A Kiwi Cellist in China

The life & times, ups & downs, of a Kiwi / Australian cellist in Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Karamay

As a small child, and indeed now as a slightly larger child, I've always dreamed of traveling the old Silk Road. This always included visions of sand dunes, silk carpets, camels, mosques, crowded markets, and possibly me in headdress, leading a tribe of Bedouin, spouting lines from Lawrence of Arabia. Last month at least part of my dreams were realized as our orchestra took a tour of Kashgar, a 2000 year old city at China’s most westerly point, and Karamay, a city in the far north-west of China, nestled into the foot of the mountains bordering Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Karamay, in China’s Xinjiang province, is a long, long way from Shenzhen. Getting there requires a 5 hour flight to the capital Urumchi, followed by an 8 hour bus trip. For the musicians here who smoke (all of them) this presented a formidable endurance challenge. After hours of flying over some apparently spectacular desert scenery (none of which I saw thanks to my isle seat) there was a terrific stampede for the nearest toilets, which were easily identifiable by the thick clouds of cigarette smoke already emanating from the door. Safe in the knowledge that no-one would have any nicotine cravings for an hour or so (including anyone who may have inadvertently strayed within 10 meters of the toilet entrance), we were shepherded onto one of three orchestra tour buses.

The bus trip was my first taste of Xinjiang and immediately I fell in love. The first thing that you notice is that this place in no way feels like China. The road signs are all in Chinese and Urgur, a language closest to Uzbek with a Persian alphabet. Indeed many buildings had no Chinese characters on them at all, only the flowing Arabic script. The people look different too. This province is only 3% Han Chinese, the rest are mostly Urgur people; tall with features you’d more readily associate with Turks or Afghans.

The incredibly long straight road to Karamay is bordered on the right side by the sand dunes of the desert, and on the left by the dry, dusty mountains separating China from Kyrgyzstan. In a country of a billion people it is remarkable that somewhere can feel so utterly isolated. Small villages punctuated the dunes every half hour or so; usually a tight group of 30 or so mud houses with thatched roofs surrounded by a crumbling mud wall and a few fields. These can have changed little throughout the centuries and indeed the only things resembling modern technology were a few decaying tractors. I desperately wanted to stop to take a photo but this was impossible as the bus kept hurtling on, too fast for even a snap out the window. There were only a few brief moments that the bus slowed down. One was to pass a horrific looking crash between a truck, now on its side, and a bicycle (this is a sight I have seen far too many times in China). The other was when the bus toilet broke…

There are few things worse than the smell of raw sewage on a tour bus when you know you have hours left to travel… One of those things is a Xinjiang style public toilet. Upon stopping at a local gas station the musicians once again poured out of the bus to light up their cigarettes. But here they smoked for a different purpose. The toilet block consisted of a rectangular building built over a shallow ditch filled with human waste. There were a series of rectangular holes on the floor and the smell emanating from the complex defies all attempts to describe its staggering pungency. To enter this building with its weapon-grade stench without some kind of atmospheric barrier would be foolish beyond belief. Two or three strong cigarettes offered our only means of filtering the air and it was barely adequate. Even thus armed I saw some of the orchestra’s most seasoned travelers staggering out of the block retching.

An hour before reaching Karamay we started to see signs of modern civilization. Oil pump jacks started to pepper the fields with increasing frequency until they stretched out to the horizon in every direction like a plague of slowly bobbing grasshoppers. Eventually we were driving through the city itself, which is a remarkably uninteresting place. Home to about 200 thousand people (seemingly all of them taxi drivers) the buildings are all new, rectangular, and approximately 8 stories high. The roads are wide, the trees are young, and everything is perpetually covered in a thin layer of light brown dust. At least they’ve built a nice square in the center of the city. There’s also an illuminated waterfall which marks the termination of an irrigation canal that winds its way into Karamay all the way from Russia (which isn’t actually that far).

The one thing that I did find completely alluring was the majestic mountain views. From the window of my hotel room there was a spectacular view of the northern mountains which completely dwarf the city. Wandering down a side street the following morning I managed to stumble across a Muslim cemetery and took some photos with the mountains in the background which I’ll try to attach to this blog.

Our hotel was very comfortable. With its great view and soft western style beds and nice bathroom it was a striking contrast to my accommodation in Shenzhen. No sooner than we’d set our bags down came the obligatory phone call asking me and my roommate (a Chinese bass player) if we wanted a “massage” (we declined)… prostitution is the one thing you can guarantee to find in abundance right across China – that and pollution.

Later that evening we were treated to the first of a seemingly endless flow of spectacular meals. The hotel restaurant was completely booked out by the orchestra. On each of the 10 or so tables was a stunning collection of at least a dozen local dishes; whole fish in chili, lamb with chili, potatoes with beef and chili, noodles in chili oil with chili, bread for soaking up left over chili… There were also huge bowls of soup, great platters of grapes and watermelon, and an endless supply of tea. Everything was delicious. Being the most culinry adventurous of the westerners (who were huddled together like nervous sheep at a single table), I was also the only one to try the sheep’s stomach (with chili). This is something I would regret. I spent the next day no further than two meters from my room’s toilet with a nasty bout of food poisoning whilst everyone else gave our first concert.

I joined the orchestra for the next two concerts which were given in a medium sized hall. The concerts were originally supposed to be outside but were moved due to high wind. Never ones to waste something that cost money, the Chinese decided that the concert still needed to be heavily miked and proceeded to set up a massive array of speakers which were, of course, completely unnecessary. The repertoire was unexciting – bits of Carmen, some Christmas music, lots of Chinese music, and some poorly orchestrated local music… However the audience seemed to love it and clapped enthusiastically at the end, cheering especially loud for the local percussionist and singers who joined us for a few numbers. The next day we gave a similar concert outside to the local army division and their spouse which was also a success.

In all I didn’t get to see a lot of Karamay – although I got the distinct impression there wasn’t much to see anyway. I managed to take a stroll to the local markets. These were set up in one long corridor in the middle of town. Stalls were piled high with dried fruit (a specialty of the area) and huge, colorful piles of spices. There were also a large number of butchers – their meat sitting on unrefridgerated shelves for who knows how many days (hence the food poisoning). Beside these were a number of dentists. The 1950’s style dentist chairs, drills attached, were prominently displayed in the front windows so all the public could watch the operations taking place. For the patient this provided the added bonus of a view directly into the butchers’ shops where one could watch a carcass being skinned whilst having one’s tooth extracted…

After just 2 nights in Karamay it was time to leave, but not without a stop at the local museum. The museum was set up to celebrate the illustrious history of Karamay, which went like this: Some time around the 1950’s a peasant on a donkey discovered some oil here which he used to fill lamps and sell back at his local village. He did this for many years until he decided not to anymore… then some others came, built a lot of oil wells, and a big refinery. The museum itself was precisely as interesting as the history it represented.

Our quest for knowledge thus satisfied we boarded the bus once more back to Urumchi airport for a plane to a spectacular city at least 2000 years older than the one we were leaving – Kashgar.

To be continued…

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