Tour Summary
by Sue Troupe

I felt very privileged to have been a member of a trip of a life time.  I would like to thank the Freeman Foundation for underwriting the majority of the costs and thank our two leaders: Dr. Eileen Walsh, anthropologist, Skidmore University and Jeffrey Levick, Director of East Asian Studies, PIER, Yale University for their leadership and planning that made this trip possible.

This was my second trip to China.  My first trip was as part of an educational delegation from Connecticut to visit Beijing and Shandong Province for ten days in April 2004.  We visited both Beijing and Jinan.  The purpose of that trip was to begin to set up a sister school.  Our sister school will be Shandong Experimental High School in Jinan.  We hope to be able to have an exchange between our students in the future.  We are still waiting for our sister school to visit us and sign a formal agreement.

The field study to China during this past summer (2005) was the culminating activity for the class, “Ethnic Minorities in China,” which was taught through Yale University’s PIER East Asian Program.  The first part of the class was an intense seminar held during the summer 2004.  It was followed by an on-line class that we took during the fall 2004.  We learned that the majority ethnicity in China is the Han, which comprises roughly 92% of the population.   The remainder 55 ethnicities make up only 8% of the 1.3 billion population of China.  Prior to taking the class, I did not even know that China had any minorities.  Most of the minorities are found in rural areas in the central and western part of China.  China is undergoing tremendous change.  According to China, Inc. “Three hundred million rural Chinese will move to cities within the next fifteen years.  China must build an urban infrastructure equivalent to the US city: Houston, Texas (fourth largest city in the United States) every month in order to absorb them.”

The field study could basically be divided into two parts:  The first part was in the province of Yunnan located in Southwestern China.  The second part of the trip was in the province of Xinjiang located in the Northwest corner of China. 

We entered China via Hong Kong, but only saw it from the airport.  At the end of our 26 days in China, we spent a little over 24 hours in Shanghai.  This provided a good example of a large Chinese urban city to contrast with the smaller Chinese cities and the rural areas that we had visited.  According to our local guide, Jay, Shanghai has over 19 million residents plus about 3 million foreigners.  We had an opportunity to see the Jade Buddha Temple and the Shanghai Museum in Renmin Square, which is located in the heart of the city.  I spent quite a bit of time in the Minorities Exhibit.  After lunch we had time to explore the city on our own.  Some of us took a taxi to an area about 20 minutes from the hotel.  We did some exploring and bargaining with the local people.  The entire group met for dinner. 

After dinner, Joan, one of our members, shared with Diane and I that she had sung jazz professionally in New York City and Beijing, and her dream was to sing in Shanghai.  We asked our guides where we could go to do this.  They told us that the place to go was the Peace Hotel, near the Bund* in the older part of downtown Shanghai.  So, we hopped into a taxi and traveled to the Peace Hotel.  When we arrived it was a grand ‘old world’ hotel and we could hear jazz coming from a room off of the back of the art deco lobby.  Joan asked for the manager and the long and short of it, she did end up singing with a jazz band.  The band was made up of all Chinese musicians who played American jazz with some Dixieland Jazz.  The band sounded like they had had some exposure to US musicians, so before we left, I asked the band leader if his band ever traveled to the United States.  He answered me in English and said that about 15 years ago they spent a year playing in San Francisco and Sacramento, California.  He said that he was 83 years old and his band had been together for 26 years.

The audience was made up of men and women, mostly Chinese with a few Americans and Europeans.  There was a table of Japanese high school students and adults behind us.  The Japanese began to talk to us in English and asked to take some photos of Joan after she sang.  A few even danced with her before the end of the performance.  I later learned that Noel Coward penned “Private Lives” in that very hotel, which was built in 1926.  This is one of the few times that we were without any interpreter; we really were totally on our own and had a great time exploring one aspect of Chinese nightlife.

*The Bund is an Anglo-Indian term for a muddy embankment.  It is located along the bank of the Huangpu River.  It is noted for its European architecture and landmark hotels.

Yunnan’s geography is marked by deep valleys and high mountains, including some snow capped mountains and glaciers. It is an extension of Tibet.  Many of its people consider themselves Buddhist.  We got to visit a number of Lamaseries, mostly Tibetan Buddhist.  Yunnan is the sixth largest province, which is equivalent to the size of California or Sweden.  It is situated in the southwest part of China and has nearly 40 million people made up of 25 different ethnic groups.  It is surrounded by four Chinese Provinces of Tibet, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi.  It is north of the borders of four countries: North Viet Nam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma).

