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| | | | | CHINA : THE SILK ROAD | | | | | CHINA : THE SILK ROAD (55 photos) |  Send this reportage | | In the northwest part of China, the vast and dry Tarim area, covering 500.000 km2, isolated between Tibet, Pamir and T'ien Chan, is one of the most extreme places in the world. Nevertheless, during one millennium, people coming out multiple horizons have met each other's in its oases. This melting pot became possible thanks to the miracle of the Silk Road, link between orient and occident. | | © A. Wostok Press./TheReportage.com | | Categories: Education, Environment, Geography, Trade, Tourism, Travel, Offbeat, Special Cultural event, Culture, Social, Big Story |
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 Page 1 2 3 4  Page 1 2 3 4 | | | | It's the base on witch were born refined and tolerant societies mixing religious and cultural sensibilities coming out sedentary civilisations and latent mysticism coming out nomad habits. Oases at the periphery of Tarim – today Xinjiang Chinese province – are sometimes separated by hundreds of kilometers. Buses have replaced camels caravans to travel from one to another. Oases inhabitants are still for a large part of them descendants of Turkish Mongol minorities who lived in the area at the Silk Road period: essentially Ouïgours but also Huis, Kazahks, Tadjiks, Ouzbeks, Kirghiz, Xibos, Mongols… Thanks to their art and craft, trading and festivity customs, these communities perpetuate the mystery of the Silk road period.
The north and south roads, making two oases chains, join themselves in Kashgar, the city of the West Chinese border. The oasis' heart is the old cob city, narrow streets labyrinth, protecting shadow maze, from which torpor at the nap time contrasts with the craft area bustle. There everyone execute the ancestral gestures conscientiously: barbers, jewellers, joiners, violin makers, braziers, tanners, tailors, cobblers…
Harmony however is only appearance: Ouïgours have difficulties to maintain their traditional way of life and to affirm their specificity as regard as the Chinese dominant culture, that expresses itself trough public administration and army presence. Revolts break out periodically. Besides, if they perpetuate in a way Silk Road tradition, by trading with neighbours that are Pakistan and Central Asia republics, Turkish Mongols communities of Xinjiang oases undergo the new law of globalization, that menace their culture. |
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