China
Harmony in the Snow
Ruth Ingram on a park in Urumqi: “Nobody looks twice at the backwards walkers banging their backs against the trees. Nobody stares at the people standing for long periods on one leg.”
In Xinjiang, a Battle Over Bread
“Fears of encroachment by Han Chinese in Xinjiang,” writes Ruth Ingram, “have produced a conflict of interests where food is a key battleground.”
‘Art Should Have No Meaning’
Debbie Porter writes about the architect Su Nan Chu’s efforts to turn Xining, a city of two million in western China, into an oasis of contemporary art.
The Big One
A dispatch from Kurban, the most important event on the Uyghur calendar: “Boys receive gifts of plastic kalashnikovs and bullets, a way to take pot shots at Chinese who stray into their Uyghur domain. I try to stay out of the line of fire. ”
Postcard from Kowloon
Near midnight one night this summer, I walked through the Ladies Market in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district. I say I walked. I hardly moved. Nobody did. The market, even at that late hour, was a crush of people.
Watch Another World Go By
In the foothills outside of booming downtown Urumqi, in Northwest China, a much beleaguered Kazakh village clings to the old ways.
