Month: January 2015

Uyghur Kids And Their “Dream From The Heart”

PPTV version of the above video here for those without access to YouTube. A recent Uyghur-language short film called “Dream From the Heart” (English and Chinese subtitles) tells the story of a group of boys from Qaraqash, a county of more than half a million people in Southern Xinjiang. Shot as part of China Southern Airlines’s new ad campaign by the award-winning director Zhang Rongji (张荣吉), the film references the true stories of how self-taught and underfunded young people from the deep poverty of Hotan and Kashgar prefectures struggle to compete with more privileged opponents. So many teams of young confident athletes, musicians, speech competitors, and scientists in Southern Xinjiang practice all of their lives to reach the big stage in the city, only to find themselves blocked by the logistics of getting across the country or traveling across the globe. Many times they don’t have the equipment, the coaching, worldly knowledge, or the political support of people in the cities – all they have is a will to succeed and the toughness that comes from …

The Best of the Art of Chinese Central Asia in 2014

There were many changes in Xinjiang in 2014. While some segments of the population saw 2014 as a year full of exciting new developments; others saw it as a year of increased desperation. Despite these changes life goes on. People always find a ways to survive and thrive. Below are our five most read pieces in 2014. Thank you to all of you that follow this blog for your continued support and readership. We are looking forward to bringing you more interesting stories of life in Chinese Central Asia in 2015. So You Think Uyghurs Can Dance? May 2014 “With the so much attention being paid to violence emanating from Xinjiang, many of you may have missed the parade of Uyghur dancers who have recently taken the stage on the Chinese version of “So You Think You Can Dance” (Zhongguo Hao Wudao). Not only do we have the child star turned adult tap-dancer Yusupjan, the nine-year old break-dancer Surat Taxpolat who goes by the stagename “Little Meatball”, and the teenage break dancerUmid Tursun but we also have the model family …