Alex Blackwelder

This one found in Kashgar, Xinjiang province. Don’t you want to walk in?

kashgar’s sunday livestock market. this was great practice in trying to blend into a completely different world!

Completely unrelated photo
Turpan, Xinjiang province

hello readers,

I have realized that I never really WRITE on my blog anymore and only post photos. This could be because of various reasons. I’m no longer in sensory shock over all the new stuff in my life, which was inspiring when I first landed in China. It could be because I feel awkward writing english after almost 10 months of speaking Chinese. Either way, I feel bad about it.

Most of my friends here are Chinese, so we usually talk in a weird Chinese-English hybrid that must sound ridiculous to outsiders. When I do speak English, I find myself speaking like a Chinese person. No, not an accent, more like the common words they use most and how they structure sentences. Today I found myself talking to an Australian and I said “I”ve taken this trip for advantage”. I meant to say “I’ve taken this trip for granted”. I realized this after we said goodbye. He must think I’m crazy.

As my trip winds down, I regret not writing my feelings and experiences down more. All of these small, seemingly unimportant things have already started to fade from memory. My favorite restaurant near my dorm was torn down when I came back for my second semester. I never took a picture of this place and I can barely remember what the bosses looked like. But they had the cheapest, best food on the street and my friends and I ate there almost daily. I remember rushing there after class to try to order 茄子炒蛋 (eggplant stir fried with egg). My friends and I would glare angrily at the other customers if they got this dish and we didn’t. Ten years from now what will I recall from my time in China just by memory? It’s a weird obsession of mine to want to collects these things and memories from my past.

Not writing has done a disservice to you, my small but appreciated group of readers. I often forget that most of you aren’t Chinese, don’t live in China, and that I need to add a little more information to my posts. I have a bad habit of assuming if I know it, you do too. But of course you are not here with me seeing these things and talking to the same people.

I’m sure in the next month I will have lots of emotions to express about my experience. I’m going to push myself to get them down on paper, and if I think they might be interesting or useful enough to exist in the interwebs, I’ll post it here. In the meantime, I’ve got a month left in the Middle Kingdom and I’m going to go soak as much of it up as possible.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

adorable, eh? I know i’ve got an abundance of kid pictures from Xinjiang, but they are usually the ones I end up talking to the most. Usually they can speak a little bit of Chinese, but the adults are less likely to know how. These two asked me to take their picture. I’ve officially fallen in love with Xinjiang.

Outside Kashgar, Xinjiang Province

kashgar old town, xinjiang province

The boy in the blue shirt came up to me and said, “Will you take my picture? I want you to but I have no money to give you for it”. How sweet! <333

outside of kashgar, xinjiang province

livestock market
kashgar, xinjiang province

kashgar, xinjiang

宏村，安徽， 中国
hongcun, anhui