one we have today. We sold carpets in a very small boutique store in the Kempinski Hotel (we finally moved out of the Kempinski in March this year, and our Beijing store is now at Danshui in Shunyi). From the beginning however we found that most of our sales were not to hotel guests but to residents furnishing their homes. This realization guided most of what follows.

At the time we opened our store our carpets were contract manufactured for us by a supplier in Tibet. Those who know something of purchasing theory will know that having a single supplier is an uncomfortable position to be in: it doesn't leave you in a strong position to negotiate a better price, and you are very vulnerable if your supplier encounters difficulties.  So in 2001 we set ourselves the target of having three excellent suppliers, a target that came directly from purchasing textbook theory. One of these suppliers which would be our own workshop in Lhasa, in order to get the most competitive price and to ensure that we would always be in the driving seat as far as quality and design were concerned.

Candidly, I also had a personal motive in wanting our own workshop in Lhasa. I enjoy making textiles, and I enjoy experimenting with design and color. I also have an interest in natural dyes, which are not popular where commercial workshops are concerned. Owning our own workshop is a chance to experiment with fewer constraints.

So much for the theory. In practice it took us until 2006 to turn vision into reality. We bought land near Lhasa, on the banks of the Kyichu river, built a weaving workshop and we are gradually building up a skilled workforce. With our own production facility for our Tibetan rugs we are able to make exactly the designs we want, and also to ensure that no compromises are made with raw material quality. This latter aspect was a big problem with contract suppliers, who were forever looking for ways to cut costs, particularly by substitution of cheaper wools. This aspect can now be guaranteed.

While building up our own workshop, we added two more suppliers: the excellent and internationally renowned Michaelian and Kohlberg company who have been making handmade carpets in China for more than twenty years and who specialize in Middle Eastern rug making techniques. We have also recently added kilims and other items from rug makers in Afghanistan, who are very competitive in terms of price. These textiles complement our Tibetan rugs and ensure that we can offer the full range of styles and price points to those designing their homes.

My particular expertise is in design, development and color, and we have built a unique facility for creating new colors, using the best of both traditional and contemporary dye methods. Our eventual aim is to broaden our current scope to work with other professional carpet manufacturers in Asia, in addition to our own weavers, to make better and more varied carpets (and we invite potential carpet manufacturing partners to get in touch). We have already participated in a successful project to research and document traditional dye methods in Tibet, and more work is ongoing in this area. We also lead the field in environmental and product safety, particularly through correct choice of non-toxic starting materials and processes.

Back to price. Though this wasn't the only reason for founding our own workshop, it was a major factor, especially for our customers. By eliminating one layer in the supply chain as well as reducing costs generally in our operation we are now able to offer rugs at a significantly lower price, and that is what we have done. The true extent of this is only apparent when you consider that the price we charge today is actually 40% lower than when we opened our business in 1998: when inflation is taken into account our prices today are 60% lower in real terms than when we began. A major factor in our favor versus other carpet companies worldwide is that we don't maintain any offices overseas, since the overheads from these can often add up to more than the production costs of the carpets.

In keeping with our focus on design and interiors we moved out of our Beijing hotel location earlier this year, and we are now in a new store in Danshui town in the Shunyi district. We have more space here (200m2) and display a wider range of carpets and sizes. In Shanghai we have a lovely two-storey space in An Fu Lu in the French Concession district.

You can still find some rugs that are cheaper than ours here in China ... provided you are prepared to compromise on both wool and dye quality and accept (for example) short-fiber Mongolian wool and Chinese dyes you might be able to save a further 30% or so. Is it worth it? Come look at the colors and wool in our rugs and then decide.

We often get orders for rugs from former expat residents of Beijing and Shanghai who have returned to their home countries. While here in China it is easy to lose sight of the huge difference in price and service level between here and "back home". The kinds of service for custom rugs that we offer is only available in London and New York (for example) from a very few top-end suppliers, and it comes at a price that is usually at least five times the cost of one of our rugs, and often more. This is because the cost of employing a designer in a London office is quite staggering. Even a basic "off the peg" rug costs three times the price of a Torana rug here in China.

Both expat residents, local residents and visitors to Beijing and Shanghai are warmly invited to come see our stores, and also to contact me to talk about the services we offer. I am traveling fairly often these days, but always interested to meet in one of our stores by arrangement, if I don't happen to be there on the day in any case.