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain was amazing!  I understand that it often is not visible during the summer, however it magically became visible to us for a few hours and as we headed back to our hotel, we could see it covering itself back up with thick white clouds.  The mountain range is in the foothills of Tibet in Northwestern Yunnan outside of Lijiang.  Lijiang has an “Old Town” that most of us found very enjoyable.  We ate a few times there and we had some time for exploring and shopping, but we could have used more time.  We also visited Lugu Lake that we explained further later.  In addition, we saw Tiger Leaping Gorge which has a spectacular 10,000 foot drop between two mountain ranges with the Yangtze River rushing through it.  We also were in Zhongdian, which is now named the new Shangri-la.  (Shangri-la was in other places in Yunnan and Tibet—see the book Searching for Shangri-la: An Alternative Philosophy Travelogue—see bibliography)

Old Silk Road in Xinjiang. The second part of the trip was in the Province of Xinjiang.  It is situated in the northwest part of China and is one sixth the size of China and is its largest province.  Xinjiang is roughly twice the size of Texas, the size of South Africa or three times the size of France. It is the farthest inland area in the world.  It shares its border with eight countries: Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  It also shares its border with four other provinces in China: Tibet, Qinghai and Gansu and Inner Mongolia.  It is literally west of the Mongolian Desert.  Xinjiang has a population of over 20 million people from 13 different ethnic groups: Uyghur, Kazakh, Han, Hui, Xibo, Mongol, Kirghiz, Uzbek, Manchu, Russian, Tatar, Dahour and Tajik.  The largest minority group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur, which numbers about 6 million people. “Uyghur are a Turkic people whose origins have been traced to the Altai region of South Siberia . . . The Uyghur language is close to Turkish, though one can also find traces of its connection to Mongolian.” p.49 Along the Silk Road.  To me the language looked related to Arabic; it certainly did not look Chinese.  The present day Uyghurs are Muslim.  However, the population prior to Islam was mostly Buddhist and you can still find some Buddhists as well as some ancient Buddhist artifacts and caves in Xinjiang.

In the southern part of the province is the Tarim Basin as well a formidable desert named the Taklamakan Shamo (Desert).  In Uyghur, it literally means “enter and never return.”  “Much of China’s mineral wealth lies hidden in the region, including oil, iron, coal, gold, silver, antimony, copper and jade.  Oil exploration in co-operation with American, French and Japanese companies is under way deep in the Taklamakan Desert. … Along the southern rim of the Taklamakan, China tests nuclear weapons and, with the help of French and American teams, has set up nuclear power plants.  Agricultural produce includes fruit, vegetables, wheat, rice, sorghum, maize, cotton, tobacco, oil bearing crops and sugar beets; the Chinese commonly refer to Xinjiang as the ‘land of fruits and melons’.  On the slopes of the Altai Mountains grow spruce, cypress and pine trees.” p. 182-183 The Silk Road Xi’an to Kashgar.

Most of our trip in Xinjiang took place along the Silk Road.  Much of it was desert surrounded by high snow capped mountains and glaciers.  I now better understand why the caravans, hundreds of years ago used that route.  The snow from the mountains melt and form streams and rivers which make small green oasis’s along the way.   As we traveled, we were in areas made up of primarily rocks and sand, and then you would see patches of green vegetation from these streams and rivers. 

As I rode on top of a wild double humped (Bactrian) camel, sometimes dubbed "King of the Gobi,''  I imagined myself traveling hundreds of years ago in a long caravan with many camels and horses using the “Silk Road” that linked the Arab World and even some European cities with China.  Many new technologies were developed and exchanged between the various cultures during the past 2,000 years. 

“The Silk Road transverses Asia and Europe, linking together the countries with ancient civilizations of China, India, Egypt and Babylon (Iraq).  The Silk Road was and is vital for the flow of economy, culture and understanding between China and the Western world.  In recent years, the United Nations has referred to the Silk Road as a ‘Road of Dialogue’ and a ‘Cultural and Commercial Super Highway,’ providing a fervor for study of and travel on the Silk Road.” –intro from Traveling the Silk Road in China.

