Year: 2014

The Blind Voice of the New Silk Road

Published by Darren Byler

Perhatjan performing in the second segment of the Voice of the Silk Road  This week was the screening of the seventh segment of the first round of The Voice of the Silk Road – a show that hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs watch every Friday night at 8 pm local time on Xinjiang TV Channel 9. People like the contest because they can watch their favorite performers joke around with each other; they can see people they know perform or imagine themselves performing in their place. Uyghurs see themselves trying on a performance mode popularized by mainstream English and Chinese-language versions of the show, but instead of English or Chinese pop ballads and American and (largely) Han stories of unrecognized talent, on this show they see the reverse. They largely see Uyghur folk songs, classical muqam and pop music; and they mostly hear Uyghur stories of personal triumph. The Voice of the Silk Road is a celebration of an amateur love for Uyghur music. The contestants sing because they love to sing; they sing because they …

Uyghur Flamenco and “World Citizenship”

Published by Darren Byler

On any given weekend in China you can find a Uyghur band playing flamenco. It has not always been this way. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that a young man from Qarghiliq in Kashgar prefecture discovered Turkish variations of Spanish flamenco. Over the next decade that man, Arken Abdulla, along other early flamenco guitarists such as Qehirman and Tursun (see the above video), introduced flamenco to the Uyghur world. Today it seems to be everywhere. Young Uyghur men with long flowing hair clap out the music of Andalusia from Ürümchi to Beijing. Many times this music is fused with the sounds of Sufi music and dance from the deserts of Southern Xinjiang; often it reflects the phrasing and compositional styles of the Muqam – a form of classical Islamic music and dance performance which is a source of immense pride for many Uyghurs. Arken, perhaps more than any other contemporary artist, is seen as embodying an “interlocking” (kirishmaq) of Uyghur forms of performance into the romance of the flamenco guitar. When one asks about …

The Uyghur Migrant Food Network

Published by Darren Byler

When young people come to Ürümchi to work or study they are often supported by a whole network of people from their home village. They rely on relatives and friends to help them find jobs and help them get on their feet. But there are some things that their hosts in the city cannot provide: they can’t give their young visitors food from their home village. It is perhaps for this reason that young Uyghurs have developed a food shipping system that brings the tastes of the countryside into the city. This food arrives in boxes shipped in the cargo hold of sleeper buses from southern Xinjiang. What first began as a side-business for a store called Lukman at the South Ürümchi Bus Station has become a full-fledged shipping network across the oases of the South. Lukman handles thousands of boxes of nuts, raisins, pomegranates, cooked meat and special kinds of naan sent from the kitchens of concerned mothers to their sons and daughters across the desert. The boxes are marked with the name of …

Review of the Uyghur blockbuster “Money on the Road”

Published by Darren Byler

Update: A full-length version of Money on the Road (featuring Chinese and English subtitles) is now available to view for free on Youtube. In the autumn of 2014, just in time for the long ten-day break for the National Holiday and Qurban, the Uyghur comedian Abdukerim Abliz released his first full-length Uyghur language feature film (with Chinese and English subtitles). The comedy titled Money on the Road (or This is What Money Does from the Uyghur, and, Running with Money on the Road from the Chinese) features an ensemble cast of stars, including a cameo by the famous singer Abdulla. It follows the misadventures of three Uyghur farmers who come to the city as migrant workers to participate in Ürümchi’s urban renewal. Abdullah, who plays the role of a construction manager named Musa in charge of the demolition of degrading one-story housing on the south side of Ürümchi’s ring road, invites the three down-on-their-luck farmers from his home town near Kucha to come to the city and work for cash. Although they arrive in the city with “hungry-eyes” as …