It’s always amusing when city locations are named after landmarks that no longer exist.  For many years Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, used to be a walled city, but this didn’t last too long after the regime change in 1949.
Like most cities in China now, the walls have been torn down and replaced with wide roads to facilitate the country’s growing urban population.  The only part of the wall to remain is the name of its gates, most notably the north and south gates (北门 bĕimén and 南门 nánmén).

Close to 100 million visitors are expected to visit Shanghai’s Expo (World’s Fair) which includes pavilions for each of China’s provincial regions. Xinjiang is, of course, included in this list and thanks to Adam Minter of ShanghaiScrap we are able to get our first views of the pavilion, both inside and out.

All of the major China travel books provide an ocean of information about Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong while only gently dipping their toes into the enormous province of Xinjiang. After years of fielding questions from FarWestChina readers who are seeking advice about traveling in the province I finally decided that it was time to do my part to fix this void of information. So I wrote my own travel guide.

On Saturday, April 24th, China’s Central Committee announced that 15yr. veteran Wang Lequan would be replaced by Hunan leader Zhang Chunxian. Xinjiang netizens react:

From Ashok, an Indian photographer: “I strongly feel that the condition of Xinjiang’s inhabitants serves as a testament to the importance of upholding cultural democracy…[this work] from my first trip is an attempt to create a visual record of the Uyghurs’ traditional culture and lifestyle.”

The CBA Finals just got interesting! During Game 2 between Xinjiang and Guangdong a hockey-like fight broke out between American Charles Gaines and Chinese player Du Feng. [video]

If you were ever under the impression that people only travel to Xinjiang to ride a camel in the desert, think again, my friend.  Early last year I profiled the top lakes in Xinjiang, each of which are off the beaten path and  provide some of the best opportunities to day-hike.
This next set of natural wonders might be a little more difficult to hike in a day.

Traveling to Xinjiang this summer? For those who can’t live without their email while on the road, here is a step-by-step guide to opening an email account on Sina.com.cn, the only mail portal that is open for use in Xinjiang’s post-riot web world.

Thanks to the Fragrant Concubine, who more than likely isn’t even buried in Kashgar, the Apak Hoja Mausoleum (aka “Abak Khoja”) has become one of the city’s top tourist sites.  In addition to the famous mausoleum it also offers a glimpse into old Uyghur wood carving as well as a cemetery plot that is still in use today.

Ever since reading Blaine Kaltman’s Under the Heel of the Dragon, my views about language in education have been challenged.  In my city of 200,000 there is only one Uyghur-language high school and judging from the rumors I’ve heard recently they may soon switch to Mandarin.
Why is that?  Or rather, why is that important?