Southern Pastures
Every spring and summer, the Kazakhs ride into the White Poplar Valley and up into the Southern Mountains (Nan Shan), an extension of the Heavenly Mountains. They pack up their families and their tents, called yurts, and make the move on horseback. The attraction is the pastures, where they graze their sheep herds. Farther up the mountain is a 20m (65 ft.) waterfall.
The highway up the valley is 74km (46 miles) south from Urumqi. It is a relief to leave the city. The suburbs are filled with shacks and small mosques. Huis (Chinese Muslims), Uighur, and Kazakhs wander through the unpaved lanes, donkey carts in tow. On the southern outskirts of Urumqi is the largest chemical factory in China. Smoke blots the landscape for miles. But the southern meadows are another world entirely. The mountain peaks are steep and green with tall spruces and pines. The river is clear and swift, tumbling by remote mud huts on the hillsides.
At the foot of the waterfall is a Kazakh village of huts and yurts open to tourists. Several of the yurts serve as cafes and souvenir shops. In the late summer, traditional riding games are held on the grassy steppes. Girls court boys in horseback races. Those they catch, they playfully whip.
The waterfall is at an elevation of 2,100m (7,000 ft.) in mountains that resemble the Swiss Alps. It plunges through a narrow chute, dropping 27m (90 ft.) into a stony streambed. A rainbow-colored steel arched bridge crosses the stream, but otherwise there is little mark of modernity here. Kazakhs search the mountainsides for ginseng roots.
The Kazakhs descended from the Turkic-speaking Wusun nomads who were pushed southward by the Huns into the foothills of the Heavenly Mountains nearly 2,000 years ago. Excellent horsemen, they rode with Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan as the Yudn Dynasty (1271-1368) swept north and east to conquer China. In 1958, the Chinese established pastoral communes in this region of Xinjiang, but many Kazakhs continue to follow a nomadic life in the grasslands and mountain valleys surrounding industrial Urumqi, sustained these days by revenues from tourism and government subsidies. In July, they gather for a 6-day nadam, a summer fair with horse racing, wrestling, and competitions involving the sheep and cattle they herd. More than a million Kazakhs live in Xinjiang, where they were now outnumbered by Han Chinese and Uighur.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Heavenly Lake (Tian Chi)
- The Road to Urumqi
- Urumqi: The Lake of Heaven
- A Minaret & the Karez Wells
- Ancient Cities