Think about it, Eurasia is the largest land mass in the world, spread across one-quarter of the planet’s circumference.  There was an 8,000 kilometer path between China and the Mediterranean—all the way to Italy.  This area was first crossed using camels, horses and donkeys.  Sea routes were developed later by sailors and merchants.  They went from China to the west coast of India then across the Arabian Sea to Persia and then down the east coast of Africa.  Some say that by 1421, Zheng He, a Muslim Admiral from China not only sailed to those places mentioned above, but around the entire world including the east coast of America. (To learn more refer to the following books: Along the Silk Road; 1421: The Year China Discovered America; When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405-1433 and Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond: 2,000 years of Exploring the East —see the bibliography.)

It is interesting that in our formal Western Education that we barely acknowledge the exchange that happened between the east and the west dating back over two thousand years.  “Until the late nineteenth century, the landlocked vastness of central Asia was virtually unknown to the West.  A few fragmentary and often ambiguous accounts had been brought back and published by travelers, arousing in their readers a sense of the region’s exotic mystery.  When Europeans finally came to China, as traders, adventurers, and missionaries, it was by sea to the south and, later, to the north.  The hinterland of the far northwest of China, as we know it today, or Chinese Turkestan, as it was known in the nineteenth century, kept its secrets.” Caves Temples of Mogao: Art and the History on the Silk Road.  Note: although this was obscure to Europeans, exchange between the Middle East, Africa and China has been going on for over two millennia.

We also took four days and traveled over eight hours each way by bus on the Karakoram “Crumbling Rock” Highway from Kashgar to Tashkurgan, which is Tajik for “Stone City” that refers to a stone fort that was built just a little out of the city in the 6th century.  We had an opportunity to climb up and see the ruins. 

The Karakoram Highway is 1,284 kilometers long and goes all the way to Islamabad.  It was one of the bumpiest rides I ever had.  We returned after spending two days in Tashkurgan, elevation 3,350 meters or over 11,000 feet above sea level.  It is on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.  Both going and coming back we saw two huge mountains: Kongur Shan (25,280 feet) and Muztagh-Ata “The Father of Ice Mountains” elevation=24,600 feet.  These two mountains are used as practice before climbers ascend the two largest mountains in the world, which were not that far away from where we were. (Mt. Everest-elevation 29,035 feet above sea level in the Himalayan Mountain Range on the border of Tibet and Nepal and K2 (Qoghir)—elevation 28,250 feet in the Karakoram Mountain Range in China.  These are the two newest mountain ranges in the world and are a result of the subcontinent India crashing into Asia. On the way to Tashkurgan, we stopped for lunch at Karakul Lake, elevation=3,500 meters, which is surrounded by these two large mountains.  After lunch is when I rode the camel.  The person leading the camel used my camera to take a photo of me on it and the background of that photo is unbelievable!

Xinjiang is primarily Muslim.  In Kashgar we visited Abakh Hoja’s Tomb which was built in 1640 and contains his grand-daughter who was said to be the “Fragrant Concubine of the Qing Emperor Qianlong.”  Behind the Mausoleum is a large very old graveyard.

I was surprised to learn that women were not allowed in many of the mosques in Xinjiang, whereas we were allowed in mosques in the United States.  We did get to go into two mosques—one in Kashi (Kashgar) and the Emin Minaret in Turpan (Turfan).  The Minaret was built in the 18th century and is in the Iranian style.

Next to the Dead Sea, Turpan is the second lowest place on earth about 500 feet below sea level.  In Uyghur Turpan means “lowland.”  We also learned about Turpan’s underground water channels “karez.”   They explained that the water evaporates very fast, so they designed a way for the rain water to drop down into underground channels that they used for irrigation.  We also visited the ruins of an ancient city of Jiaohe, which is over 2,000 years old.

While we were in Xinjiang, we did visit some Kazaks, who lived in Yurts (nomadic tents made from thick animal skins and thrown over wooden poles, like Native American tepees, but the tents are pie shaped.) The Kazaks remain primarily Buddhist, which was the dominant religion in Xinjiang until the Muslims came in the 10th century.  Many of the Kazaks are own and use horses and many of them have yak herds.  We had some yak butter tea and some yak cheese with them.

Kashgar had a Sunday Bazaar, a huge marketplace that had not changed much in the last 1,500 to 2000 years.  The food was different, instead of pork, we were served lamb.  The rice was often rice pilaf.  Some of the other vegetables were the same but were prepared differently.  The people had a European and Middle Eastern look to them.  This was my first experience in Central Asia.  I was impressed with the climate, clothing, all the craftsmen in their various stalls in the bazaar and the animal exchange that happened every Sunday.

