Whilst I have no great desire to do much travel, I cannot deny that, in my youth, I too cherished dreams of exploration and discovery. Some wish to go further and settle in some chosen spot for a while, immersing themselves in the culture and experiencing life as if they were born there. This always sounds at lot more glamorous than it really is, and the more divergent the culture of the locals and that of their visitor, the harder it becomes. Of course, to some bucket-listers the harder it is, the more desirable. Today we are considering, and turning down flat, the suggestion found on Pick Your Goals to
Live the life of the locals in Xinjiang.
In 1936 Peter Fleming, brother of the now more famous Ian, a sort of occasional roving correspondent for The Times, wandered all over the far east. His account of his epic journey (and here the adjective is not an exaggeration) from Beijing to Srinagar on the frontier of British India was published as News From Tartary and a thundering good read it is too.
Much of the way Fleming, and his gallant travelling companion, the Swiss writer Ella Maillart, relied on whatever transport was around as they crossed the endless spaces of China's western provinces. Here the deserts, swamps and high icy peaks forced reliance on camels, mules or feet. Fleming met people for whom China was more a concept than a country, and who following tribal customs that were many centuries old, owed allegiance to local chiefs or warlords. Their travels were mostly set in the province then known as Sinkiang, now Xinjiang ("the new province"), acquired late in China's history and at that time subject to rebellions and much intrigue from Russian communists.
I read this book in my late teens and I have it still on my shelves. You can see now why I might have been drawn to the same region. Well, not any more, thank you. China has become a heavily militarised society, the minorities in the west are watched with suspicion and ghastly concrete cities are replacing the small settlements precariously perched amidst the wilderness. Furthermore, I speak no Chinese of any form, found the food in Tibet (which I visited in 1986) none too palatable and do not wish to sample it or anything like it ever again, and the endless discomforts in which Fleming revelled - the dirt, the dust, the heat - do not appeal.
Xinjiang has a population of about 22 million. This is tiny compared to China as a whole but it easily covers the largest area. Consequently the population is spread very thinly, in a rugged and semi-desert terrain, making for a culture that fosters independence and self-reliance. Most of them are Uighurs from the Turkic peoples, linked to those of the other central Asian states, but distinct from the Han Chinese who comprise the vast majority of the Chinese people.
The Uighurs are Muslim, as are other peoples in the neighbouring countries to the west, and have a long history of resisting Chinese rule, with both religion and ethnic loyalties as reasons for conflict. China has been tightening its grip on Xinjiang for some time and there is evidence of serious brutalities that resemble those of the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge - see this current story in The Independent, for example.
What, then, does it mean to "live like the locals" in this part of the world. Do you speak the language? The local languages in Xinjiang are being suppressed; increasingly only Chinese is permitted. Are you a Muslim? Will you be praying like the locals? Are you prepared to be picked up off the streets by police and taken to a "re-education centre"? Have you got any experience in tending flocks of animals as they wander across the barren plains? Or do you see yourself running a small stall in a bazaar? How about being a long-distance lorry driver or a miner? Everything you say or write on your phone will be monitored, of course.
By all means visit such places and soak up, what to us living comfortably in the west, is an exotic lifestyle, but don't kid yourself that you really know what it is to live like a local. This applies to plenty of other places in the world, of course. It is a form of cultural imperialism, for those of us fortunate enough to be able to live freely and to afford to travel, that we have the temerity to believe that we could really know what it is like to be born and brought up in a very different part of the world. Moreover this is just a bucket-list idea, something to be done for a short time before you go home. Pity the hapless locals who have no such freedom; they are not going to be turning up in your town any day now asking for temporary jobs and mangling your language.
So you can breathe a little easier, good folk of Urumqi and environs. You are not about to be deluged with sarcastic pieces about extensive delays on the number 12 bus from Kaziwanzhen to the Xinhua South Road residential district, nor about the billboards with the horrible advertising slogan "Chop, chop, buy Lee's Chop Sticks today". I am staying right here to go on sticking it to my own people instead.
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Readers! Have you ever thought of living like a local in beautiful Ruislip? This dream can be within your grasp.
Apply today for the Ramblings Course, a set of learning modules that will enable you to blend in and become readily accepted.
- Discover the correct distance to stand behind the person at the front of the ATM queue
- Join the locals in marvelling at the annual flooding of the Victoria Road underpass at Ruislip Manor station
- Savour the authentic local cuisine as you choose from Indian, Italian, Chinese, Thai or Jamaican fast food outlets
- Play the dangerous sport of "just parking on the double yellow while I dash into the chemists" the way the locals do.
- Learn to tut-tut when the "minor" delays on the tube result in a twenty five minute gap in service.
Terms and Conditions apply but we're not allowed to share them with non-locals, sorry.
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