Chicken Wars

On Thursday, I was minding my own business in my classroom, marking papers before lunch. I heard a knock at my door, and I looked up to see the school counselor in my window. He's a nice man, and sometimes even has important information, so I quickly motioned him in.

I noticed he was carrying a plastic shopping bag. He carried it towards me as he said, "See what my wife found in her office." (His wife is the primary art teacher, so her office is also in the school.

As the bag came closer, I got more nervous. Something didn't seem right. It was. "Ah! Ew!" I jumped backed from peering in the bag in alarm.

"It's a.. a..."

"Yup," he countered. "It's a mummified chicken."

I was shocked. Flabbergasted. And more than a little disturbed by the sight I had seen. This was a proper Chinese chicken, so the head was still attached. It looked like a little chicken baby, all wrapped up (poorly) in bandages. It was at once so recognizable as something real, and yet it was so obviously dead. And if it had been in her office, it had been there since last year.

We chatted for a few more minutes, and then he said the chicken demanded some practical joking. Perhaps leaving the chicken in an unsuspecting colleague's office. That colleague would then have to pass the chicken along to another unsuspecting colleague. Having gotten used to (sort of) the presence of the chicken, I agreed that it was a wholesome plan.

Later that afternoon, I learned that he had indeed left the chicken with a colleague. Someone whom we both thought would be all about the joke, but we were mistaken. Not only did he not shriek like a little girl (having been at the school the previous year when the chickens were ceremoniously mummified and having been alerted to the presence of the remaining chicken earlier in the day by said school counselor), he didn't even pass the chicken along. Well, he passed it along to the trash can (or rubbish bin, if you prefer) instead of another teacher.

As I was leaving school, I saw him in the hallway with his head in the door of the administrator's office. "I can't believe you threw away the chicken," I whispered.

"What did you expect me to do?" he replied.

"Not throw it away. I am shocked and saddened you would do such a thing," I continued to whisper. I didn't want to interrupt (too much) his conversation with the Powers that Be.

"Who is that whispering in the hallway?" I heard from inside the office.

And that's when it all came out. That a mummified chicken had been found. That it had been given to him (without his knowing).

"What? The last chicken!" my administrator laughed. "I thought they had all be found. Well, where is it?" she was clearly getting a kick out of the chicken, as much as I had earlier in the day. "We should leave it in a new teacher's room since they won't know what it is." She reminisced for a moment about the disgust and stink that the chicken project creates. (It turns out that what I had slowly pieced together during the day was correct: the chicken was the remnant of a 7th grade social studies projects on Egyptian mummies.)

But, the chicken was gone. The trash was taken out. I coerced my Less Than Fun Colleague into asking the cleaning ladies if they had seen it. (He tried to get me to do it, but I can barely buy something in a shop, let alone ask a cleaning lady where a mummified chicken has gotten to.) We eventually worked out that the chicken had left the building. In a trash bag.

I went to get my bike and head home. Excitement notwithstanding, it was time. My path takes me by the trash heap, however. (It'd be a dumpster anywhere else, but here it's just a pile of trash bags on the ground.) My Less Than Fun Colleague came running after me. He knew where the chicken was! It was in the pile of trash bags! That were being loaded into the trash compactor truck. (Cue sad trombone.) My Less Than Fun Colleague stepped up to help me peer into a couple of trash bags, and even asked the men if they knew of it. Either they totally didn't understand him, didn't care, or had already been freaked out by the chicken themselves because they told us that it was already in the compactor.

And thus ends the life and death of the Last Mummified Chicken. (Until this year's class makes them?)

From Random Beijing

To be continued...

Xinjiang Photo Highlights

So, I have about five posts still on my iPad from Xinjiang, another couple I've been planning to write about other stuff, and some photos to share. To let you see the photos without having to wait for me to catch up (I also have a stack of marking a mile high to get through), I'm just going to let you flip through these on your own.

If you would like an explanation about anything that you see here, feel free to leave a comment and I'll narrate as best I can.