One final word: our price list for 2009 is now set, but we don't guarantee to keep our prices fixed at this level for ever. Most of the costs that can be driven out of our operation have been driven out already, and inflationary pressures will certainly build as economies come out of recession, led by China...

Kashgar is one of the westernmost outposts along the part of the Silk Road in China. It's the point where the two main routes across the Taklamakan desert converge, and it's been an oasis town and a trading post for two millenia, perhaps more.

I've been traveling through this region looking for carpets and textiles for years, and first visited in 1996, but in recent times I've mostly passed through on my way to other destinations and not stopped there. On my most recent trip I decided to spend some time there and to see if things have changed. The result is this blog, some photographs, as well as a haul of textiles from the oasis towns in Xinjiang.

Photographs and Textiles
From this weekend (28th March) I have put some of the textiles from this recent trip in our Torana Shunyi store, including carpets, kilims and embroideries. The finds include an interesting (and rare) Uighur kilim, a Kazak decorative appliqué, Kirgiz flatwoven carpets and a remarkable silk robe. I have also put up a set of large format photographic prints on the photowall at the Shunyi store, mostly of the old town in Kashgar. For the impatient, I have put some of them on Facebook at this link.

Kashgar Time
This is a very distant spot from Beijing, a distance which is brought home by discovering that the sun rises here two hours later than in Beijing, and that Kashgar operates its own (unofficial) time, which runs two hours behind official Beijing standard time. Inevitably the two are confused, providing everyone in the town with a perfect and enduring alibi for missed appointments.

Many Kashgar people speak worse Mandarin than I do. This made me feel strangely warm towards them.

Warlord Days
In keeping with its remote location, imperial rule has been intermittent and sometimes absent over the centuries. Towards the end of the 19th century the town and surrounding region were the fiefdom of the famous warlord Yakub Beg, who brought a brief independence at the price (it is said) of destroying the economy. In the bazaar I bought an ancient robe made of purple silk with gold thread that I like to think might have been worn by an official from this period, perhaps in the presence of the old warrior himself.


Sunday Market
On my first visit to Kashgar in '96 I went to the famous Sunday market, and on this trip I went back for a second look.

Traders, farmers and animal dealers from the surrounding area set off on mule-drawn carts in the pre-dawn twilight and arrive in Kashgar around midday, local time, so the market only really gets going in the afternoon.

I can't tell you if the price of a camel is still the same as it was in '96, but the market still looks much as it did then and provides fine entertainment. Dealers bid on animals in secret, passing offers via taps of the fingers, concealed within the sleeves of their robes. The trade is therefore mostly conducted silently, despite the hubbub around. Horses are put through their paces on a short track, with constant danger of colliding with the buyers and sellers. It is crowded, noisy, dirty, smelly and delightful.

Street food is still one of the highlights of Kashgar. My favorite items are fried fish and melon by the slice. Traders stand in the street with a melon, a knife and sell pieces for 1RMB each. I asked one if it was Hami melon (that's the only kind I know from Xinjiang) and he seemed insulted and told me it was Kashgar melon. I decided not to ask whether the fish was Atlantic cod.

The most common street food is the ubiquitous pilaf rice (rice, yellow pepper, mutton). Greasy, with a smell of elderly sheep that seems to linger and follow you around town. I avoided pilaf at the street stalls because I've seen local restaurant hygiene at close hand (there isn't any), opting instead for street foods that are not allowed to linger in a lukewarm state before being sold. Rice parcels with syrup and toffee walnuts are excellent.


Uighur Lite
Has the town changed? Yes, the modern town has certainly seen some changes. There are a good many recent buildings. There's a new architectural style that consists of a concrete structure with brown tiles and minarets stuck on the outside. I call it "Uighur Lite". It's better than it sounds.

There's a nice irony that much local architecture from the '30s onwards seemed to consist of putting some contemporary touches to a basically Uighur building style, and now we have the opposite.

Uighur Cuisine
The most welcome change is the string of new restaurants serving Uighur cuisine that have opened since my last visit. The best of these might be the huge and rather fancy Entizar Altun Orda on the north-western extension of Ren Min Xi Lu. This palatial establishment is decorated inside and outside with about as much carving and decorative tilework that a structure of this type could support, and then some. This is the place to try the pilaf. It is superb, and it is 12RMB. Good pilaf comes laden with dried fruit as well as the mutton.

Also worth trying are the yoghurt and the roast pigeon: beaten flat, impaled on two sticks and barbecued to perfection.

