For centuries, Western scribes have made the grueling trek west to Xinjiang, only to produce reams of unreadable Orientalist garbage. Now, one travel writer attempts to retrace that garbage….
Part Four: From Dunhuang with Dysentery
It’s evening in the land of Xinjiang — or, as they call it here, “Xinxian.” My local guides, and several plainclothes policemen, are staring with varying shades of exasperation, boredom, malice and fascination as I finish my ruminations on Dunhuang, ancient city of contradictions.
To better understand the region, I’ve been watching an old Uyghur spoon seller for the last few hours, studying his habits, fantasizing about what it would be like to write an entire article about him.
What would I say? What would my Style editor say? Then I smile, recalling the time I filed an article from Auschwitz about how hard it was to find decent moisturizer in Poland. She wouldn’t say shit.
As the call to prayer echoes over the old town square — utterly unchanged since they demolished all the mosques three years ago — the old man looks up and catches my eye. Without a word, he communicates a simple, unspoken message: Meet me in the Holiday Inn at 4pm, Room 508 (wear something red).
Then he’s gone. “Did you see him? The spoon man,” I begin to ask the Chinese guide. “Do people in China have ghosts? Do they even exist in the —”
“Of course we do,” the guide sighs. “Now what about lunch? We’re all getting hungry.”
The air resonates in this strange town of sandstone and concrete, like a cello — or a chorus. Yes, of ghosts. In this desert region, travelers so often died, lost, shrieking and singing, as one does. Perhaps my spoon seller was one of these antique phenomena, so often described by Tang pilgrim-scholar Xuanzang, in whose steps I follow every day.
“If you’re seeing things, maybe your blood-sugar levels are getting low,” my guide interrupts. “C’mon, let’s just eat.”
The policemen all give a frantic “thumbs up,” an ancient symbol of approval in these arid lands, and we repair to a local Gansu restaurant. The waiter is Chinese, as are all the other staff I meet, and I wonder where all the Uyghurs are — surely this is their ancestral homeland?
I arrive at the Holiday Inn seeking answers to these questions. I’m sporting a pair of bright-scarlet pantaloons that, I’m told, are authentic local garb, but my spoon seller is nowhere to be seen. Has he been captured by secret police? Tortured in one of the “concentration camps” I’d read about somewhere? Has my glamorous appearance startled him — or was he merely a ghost?
The answer is evident, when I return to the square at dusk to find the old man still selling spoons and Mountain Dew from his makeshift stall. It was a test. And somehow I passed.
I smile, and start to speak to the seller in a mixture of broken English and sign language. Within seconds, a crowd has formed, eager to admire my pantaloons. The old man says his name is Larry, and if I agree to buy a bag of dates, some DVDs, and a genuine Rolex, he will tell his story. It is a story of stones, his words swirling like sand grains in this desert of spirits and [continues for 4,000 words]
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