Xinjiang Highlights

Still Don't Have One of Those There

For those of you not playing along on Facebook who want to see how nasty the infection on my leg was.

That first picture is a year old, but it's not gross, so if you don't want to see the icky, don't go any further than looking at how cute my hair used to be and how awesome that necklace I got at the pearl market is.t

Pus

More History

We arrived in Kucha late last night, after an extended, but fairly pleasant ride on the train from Kashgar. Today, we get down to the real business of seeing the sights. First up is the "Grand Canyon", followed by the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas.

It is an hour and a half to the canyon, so along the way, we get the story of the area. It's happening as I type, and I am interested to see how it shapes up. Kucha is so small a town (only 500,000 people) that there is no English-speaking guide. As a result, our guide from Beijing will translate the Mandarin for us.

I have found many guides in China have marginal English, at best. As a result, their stories are rather unintelligible. Pronouns get mixed up, time loses all meaning, and antecedents become as lost as the original text of the tale itself. The communicative competence (as my ELL training says) of the guides is nil. I wonder, given the excellent, fluent English that our Beijing guide speaks, if the information will be more meaningful.

Kucha means "intersection" in Uyghur. My first impression is of a one stoplight town, and in many ways, it is. But while in America at means small and backwater, in this part of the globe it is a big deal. When everything is small and backwater, and has been since the beginning of recorded history (and probably longer than that), a stoplight is a big deal. This town was not just an oasis along the road, it was a place where two different roads crossed. That is a big deal and means big, important city.

It was also the seat of (the Chinese) government, so anyone passing along the Silk Road was required to stop and show their passport-like papers and get approval (or something). OK, some ideas are still lost in translation.

There are two big construction projects in China (and the way he rattled them off, it sounds like this is a well-known governmental policy): "Moving the water from the south to the north" and "moving the gas from the west to the east." Kucha is along the gas pipeline, so gas is its main energy supply.

Kucha is also (at some point in its long and storied history) the place of a City of Women. A traveler came to the area and found it inhabited entirely by women! Holy crap! Well, he was a bit mistaken, but it was definitely a matriarchal society where all the guarding and fighting and ruling were done by the woman while the men were kept quiet in the homes. What we are not told is any sort of context: who these people were, when they were, or what happened to their kingdom.

We are driving (slowly) along a wooded road. On either side are well-tended fields and orchards. Unique sheep, with black heads and white bodies, Dottie landscape. Monoculture has not seemed to have hit the region yet. Because Xinjiang has the longest season of sunlight, it is a huge agricultural area. Although rain water is scarce and it borders the second largest desert in the world, glacier-fed rivers bring life to many oases in the area. It is known for cotton (although the fabric you find in the markets is horrible polyester nastiness with skanky prints and largely overpriced — but I digress), melons, and apricots.

On one side are some large cooling towers. Some of the tour members ask our guide if it's a nuclear plant. No, he replied, it's an electricity plant. Uh... That didn't really answer the question. We let it lie.

Then suddenly, the agriculture gives way to industry. Out one window are factories belching out smoke, and out the other are huge piles of red against a grim, beige backdrop of sand. We can see that the red are divided into smaller piles, some even lain in neat, geometric lines reminiscent of those designs in Peru you can only see from space. Our guide tells us they are chilis, but they are not hot and wonders if we can guess what they are used for. (They are just lying out on the bare ground, so I hope it involves cleaning, whatever it is.) He quickly tells us we will never guess, because he himself was surprised: they are dried and ground and the pigment is used to make lipstick.

Another five minutes down the road, and the industry gives way to nothing. We are driving across what was once (thousands to millions of years ago) the bottom of the ocean. I can see the layers of sediment along with places where there has been uplift. The horizontal bands are no longer horizontal.

We then slow down to a stop. I see a police station on our left and a toll booth ahead. Our guide tells us to not take any pictures of the police and says, without emotion, that it's a security check. Having had one run-in with the authorities already, I put away both my camera and my iPad. But it comes to nothing. The policeman talks to the guide and we go on our way. I never even see the man's face.

