Skip to content

Monthly Archives June 2008

Let the magic carpet jokes begin.

Reuters via the New York Times already gets the roll bowling with its “can’t resist to joke” article “China Pulls Rug from Under Flying Carpet Drug Smugglers.” As someone who now sees Xinjiang as my adoptive home in China, I feel a sort of odd pride that drug traffickers in Xinjiang and across the border [...]

Posted 25 June 2008 † Porfiriy § Links ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

A minkaohan on minzu relations in Xinjiang

The intelligent and thought-provoking Blogging for China has put up a full English translation of a forum post entitled “Don’t endulge our ‘race (minzu 民族) complex’”. The original post (“别放纵自己的民族情结”) can be found here on a forum dedicated to minkaohan (民考汉, members of non-Han groups who finish their schooling in Chinese). The post [...]

Posted 23 June 2008 † Tewpiq § News Updates ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

The one time a Han would want to be a Uyghur.

I found on Reuters an amusing article describing the harebrained plot of three Shandong natives to pay off some rather steep gambling debts they dug themselves into. Common sense says that when you’re in such a bind the best route to take is extortion, and you can’t extort unless you’re dark, scary, and powerful, armed [...]

Posted 21 June 2008 † Porfiriy § News Updates ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

Urumchi Olympic Torch Relay in Retrospect

Updates: Reuters has an informative article on the broken promise of press freedom in the Xinjiang and Tibet torch relays, part of a series on the Olympic flame. The New York Times also has an interview with noted Tibet scholar Dr. Robert Barnett on the relays in western China.  Here’s a quote: “[W]hat you [...]

Posted 18 June 2008 † Tewpiq § News Updates ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Olympic Torch Relay, in Urumchi Tomorrow, May Have Few Spectators

The Olympic torch, originally scheduled to be in Tibet this week, will be arriving in Urumchi tomorrow (Tuesday 17 June). The flame flew into Urumchi from Chongqing yesterday evening, and it will leave Xinjiang on 20 June.
After the end of the Urumchi torch relay, the torch will proceed to Kashgar, Shihezi, and Changji. The cities [...]

Posted 16 June 2008 † Tewpiq § News Updates ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Book release: Nathan Light, Intimate Heritage: Creating Uyghur Muqam Song in Xinjiang

Nathan Light. Intimate heritage: creating Uyghur muqam song in Xinjiang. Berlin: LIT Verlag. 2008. Pp. 352. 34.90 EUR. (Part of the series Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia)
A new book is to be published on the history of and discourse surrounding the muqam, a Turkic musical form with Arabic roots, in Xinjiang. The Uyghur [...]

Posted 10 June 2008 † Tewpiq § News Updates § Reviews ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: ,