The People  During both parts of the trip, we were welcomed by the local people and treated very well.  A couple of the highlights of the trip for me were when we got to spend some time with the local people.  The first experience was with the Mosuo (Naxi) in Lugu Lake.  Eileen Walsh had spent two to three years living with the people.  Part of our group got to stay with the family that she stayed with and part of the group stayed with some of their neighbors.  They had a reception for us and came in their costumes and danced for us and then invited us to dance with them.   As the evening went on, our group and the Mosuo took turns singing songs in our native languages.  For example the Mosuo would sing one of their songs then one or more Americans would sing an American song.  It was a fun, entertaining and educational experience.  Very late in the evening, everyone finally went home.  Our group was broken up into smaller groups and went to our respective homes to stay.  A few of us females got to stay with the family that Eileen had stayed with, so we had the equivalent of a pajama party and talked with our female hostess before we went off to bed.

Another meaningful experience was when we attended an “English Corner” at a local coffee house in Kashgar.  A few local high school teachers brought some of their students who were studying English to practice their conversations with us.  Also some local business men came.   It was a great way to meet people from the area.  We were put in small groups with the native people so they could practice their English and in the process we each learned more about each other.  We occasionally stopped the small group discussion while each participant took time to go in front of the group and introduce him/herself and provide a little background about him/herself.  Also, in between our discussions we had some local musicians entertain us with musical instrumentals and songs.  I would recommend more activities like that for future trips.

The Schools  We also got to visit some schools in both Yunan and Xinjiang.  Unlike my previous trip to China where I visited a state of the art school in Jinan we found that these schools were struggling for the basics and most did not have or only had limited access to the Internet.  For the most part they were gracious and invited us to sit in their reception room, and if they had it, they offered us hot tea.

The curriculum that they followed is set nationally, so they all seemed to teach the same subjects.  On this trip in addition to visiting high schools, we got to visit elementary as well as a post-secondary vocational school.  English is a required subject.

The Guides and the Group
We had local guides for each area we visited: Kunming-Lugu Lake—Mark and Josh; Zhongdian (Shangri-la) and Tiger Leaping Gorge--Tenzin; Xinjiang Province—David and Dolkun; and Shanghai—David and Jay.  They not only helped us with pointing out places of interest, they were very helpful as interpreters and assisted us to find the answers for the many questions that arose from our travel.  All of the guides were very fluent in English, Mandarin and the local languages. (We found out that not all Chinese speak Mandarin, some areas they only spoke or read their own language such as Uyghur.) The guides represented a diverse range of religions and ethnicities* and allowed us another opportunity to learn more about them through both observation and asking questions.  *Agnostic, Christian, Confucianism, Tibetan Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist, Bai, Tibetan, Han and Uyghur.

I was very appreciative that our group was so small.  We had eight teachers K-college and two faculty members, plus our one-two guides per location.  The teachers came mostly from Connecticut, however; we did have one teacher from: Minnesota, Texas and New York City.  We all got along pretty well.  Sometimes we seemed to subgroup by age and athletic ability:  The younger ones between late 20’s to mid 40’s and the elder group between mid 50’s to early 60’s.  The younger ones for example would tend to do more vigorous hiking activities while the more senior members did less physical activities and took that time to observe, meditate and/or talk with the local people.

Meals and foods:  Meals were ordered by our guides and Eileen.  Our group members had many dietary constraints that had to be conveyed to each restaurant.  We had two vegetarians, one who was lactose intolerant.  We also had a member who could not eat: MSG, wheat, beef, dairy nor spices.  The first part of the trip was more similar to my first trip to China in terms of how we were served and what the food tasted like.  We were generally served a variety of dishes ranging from 9-12 different plates.  Quite often they were placed on a large “Lazy Susan” on the middle of the table. 

The meals often included at least one pot of soup and a pot of rice.  We were served many different vegetables and tofu as well as meat dishes made from pork, chicken and/or beef.  We also were served fish that were prepared with the head and tail in tact.  Occasionally, we were served seafood, including shrimp, but since we were so far inland, most of the seafood was from fresh water.  One of the dishes that was served at almost every meal was made up of scrambled eggs, tomatoes and sometimes some spices or fresh cilantro.  (We got a bit tired of it by the end of the trip.)  We were in an area that tended to have spicy food, which I personally enjoyed, however some of our members could not tolerate spices, so we usually comprised with some spicy dishes and some not so spicy dishes.