The landscape has changed again. The land has grown more mountainous and has taken on a more bulbous look. The locals call it a ghost town because when the wind blows you can hear moaning coming from all the holes in the rocks. (I think our guide's translation of the local guide's Chinese is far better than a mediocre English-speaker's spiel.)

After a few more minutes, we pulled off the highway "to take pictures of the beautiful landscape". There has been many lovely places to stop along the way, but we stopped in front of a tunnel, a random sign, and a concrete-lined hole in the ground. We all agreed it was the ugliest place to stop, so we hammed it up with some Chinese poses.

Our guided wanted to make sure we knew that we were still an hour away from our destination. Poor thing. He was worried we thought this was it. Sarcasm in all its forms (including taking a billion goofy photos of the ugliest scenic point on the route) is so often lost on the Chinese.

Then TC3 and I took a detour to go to the bathroom. We figured we could find some sheltered spot behind a rise of land to pop a squat. Sure enough, I found a spot — the same spot many before me had found judging from the piles of tissue and smooshed poo. As I was choosing my particular location, I noticed TC3 was still standing roadside as a Chinese woman and her teenaged daughter were walking towards me.

Have I mentioned the Chinese have no sense of personal space? I knew they would keep coming and impinge upon my private moment, which they did. Mom grinned at me (as I squatted there with my ass hanging out), and I had little choice but to smile back while railing against her in my mind. I was here first, and I was going to pee and no Chinese woman would out me off. Nor would her daughter, standing there snapping photos of the landscape (which I can only pray do not end up on Weibo with the caption of how lily-white my big Western bum is).

TC3 finally decided enough was enough, and she too came over the rise. We joked about our two new friends as she continued a bit further up the trail in hopes of finding a bit more privacy.

We continue along our journey and are now driving across flat scrub desert. We pass an occasional dry riverbed. We are in the dry season now, so the rivers have all run dry, but during the rainy season from April to June, the rivers do flood. We are driving north/northeast and along the eastern edge is a mountain range with peaks of maybe 1000-1500 meters. But I'm guessing here. I'm not sure what the range is. If I could only get a wireless Internet connection, I could look it up on a map.

And then, it is more of the same.

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Location:Kucha, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China

Breakfast of Champions

There are a few things that are a perpetual drag on any Westerner visiting China: one is the toilets, the other is breakfast. (Yes, we have first world problems.)

Asian breakfast is nothing like Western breakfast, and I have met far more Westerners who are exasperated by it than love it. Coffee is often nonexistent. Bacon is hard to come by at the best of times; edible sausage is even harder. Eggs are not always to be found. Typically, breakfast looks a lot like lunch, with stir-fry, noodle dishes, and frosting-laden cake for desert. There is usually a thin porridge dish, but the toppings are bizarre, salted vegetable, fish, or meat pickles.

Years ago, however, I was schooled in the ways of eating well on a tight budget. It was during the Time of the Squirrel, and as state employees, neither of us had any money to spare, but we had a deep and abiding love of good food. Add to the mix the Squirrel's vegetarianism, and I learned how to adapt and adjust the offerings at various hotel buffets and fast-food locations.

There are a few simple tricks, the first (obviously) is to be prepared. Arm yourself with knowledge. Know what you are likely to find and then figure out how to fill in the gaps. Taking mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, or hot sauce packets can help transform a bland hotel sandwich into something edible (no sandwich is worth eating without mayo). A plastic baggie of chai-flavored tea bags and some sachets of sugar and creamer can make a delicious hot beverage at any campsite or at any convenience store: just add hit water!

Rule number two: Yes, you will need to become something of a packrat. Knowing that mayo and mustard would spice up your sandwich is no good I'd you have no packets of condiments on hand. Fast food joints are your friends in this regard.

Rule number 3: Don't be afraid to break the food down into its constituent parts. Feel free to combine items in ways that the "chef" did not intend. Put bananas on top of that waffle at the Days Inn breakfast. Why not slice and throw on some apples, too?

