Bulldozing Over Cultures in China
We’ve already been informed that The Mindful Tourist is one of the many websites blocked by the Chinese government (and quite frankly, we feel honored. Thanks, China!), and we don’t think our discussing the latest cultural catastrophe the Chinese are committing will make them change their minds.
While we sit fretting over the new six-lane highway about to be constructed in our own backyard (dubbed the most expensive highway in the country mile-per-mile, AND it’s an expensive toll road, AND it won’t relieve congestion - but we digress), China is taking razing to new and disturbing levels. The New York Times reports that the historic city of Kashgar, China is in the process of being demolished.
“Over the next few years, city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of this warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.
“In its place will rise a new Old City, a mix of midrise apartments, plazas, alleys widened into avenues and reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture “to preserve the Uighur culture,” Kashgar’s vice mayor, Xu Jianrong, said in a phone interview.
“’From a cultural and historical perspective, this plan of theirs is stupid,’ said Wu Lili, the managing director of the Beijing Cultural Protection Center, a nongovernmental group devoted to historic preservation. ‘From the perspective of the locals, it’s cruel.’
“Chinese officials have offered somewhat befuddling explanations for their plans. Mr. Xu calls Kashgar ‘a prime example of rich cultural history and at the same time a major tourism city in China.’ Yet the demolition plan would reduce to rubble Kashgar’s principal tourist attraction, a magnet for many of the million-plus people who visit each year.
“China supports an international plan to designate major Silk Road landmarks as United Nations World Heritage sites — a powerful draw for tourists, and a powerful incentive for governments to preserve historical areas. But Kashgar is missing from China’s list of proposed sites.”
The NYT story is quite compelling – we urge you to read the whole thing. In the meantime, China, stop it now. Don’t make us have to pull the car over.
