say it with pie

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This post is a sequel to “Intercultural Dialogue: Italy, ur doing it wrong“. Maybe I should start a column where I tell other countries they suck while promoting the supremacy of Canadian-style cultural policy.

There’s an excellent article by Michael Wines in the New York Times today about the demolition of the Old City of Kashgar, “the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia.” About 85% of the area is being cleared to make way for mid-rise apartments and plazas, displacing many of the 13,000 families who live there. The Chinese government says it is trying to improve the safety of houses in an earthquake-prone region; the residents say that the houses have managed to stand the forces of mother nature for centuries, so what’s the problem?

Kashgar is an oasis city near the border of Kyrgyzstan in Xinjiang Province, China. The majority of the region’s population is Uyghur (wee-gur), a Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim. There’s a Uyghur restaurant around the corner from my mom’s apartment in Shanghai: I went there once, and was totally perplexed by a cute, vaguely-Asian-but-mostly-Russian-looking guy with blue eyes speaking perfect Mandarin who made me a lamb pie spiced with cumin. I was like, “Well, this mash-up of cultures and ethnicities is delightfully unfamiliar to me.” Ever since, I’ve wanted to do a “Spice Route” trip and visit Xinjiang. But I digress.

More from the article:

Chinese security officials consider [Kashgar] a breeding ground for a small but resilient movement of Uighur separatists who Beijing claims have ties to international jihadis. So redevelopment of this ancient center of Islamic culture comes with a tinge of forced conformity.

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. One foreign official who refused to be identified for fear of damaging relations with Beijing said the Old City project had unusually strong backing high in the government.

Man, China. You guys suck so bad at this stuff. I’m at least glad that things like the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Centre exist.