You might remember that a couple of years ago, for my birthday, I went to Qingdao with my friends. While it was nice and the brewery was cool, there were some issues, mainly about food. We stayed in a Chinese hotel that was far away from the Western part of town, so coffee was nonexistent. Breakfast was bizarre and the Starbucks and McDonald's were not within walking distance. Some us were very miserable, I was disappointed with our combined lack of preparation, and TC3 said she would never travel in China again.

Here is what I learned:
Starbucks Via is a godsend. Nescafé tastes like shit, but Via actually tastes like coffee. Say what you will about the Starbucks empire destroying locally-owned coffee shops, they make a good product and take care of their employees.
Salt and pepper are critical. It is nearly impossible to get them in a Chinese restaurant, even when you know how to say it in Chinese. Wo yao... I don't actually know how to say salt or pepper, but my friend A did.
Corn congee (porridge or "mush") tastes a lot like grits. Grits is a perfectly acceptable hot breakfast cereal, especially when salt and pepper are added. (You could go the sugar route, too, but milk will be harder to find.)

So, for this trip, I brought with me both Starbucks Via and my travel salt and pepper shaker.

Yesterday, at breakfast, there were a lot of grumpy faces. The breakfast offering at our "4 star" hotel was sadly lacking. There were no beverages, not even hot water. It was mostly nasty stir-fry and weird pickled things. Te tour members were trying, though, to put on a brave face and eat something.

I, however, was perfectly content in a "I can make do with this" sort of way. I had heated up hot water in the kettle in my room and made a cup of coffee which I brought down with me. There were a couple of boiled eggs left by the time I got there, so I snagged one of them. There were a couple of yo tiao (tough, savory doughnut-like sticks) pieces left and some sugar to sprinkle on top. And, there was a fresh chafing dish of corn mush.

Here's what you do: Boiled egg sprinkled with salt and pepper, "doughnut" with sugar, and corn mush also with salt and pepper. Coffee. Done.

This morning, breakfast was eschewed by everyone except TC3 and I (who I convinced to come along with me). We got there earlier (so the eggs were still warm and plentiful), as were the yo tiao (although they were cold). (Sadly, there was no cornmeal congee today, so I had one that was probably some sort of wheat. It's at once thinner than cream of wheat and with chunkier wheat bits. Still. It was warm cereal). We rounded it out with a couple of oranges that that TC3 had bought on our train ride into town.

Done. I don't have to whine, bitch, or complain. I just eat what I want treat, the way I want to eat it.

A first world solution to a first world problem.


- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Kucha, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Our flight from Beijing to Urumqi was largely without incident. We left on time and had a smooth flight across the country, most of which I slept through.

We landed to cloudy skies and drizzle, surprising considering Urumqi's claim to fame as the driest city in the world. It is farther from the ocean than any other city. And yet here it was, raining.

Because we are at the ends of the earth, we did not have a connecting flight from Beijing all the way to Kashgar (Kashi in Mandarin). Instead, we flew one airline to Urumqi and then had to collect our baggage and take another airline to Kashgar. This also involved a terminal transfer.

Switching terminals at an airport is not unheard of: usually there is some sort of train or tram or shuttle. But the Urumqi airport is not that big, so we walked out of terminal two and turned right, and then walked a few thousand feet up the sidewalk to terminal three.

As we neared the terminal our way was suddenly blocked by some cones. I looked up, and there was a long line of policemen dressed in S.W.A.T gear maintaining a lane perimeter in front of the terminal. And, lined up in two lines heading into the airport, were about fifty Muslim men dressed in blue and white robes and caps.

In the wake of September 11th, the Chinese government has declared and Muslim separatists, activists, or otherwise uncooperative-ists "terrorists" (of the international kind, of course).

And today is National Day, remember, in an "election" year. Tensions always run high around state holidays in this country.

We just kept walking. I pretended not to notice or care what was happening around me.