The second part of the trip was Central Asian Cuisine.  The pork was replaced by lamb.  Often, we had lamb kebabs.  The best tasting kabob was the ones that we were served at the former British Embassy in Kashgar.  I asked what spices they used; they said it was cumin and black pepper.  (Last night, I took some lamb that I had in the freezer and used those spices, plus a little ginger vinegar and made a wonderful lamb roast.)  We often were served rice pilaf.  Most of the vegetables included tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, green beans with red hot peppers and garlic.  One item that all of us seemed to enjoy was steamed pumpkin.  It was a dark orange.  It was delicious, no butter was served with it and none of us asked for any butter, but we did ask for another plate of the pumpkin.  Now that I think of it, we rarely were ever served butter with our meal and we did not miss it.  Xinjiang had the best tasting bread.  In one town, we found excellent bagels with poppy or sesame seeds.  Boy, did they taste great!  They also had yogurt and wonderful tasting grapes and raisins.  We also had handmade noodles and dumplings.

As far as beverages go, all three meals each day included tea (usually green tea (lu cha) and sometimes black tea).  Lunches and dinners, in addition to tea we had a choice of soda, usually Cocoa Cola and/or local beer (pijiu).  For breakfast, they most often also offered a great tasting strong coffee (kafei).  Some of us also developed a taste for a commonly served beverage in China, plain hot water (baikai shui), which is supposed to be good for your body.

Dessert was generally fruit, most of the time, slices of watermelon.  Xinjiang is famous for its melons: Hami melons of Shanshan, “grandpa” melons.  It also is famous for its fragrant pears of Kurle and white apricots of Kuche.  They also had mulberries, figs and apples.  (I had my first taste of mulberries and mulberry juice on this trip.  I found the taste very refreshing.  I kept thinking of a childhood song that we used to sing, “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush.”)  I also just realized that silkworms eat mulberry leaves.  I looked it up and it takes “250 cocoons to produce 1 oz finished silk, or 1,000 cocoons for 4 oz. When softly handspun and openly knit, 4 oz is enough for the medium sized, long sleeved body sweater illustrated in A Silkworker's Notebook.”

Health and Wellness:
When we were on the buses, we were given access to lots of bottled water, which we were encouraged to drink to keep hydrated.  It was very good to altitude sickness especially since we were traveling most of the time between 6,000-14,000 feet above sea level and to fight heat exhaustion when we were traveling in along the edge of the desert.

We were warned to only drink boiled or bottled water and not to use the tap water for drinking or brushing our teeth.  We also were cautioned not to have ice in any drinks, because you never knew the source of the water used to make it.  We were discouraged from eating any raw foods such as salads and if possible to avoid eating foods from the street vendors.  Fruit was ok to eat as long as the skin was peeled off, such as bananas, watermelon, grapes, etc.  Steamed vegetables were ok, because the bacteria were killed by the heat.

We used chopsticks to get the food off of the serving plates and move it onto our small individual plates.  We also used the same chopsticks to get the food from our small plates into our mouths.  Some germs from the group were passed between us using this method of eating.  For example, one person had a cold and it went through most of the group.  Also, many people from our group did get diarrhea sometime during the trip.  One of the members became dehydrated from too much diarrhea and had to go to the hospital to become re-hydrated intravenously.  Fortunately, I guess compared to other groups, we really did not have any serious health problems or any bad accidents.   I understand some of the other groups had members who lost their footing on the uneven rocky ground or on the wet marble flooring that is commonly found throughout the area that we traveled.

It should be noted that early on the trip, I had an opportunity to ask for a blessing from a Buddhist Lamas.  Three of us, Joan, Diane and I got to chant with him for a while and then he chanted some non-English words to us.  During our trip I prayed for the health and safety for each member of our group.  I did not get sick on the trip and as I said no one had any serious accidents.  There certainly were opportunities for something to happen.  Was this just a coincidence?  I guess some would say yes, but I choose to think that we had some help and protection along the way from that blessing along with others that we received later on in the trip.

