Seven Months in Not Tibet

Hello Friends and Family -

Welcome to my new blog, "No Country for Blond Men" (a title that, unfortunately, was not without serious consideration for comedic effect and the appropriate level of self-deprecation chosen). I'm frankly a bit sheepish about it, and have only now set to typing an introductory post after a couple glasses of wine while still here in Connecticut. However, I've decided to create a blog deliberately, to show you some of what I find about a place to which you're likely not to go, to see what sorts of comments I might get from all and sundry, and not, when I come back to the US, to discover that I had not kept in touch with anyone at all, and that I've ruined all of my relationships.

For those of you who know no details, I'll be spending the next five or so months in Ala'er, a small city in the western Xinjiang Province of China teaching English at Tarim University, a school that focuses mostly on agriculture and related fields (yuk yuk). It's rather difficult to find information about either the school or the city on the internet, given its remoteness, size, and inexplicable variability of possible Romanizations (for the hopelessly brief Wikipedia page see Aral, Xinjiang). If you click on the link and read for 20 seconds, you'll be about as well informed as I am about my new home. The univeristy was founded in 1958, I believe, as part of the Great Leap Forward (its original designation was the "Tarim University of Agricultural Reclamation"); the city itself was only officially incorporated in 2004 as an administrative region under the direction of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which was founded in the earlier stages of the Great Leap Forward to promote agricultural and economic development in the restive and ethnically un-Han region, and strengthened during the years following the Cultural Revolution. In truth, I know almost nothing about Chinese political history, and won't be bold enough to inform anyone further on the matter.

What I do know is that Ala'er is situated on the Tarim River and at the edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The Tarim River holds the somewhat dubious honor of being the world's largest inland river, though it does boast some rather beautiful diversifolious poplars. The Taklamakan is, I believe, the largest sandy desert contained wholly within one nation (another dubious honor), and whose name translates roughly in Uighur as "you go in but don't come out," a phrase best heard, I imagine, from the cracked lips of some wispily mustachioed and turbanned shepherd, followed by a protracted spell of rheumy and diabolical laughter. The existence of such a heavily irrigated agricultural settlement in such an arid and inhospitible place can only be the product of decidedly political motivations, and I harbor no fantasies of experiencing an authentic "Silk Road" city such as Kashgar or Turpan. Luckily, having come of age in the 21st century, I'm even more fascinated by the inauthentic, and am very excited to see first-hand this city founded with the point of a finger, to see the river and the desert, and to see more stars and night than I might see at home.

Anyway, I hope this initial post may give you some reason to return for future ones. It's rather likely that my growing insanity caused by living in such cultural isolation will motivate some blasphemous, hilarious, or even poetic eructations, so stay tuned. I look forward to hearing from anyone, and to making you an involuntary audience for any and all of my petty grievances and/or philosophical breakthroughs.

Wish me luck!