And across the far lane of traffic was a solitary Muslim woman in her head scarf, watching, silently.

(Later, we were told they were on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Going is a big deal, involving tens of thousands of kuai in deposits and long waits and all sorts of red tape to ensure no one is trying to emigrate — pr really just to dissuade any allegiance to the religion.)

- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Urumqi, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money

It was a sunny morning in a small village outside of Kashgar. We were there to witness the animal market which is in a different location on different days.

The market was still setting up, so on TC3's suggestion, three of us walked across the street to see what else was there (and perhaps find a decent bathroom). About ready to head back towards the market, we started walking across an open driveway of sorts, taking a shortcut back to the main road (which we could see about a hundred feet in front of us). Suddenly, a policeman was at our side. He began to speak to us in Chinese (which I couldn't understand), but TC3 and the other woman were trying valiantly to understand. I did figure out, however, that we could not cross the courtyard.

OK. We'll go back around.

Oh no. We need to come with him. Into the police station courtyard. Oh, OK.

In China, there is a fine line between feigning ignorance and going about your business... And being uncooperative. You do not want to be uncooperative.

It was beginning to dawn on me that we were not in Beijing anymore. We were in Xinjiang where there is an uneasy truce between the Uighur nationalists, Muslim leaders, and the Party. And it was National Day break — when everyone's tensions run high (although ironically is the one time people have a holiday so things should be more relaxed and more understandable, but they are not).

At first, because he was waving a piece of paper, I thought maybe we just had to sign in.

But they were asking our nationalities (Canadian, American, and English). They took our passports and were rifling through them — looking for what, I'm not quite sure; I assure you all my documentation is in order.

More and more bored police were gathering around. We were in an immediate group of maybe 10 black-clad policemen with another 20 or or so hanging about the fringes.

People were being called on various cell phones. Questions were being asked and marginally answered (due to our fundamental inability to understand the questions). We tossed out whatever we knew how to say: I am a teacher; I live in Beijing. And they only have two out of our three passports. A few of the policemen speak rudimentary English, but no one seems to be bothered about really trying to get information from us.

Then they gave us our passports back. Cool. That must mean we were done, so we headed for the gate. (See the previous comment about the fine line.) But no, they followed us — but without a lot of emotion, hence our confusion about whether we could stay or go.

Besides the 30 men milling around, we were feeling unthreatened. It had the air of a grand misunderstanding (although I know things can change on a dime around here). We were (and had been) standing in a large open courtyard. There was a police building tucked along the western edge, a few trees scattered around, and an entrance gate along the east wall. We remained untouched and in the open air. No one raised their voice. But we were not allowed to leave.

At one point, TC3 heard someone say there were three Americans which besides being decidedly untrue (having been verified by our passports) is also decidedly more ominous (although I can't quite explain why). And poor Canadian TC3 does not like being called American.

So, we all milled about, waiting. One of them got a friend who spoke English on the phone and he told TC3 that it was illegal for foreigners to be in this particular village. We should go back to Kashgar, where we were allowed to be. (Of course, we would have been more than happy to do so, but that required allowing us to leave.) We would have to have our passports copied and would not be allowed back in the county. (To be fair, there is a rather slim chance I will ever return to that county.)

We had tried to phone our tour leader, but my British compatriot couldn't get the number to work (we later figured out she was just out of credit). I discovered that I had forgotten my phone in my hotel room. Things were not looking better. I would hesitate to say I was panicking, but I was getting less and less comfortable.

We had bought some of the delicious flat bread along our wander, and I was still slowly eating the piece I had in my hand. As we were herded back into the compound towards the police building, I stuffed the last of my bread into my mouth.

I have never found it so difficult to swallow. What had moments before been delicious, warm, and fragrant was suddenly harsh and dry. It stuck in my throat as I tried to summon up enough saliva to swallow it without choking. I have never wanted to call my Handler so much as then, but I didn't have my phone. I wanted him to call my former student's mother, who is high up in the Beijing police force, and have her call these yahoos and straighten this whole mess out. Not that I knew the name of the village I was in...