The Transportation  We saw all kinds of transportation including: people walking, donkey and horse drawn carts, people riding horses, camels, bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, cars and small trucks.  It was not unusual to find people on any of these forms of transportation using a cell phone.  In China today, you can find ancient transportation modes co-existing with 21st century forms of communications.  I was fascinated by all of this and took many photos and some video footage of what I saw from the roads along our trip.  In Xinjiang, I was fascinated and took photos of the motorcycle seats, which were upholstered with oriental rugs.

Conclusions and Concerns:
I have some concerns as to what is going to happen to China.  Will the exposure to Western ways erode the dress, habits and culture, especially of the minorities?  Will they continue their ways, or will they slowly become westernized?  CBS News had a story about how things are changing in Japan.  Parents who used to stay with their children as they aged are now being put into nursing homes and their advice and wisdom is not being listened to by their children and grandchildren.

As China grows and develops, I really hope that her people will find a way to continue many of their ancient practices and traditions.  I enjoy traveling the world and visiting other cultures and seeing other customs, costumes and hearing other languages and idioms.  It is important to meet people who do not think, dress or act exactly like us.  It is important to preserve different ways of looking at life. It allows the “visitor” to see things from a different perspective and see different values.  In the future, I would hate to see the whole world looking, sounding and tasting like the United States.  It is important for each country to learn from each other and take the best from each culture.

Flora Cheong-leen (Zhang Tianai) a prominent international fashion designer who lives in China was quoted in the book, Searching for Shangri-la, “People need much more space for illusion and hope.  Western people’s life is a repeat of everything, the same street corner, some fashion shop, just the same.  Western culture has created a world of material repeat, brand logo.  People live with stereotype.  So everyone is coming here (China) in search of something, not just tangible materialism.  This is an era of change.  Asians have it, but cannot see it.  They have thousands of years of thinking but they do not want to see it, only concrete jungles.  They see repeated brand names and want to look like everyone else.  They are in fact lost.”

I would not go as far as to say that the Chinese are lost, but I think sometimes they do not fully realize that not all the answers are found in Western Civilization.  Chinese traditions, customs, etc. can help Westerners.  We (Westerners) need to become less materialistic and learn to appreciate the values and customs that the Chinese have had for thousands of years.  Personally, I am trying to incorporate some of the principals of Chinese feng shui into my personal and professional life by reducing some of the “material clutter.”

Other places in China that I would like to visit in the future:

• Stone Forest 75 miles southeast of Kunming in Yunnan Province
• Tibet
• Hong Kong
• Huangshan
• Cruise along the Yangtze River and see Three Gorges
• Yangshuo
• Chengdu—Panda breeding area
• Leshan in Sichuan
• Dunhauang on the Western Gansu Province  (Mogao Caves)
• The end of the Great Wall at Jiayuguan Fort
• Hohhot (Inner Mongolia)
• Manchuria
• Hanging Monastery in Datong
• Xi’an—Terra-cotta Warriors and the beginning of the Silk Road
• Summer Palace on Kunming Lake outside Beijing
  

Partial Listing of Reference Materials Used from My Personal Library:

Books:

Bonavia, Judy, The Silk Road Xi’an to Kashgar, Odyssey, Hong Kong 2004

Brahm, Laurence J., Searching for Shangri-la: An Alternative Philosophy Travelogue, Higher Education Press, 2003

Dalrymple, William, In Xandadu: A Quest, Lonely Planet Publications, Oakland, CA 1989

Fishman, Ted C., China, Inc: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World, Scribner, NYC  2005

Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NYC 2005

Harper, Damian, Lonely Planet China, Lonely Planet Publications, Oakland, CA, USA 2002

Harper, Damian, National Geographic Traveler China, National Geographic, USA 2004

Ed. Harrell, Stevan, Cultural Encounters on China’s Ethnic Frontiers, University of Washington Press, Seattle, WA, USA 1995

Hopkirk, Peter, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities Treasures of Chinese Central Asia, The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, MA 1980

Knowles, Christopher, Fodor’s Exploring China—Fifth Edition, Fodor’s Travel Publications, Random House 2005

Levathes, Louise, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne 1405-1433, Oxford University Press, NYC 1994.

