Whoa : I just wrote a big news artical for SG on the riots in western China.
Many years ago I was actually in Urumqi where the riots are happening. The area had only been opened up to Western visitation the year before, so you can imagine how cool it was to be there. Talk about a place ( officially known as The Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region) that is out in the middle of nowhere. But that's all of western China for you : out on the old Silk Road, and about as harsh of a place as you can imagine. There are some places where they average...zero inches of rain a year. The Uyghur people are pretty wonderful, with a culture that is thousands of years old, but few people have heard of them until now. It's a shame to see China going down the same road with them as they have gone down with the Tibetans.
Anyhow, read my article here :
http://suicidegirls.com/news/politics/23742/
Many years ago I was actually in Urumqi where the riots are happening. The area had only been opened up to Western visitation the year before, so you can imagine how cool it was to be there. Talk about a place ( officially known as The Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region) that is out in the middle of nowhere. But that's all of western China for you : out on the old Silk Road, and about as harsh of a place as you can imagine. There are some places where they average...zero inches of rain a year. The Uyghur people are pretty wonderful, with a culture that is thousands of years old, but few people have heard of them until now. It's a shame to see China going down the same road with them as they have gone down with the Tibetans.
Anyhow, read my article here :
http://suicidegirls.com/news/politics/23742/