Then, a small woman showed up. She was dressed nicely, if not smartly, in black trousers and a jacket. She spoke rather good English, but she had a worried air about her, making the full story difficult to comprehend (TC3 sensed she was close to tears a few times). Whatever it was, our passports were being photocopied. She confirmed with us that we were with a tour and had transportation back to Kashgar.

It was then that I noticed that one of the black-clad men was taking our picture. It was not, however, a turn-to-the-right! sort of picture. He just appeared to be taking snapshots of us with his nice feminine, pink camera for his family Spring Festival sideshow, as they do in China. Still, I refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him and smiling.

It was only later that My British friend said, with an air of resignation at our lost chance, that we should have taken out our cameras and posed with them. Alas. Perhaps it was for the best.

Once our passports had been duly photocopied, the small woman walked us out of the police courtyard. We told her we were more than happy to walk around, but she insisted that we walk across the square we had attempted to cut through.

As she escorted us, she made some small talk, apologizing for her poor English, as they do. I told her that her English was far better than my Chinese, as I do. She made sure to tell me that she was Uighur. Well then, she must speak at least three languages, which puts me to even further shame.

As we neared the street-side gate of our shortcut, we noticed a coterie of eight to ten men wearing camouflage flanking the gate. Well, had we seen that on the other side, we would have never attempted the shortcut.

It wasn't the police that were the problem, no. Oh no. We had inadvertently stumbled onto the grounds of the Party headquarters. She was likely a Party official, although I am resigned to the idea that I will never quite know.

As we neared the gate, she inquired where our bus was, and we indicated it was just down the street (and it was). She told us she thought we should leave this place, and sooner would be better.

I was certainly more than happy to comply with her request, but not before we took a turn though the animal market, gawked at some camels, cattle, and sheep, tried some freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice, and bought a (real) fleece hat.

We did tell our guide what had happened, and he brushed it aside. He said it was no big thing. Later, when our local guide was spotted and asked to register at the police station, he said it had nothing to do with our detention.

I'm not sure I believe him.

- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?

Location:Shule County, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China

Chowderheads

As our bus neared the entrance to the "Diversifolious Poplar Forest, I noticed a disturbing trend along the highway: scores of Chinese tourists parked along the side of the road, posing for pictures. There were discrete piles of garbage, as well, indicating the location of previous picnickers.

The Chinese Gong Show had begun.

We pulled into the parking lot where we were told that we would walk for about an hour and the bus would meet us at the other side. We started off across the parking lot, where more tourists were posing with a big tree. (I love you this much! seemed to be the theme of the poses.) So after throwing down my own pose, we headed off into the woods.

TC3 was raring to go. Although our local guide made no indication that she was moving on and our Beijing guide was not in sight, she had walking on the mind.

You know my friend, the Pied Piper. The one who leads me down random roads in small towns and lands us in police custody. That one.

We took off after her, I with some trepidation. The way was difficult. Walking up the ash-covered slope of Mt. St. Helens is easier. This is not sand, neither is is dirt. It is dust. Dust like would cover my apartment if I left the window open all year. It seems to me it should be more trail-like, but the Pied Piper is undeterred.

Fortunately, a voice behind us calls out that we are going the wrong way. Well, I knew that, but it's good to have back-up. We head off in the direction the guide is going and it turns out we are just walking up the road. Ooh, fun.

Well, when life hands you a road, start walking. So there we were, a gaggle of Westerners walking down the road that all the Chinese were (wisely) driving down. We were having a great time, laughing and taking pictures. And there it was, we might not have been a gong show, but we were certainly the chowderheads.

After about ten minutes, I caught up to our group. It seems that we were going to wait for the bus to pick us up. There was no trail, there was just a road. And a somewhat boring road at that.

We walking back into the woods for a hundred yards and then heard that the bus was on its way, so we stood at the side of the road in a big group.