Kittens, Egg Tarts
The following evening I am at a more modest restaurant in the old part of town, eating laghman, the other Uighur staple besides pilaf. This is lamb ragout (lukewarm) served on hand-pulled noodles (also lukewarm). At the everyday restaurants I think it beats the pilaf. This restaurant has deep liver-colored decor edged in cream. There is a poster on the wall of a kitten, seemingly about to pounce on some egg tarts. I check the menu, but there is no sign of this special dish.

Markets
Aside from the Sunday market, the market streets that wind through the older part of the town are also fascinating, and as far as I can see, they look precisely the same as when I was last here. The stalls have an edge-of-the-desert, edge-of-civilization feel. Brick tea (camel logo), rose petals, black cardamoms, rock sugar, sulfur. Spice stalls sell every spice I have ever seen and more, and they smell, like spice stalls everywhere ... of cumin. Just cumin. There's a hat stall next door. It smells of cumin too. And so does the hat seller.

The Id Khar mosque in the center of town seems to have been given the pre-Olympic treatment. Painted canary yellow, it has been tarted up considerably since I saw it last, at least at the grand entrance. The square in front of the mosque has also been remodeled. Gone is the street that idled its way just in front of the mosque entrance, and in its place is a large ampitheater-like public space, with Olympic-sized tv screen at the side. A former covered food street near the mosque with old fashioned tea-houses is gone, and there is a two-story shopping center in its place. Nevertheless, the public space in front of the mosque is still there, and the street photographers (your head emerging from a red rose, you and your lover, re-duplicated, crystallized, kaleidoscope fashion) still have their stalls in the same places.

Inside the mosque there is a calm and pretty prayer gallery, green columns against red prayer rugs. The carpets interest me: they are Khotan rugs from the 1950s-70s (photo above). They have kept their rich red by the shaded inside walls of the gallery, but the sun has faded them to pinkish hues near the outside.


The Old Town
I was apprehensive about re-visiting the old town. Surely most of its mud brick walls must have been swept away by now? I need not have worried. Yes, the margins have been nibbled at, but the bulk of the old town, on a promontory overlooking the Sunday market area, is just as I had remembered it. A sign in a street opposite the Id Kah mosque announces "Kashgar Old Town" and visitors are supposed to buy a ticket to enter, but in March there was no-one around to collect tickets. The old town is anyway much more extensive than the tourist regulated part.

The old town is of wood framed houses, with walls of compacted mud and straw: here and there brick is replacing the mud. Uighur life is conducted behind the walls, hidden from gaze in cool and sheltered courtyards. Doorways are open but protected by billowing sheets of printed cotton, here and there giving glimpses of life inside. It's hard to judge the age of the buildings: mud and straw look the same after 500 years as they do after 5. In one place though I found a doorway with an entrance sunken about a foot below street level, generally taken by urban archaeologists as sign of great age. Above the doorway a lintel carved with a floral vine, worn and nearly illegible. Carved for this doorway five centuries ago, or pulled out of the sand from a far earlier time?

In mid afternoon a breeze was beginning to pick up dust from the surrounding desert, filming the old city in yellow dust. Kids were tumbling out of the schools, collected by grandmothers. Four girls played a skipping game with an elasticated rope. Surely this is the exact same incomprehensible game played by small girls in English schoolyards? The dust filters the light and the colors of the old town are condensed to tones of yellow and ochre. An tall man of indeterminate age and wearing an indeterminate felt hat strides down the alley, gathering his cloak against the wind. It might be 2009, or 1809. A shameless seeker after nostalgia, I am rewarded five, ten, fifty-fold by the old town at Kashgar.




Photographs and Textiles from the Silk Road
By Chris Buckley
28th March - end April 2009
Torana Carpet Center, Shunyi, Beijing
Location map and contact details at this link.

Travel Notes
Kashgar can be reached in one day from Beijing, via a connection in Urumqi, but for the return trip it is necessary to overnight at Urumqi: I stayed at the Airport Hotel there and it was fine.

The best known hotel in Kashgar for overseas visitors is the Seman Hotel, and the rooms in the old Russian consulate inside the Seman grounds make for an interesting (if rather pricey) stay. There are lots of other hotels in town: on this trip I stayed in the nondescript but friendly Qian Hai Hotel for 188RMB a night.

Travel onwards from Kashgar to other parts of the Silk Road is mostly by road.