Travelling in Xinjiang feat. Wingwaabuddha | Learn Chinese Now

Hi everyone, well I'm back in the studio with a friend of mine, Will, who's got a lot of experience traveling in China. Hey Will, how are you doing? Good, how have you been? I'm good. Well, Will, I know that you've traveled in Xinjiang and I wanted today to ask you a little bit about your experiences there. Okay. So, first of all, just give us, you know, where have you been in Xinjiang? I started in Xinjiang in the capital, Unuqi, and I've been all over throughout Turpan, going into also into Gansu province with Dunhuang, but I also liked to go into the north in the Kazakh territory, so outside of just the Uyghur territory in the Kazakh territory. Wow, cool. And so, you know, I know you've talked on your channel about Uyghur culture in Xinjiang. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. I find that the Uyghur culture is really similar to Turkey a lot because they do share sort of a cultural connection with Turkey, I mean the Turkish people, and it's really amazing that you find yourself in China and it feels like another world. You know, instead of rice, it's more, you know, bread or naan based, and of course the highly Muslim Uyghurs are, and I just find it amazing that in a mostly desert area, the Uyghurs have been able to carve out this interesting agriculture of mostly fruit products. I've never seen more fruit than I have in a desert region such as Xinjiang, and the Uyghurs are amazing people in the fact that it's amazing they've been able to preserve their culture, you know, 13 million people or 13 million Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and despite a huge amount of Han Chinese there, it's amazing that they've been able to preserve all their, you know, cultural traditions. Wow, and you said that you've also visited the Kazakh, is it Kazakh or Turkey? Yes, the Kazakhs. How are they different to the Uyghurs? The Kazakhs are mostly, at least the ones in the north of China or north of Xinjiang, mostly nomadic people as opposed to the Uyghurs. And I know that, you know, you've talked before in some of your videos that these people look very different to Han Chinese. Yes, it's funny because I always tell this story when I was in Xinjiang with my wife who's, I guess, the typical Han Chinese, you know, looking. We were just buying bread at a stall and the guy started speaking to my wife in Mandarin and then after that he started speaking to me in Uyghur and he just thought that I was Uyghur and it's amazing that I would never think that being in China someone would think, okay, I'm a local person, you know, with my, you know, blue eyes and, you know, brown hair. Wow, yeah, so some of these, you know, these Uyghur people do have blue eyes, don't they? Yes, yes, very Caucasian sometimes. And, you know, are there any other ways in which Xinjiang is different to the rest of China? Yes, I would say that it's in a way more relaxed feeling and I guess that might be just a cultural difference but it does feel a lot more relaxed. Maybe it's because it's so scorching hot, at least during the summers, it can get like to 114 degrees Fahrenheit in Turpan and maybe that's part of the reason but it has a really nice relaxed almost Mediterranean feel which kind of makes it feel almost like Turkey again so I'd say it's more relaxed than the rest of mainland China. It is an autonomous region like Tibet is and I know there's kind of restrictions for foreigners if you want to visit Tibet. Is it, you know, hard to visit Xinjiang? Is there any, like, red tape? When I was there, no, but it does come up every now and then just like Tibet sometimes. When I was there, a week after I'd left, there was the Uyghur riots that happened in July which was interesting because it happened on the same street that I stayed for most of the time but usually Xinjiang is pretty open unless you want to go to the south region like Khotan, that's a little bit more strict. I know you have to sometimes have some sort of visa paperwork to get to the southern region of Xinjiang. Okay and then just lastly about Xinjiang, you know, for people who want to visit, what would you recommend for them to do or see not to miss? The things I would recommend most are to get out from the major cities, like get out of the capital. It's a nice place for sure but you get out from the capital and try to just explore the local life. With the Kazakhs in the north, I was lucky enough to be able to go to like a camp of theirs and, you know, ride horses and such and it was really interesting because Kazakhs are one of the great horse people of the world and it's kind of interesting to try to pretend like I knew what I was doing riding a horse and they know, they appreciate it just like everyone around the world appreciates when you try to, you know, learn a new culture. But I would say get out there, try to explore the north too because it's really nice, it's different than all the crowded, polluted, you know, cities mostly in mainland. So get out there and try to do some horse riding or go camping. It's one of the greatest places in China to go camping, so I would recommend that. Well, it certainly does sound like an amazing place to go and travel to. Thanks very much for speaking to us today, Will. Thank you. That's it for today, guys. If you're interested in checking out Will's channel for more on Xinjiang and China culture, just search the name Wing Wa Buddha on YouTube and he's got a lot of great stuff on his channel. We'll see you next week.