Soon, a car of tourists came by. Well, if we were all standing there, there must be something to see, so the car slowed to a stop. One of the snarkier tour members said we should all look in the same direction, and he pointed to one tree.

Of course, we all looked. I pointed too. He mentioned it looked like an ice cream cone; I said I saw a unicorn; a third said it was broccoli. The Chinese were hooked: the stood in front of the tree and posed for some photos.

Meanwhile, a few more cars ahead pulled over ahead of us and were checking out the surroundings.

Oh yes, we really are that bad.

Just then, our bus pulled up and we hopped on.

I have no idea if they knew they had just been punk'd by a group of Western chowderheads.


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Location:Diversifolious Poplar Forest, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China

It's Bad

We had a saying in the Mazamas. Well not so much a saying as a micro-anecdote. Or an aphorism.

They tell you to stay hydrated, then rope you up together...

Going to the bathroom on the side of a mountain is always an exciting proposition. Sometimes, it's just that the view is breathtaking. Sometimes, it's the privilege of packing out whatever it is you usually leave behind. Sometimes, it's being on a rope team. Sometimes, it's the frustration of getting your trousers down (and back up) while not removing your harness. So, peeing the woods, and two years in China, has made me relatively immune to bad bathrooms.

And then there was the worst bathroom I've ever seen. Ever. In my life.

We visited some canyon in the morning. It was a rather bland walk along a state-park-esque trail with a gaggle of Chinese tourists. You were supposed to be able to see all sorts of pictures in the various rock faces: think the Old Man in the Mountain, but at every turn (seriously limiting the amazement factor). Regardless, we had a pretty good time being snarky. We got back on our bus and traveled back the way we came, probably for an hour and a half or so, and then we stopped for lunch. (We were on our way to see some Buddhist painted caves.)

We stopped at a roadside joint. Where's the bathroom? Over there. A hand vaguely waved across the street and down an alley.

A rather large contingent of us wandered in that general direction. We were heading into a large courtyard or even parking lot. On one side was a large group of Uighurs (probably) hanging out and dancing. It was pretty cool, but we were on a mission.

They spoke little English, but they waved us vaguely towards a shed at the far end of the enclosure. We went.

We found the bathroom, alright, but we sort of wished we hadn't. It was a cement bunker built over an incline. Underneath were piles of, well, waste. As I walked in, my "somebody else's problem" force field went into overdrive. I swear, I could have traveled across the universe on the energy I was putting into not paying attention to my surroundings.

But even I, skilled as a I am at ignoring things, couldn't help but notice some things.

One was the stench. There is no way to mask the smell of that much human feces. At all. Even the most accomplished mouth-breather was likely to inhale the sharp odor of shit from time to time.

Another was the complete filth. I know I've told you before about some of my problems with squat toilets. One of the biggest is my fundamental worry that I'm just not doing it right. That somehow, the reason why I suffer from overspray is that I'm not in the right position. I need to squat leaning more forward, or backward, or towards the front of the commode, or the back, or something else I just don't know because I didn't grow up using a squatter. Like language. My inability to hear the difference between a "q" and a "x", or reproduce them correctly while speaking.

Well, let's just say that aiming properly is not only my problem.

There was poo everywhere. I tried not to look. I kept my eyes ahead and focused on a point on the wall. I erased from my mind what that spot might be made of. But there was no hiding the piles and trickles of poo that hadn't quite made it through the three openings in the cement floor.

Yes, Gentle Reader, it was just a cement floor covered with shit and piss and a few holes. It did have waist-high walls between the holes.

I left the room, another woman in my group who was waiting outside asked, "How is it?" there was only one response, "It's bad." What else could I say?

As we headed back to the restaurant, unsure if using the bathroom was better than having to go pee all afternoon, we stopped to admire the dancing. The couple in our group joined in the dancing (and won mad props from the locals). They invited us to join them at the wedding.

Oh Gentle Reader, it was a wedding. I can't imagine having to use that bathroom on my wedding day.








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Location:Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China