Li Dezhu (Editting Committee of the Ethnic Groups of China), China’s Ethnic Groups, PRC

Mallory, J.P and Victor H. Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London 2000

Menzies, Gavin, 1421: The Year China Discovered America HarperCollins Publishers, NYC 2003

The Museum of the Xinjian Uigur Autonomous Region PRC

Nebenzhl, Kenneth, Mapping the Silk Road and Beyond: 2,000 years of Exploring the East, Phaidon Press Limited, London 2004

Neville-Hadley, Peter, Frommer’s China 1st Edition, Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Organizing Committee of the First Dawax Folk Art Festival, Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, Silk Road Tour, PRC 2001

Sinclair, Kevin and Iris Wong Po-yee, Culture Shock China, Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, Portland, Oregon 1990

Starr, John Bryan, Understanding China: A Guide to China’s Economy, History and Political Culture, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NYC 1997

Ten Grotenhuis, Elizabeth, Ed., Along the Silk Road, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithonian Institution, Washington D.C., Silk Road Project, Inc., and the University of Washington Press, Seattle and London 2002

Waley-Cohen, Joanna, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History, WW. Norton & Company, NYC 1999

Whitfield, Roderick, Susan Whitfield and Neville Agnew, Cave Temples of Mogao: Art and History of the Silk Road, The J. Paul Getty Trust 2000

Whitfield, Susan, Life Along the Silk Road, University of California Press, Berkley, CA 1999

Ed., Zhang Hai Shan, English by Tsui Yen Hu, Tour in Xinjiang, Xinjiang People’s Publication
Maps:

China (International Travel Maps)

China Northwest (MapLink)

Silk Road Countries (Gizi Map)

Southeast Asia (Nelles Maps)

Cookbooks:

Batmanglij, Najmieh, Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey, Mage Publishers, Washington D.C. 2002 (More than a cookbook, has beautiful photos and some historical and background information in addition to recipes.  Recipes are labeled by country of origin.)

China The Beautiful Cookbook, HarperCollins Publishers 1998 (Beautiful photos not only of the food, but people and places.  Authentic recipes from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Sichuan.  Bought it at Borders for 50% off=$9.95)

Fahrnow, Ilse Maria, MD, Jurgen Heinrich Fahrnow and Gunther Sator, Feng Shui and the 5-Element Kitchen, Silverback Books 2003 (This is a interesting book that teaches how to cook with the 5 elements to increase energy, health, happiness and enjoyment.  It explains about the concept of Chi (energy) and provides recipes that you can use to improve different organs in your body.  It also provides a chart to help you increase your yin and yang and explains what foods and spices are neutral.)

Ministry of Information, The Republic of Tea: The Book of Tea and Herbs: Appreciating the Varietals and Virtues of Fine Tea and Herbs, Cole Group, Santa Rosa, CA, USA 1993

Okakura, Kakuzo, The Book of Tea, Dover Publications, Inc., NYC 1964 (More about tea ceremonies, the atmosphere, flowers, art appreciation, etc.)

Passmore, Jacki, Williams-Sonoma Savoring China, Oxmoor House 2003  (beautiful photos of people, places and the food.  Food is categorized by coming from the East, West, North or South part of China.)

Quick and Easy Chinese: 74 Easy-to-Prepare Chinese Recipes, Parragon Publishing, Bath, UK 2001 (Easy recipes that you could do with students.  Have photographs of the finished product as well as smaller photos showing stages of preparation.  Also, provides the nutritional breakdown for each recipe; estimated time needed to prepare the dish, the cooking time and simplicity level on a scale of 1-3.)

Salloum, Habeeb, Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa, Interlink Books, NYC 2000 (You can see the influence these countries had with China and Central Asia)

Multi-Media: CD’s, VCD’s & DVD’s

The Flowing Stream: Chinese Folk Songs and Tone Poems by Zhou Long by the Shanghai Quartet.

Musical Rthem of Silk Road (CD about Camels, Tianshan Mountains, Girls from Dabancheng and more) from PRC

Musical Soul of the Silk Road (CD has Uzbek, Uygur folk songs) from PRC

Nawa Un-Sin Me Rkizi by Adulla Aburehim CD produced in PRC

PBS Home Video: 1421-The Year China Discovered America? Penquin TV 2004 (DVD 120 minutes)

The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan (Artistic Director=Yo Yo Ma), Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.  2 CD Set (Masters and Traditions and Minstrels & Lovers)

Three Uygur Girls are on cover—in Uygur-cannot read  (CD with modern Uyghur Ethnic Music) from PRC

Xinjianggewu: Songs and Dances of Xinjiang, VCD from PRC