Kurban Tulum

Kurban Tulum Monument Photo: © Michael Manning, The Opposite Side of China

Kurban Tulum holds the distinction of being the only person to share a monument with Chairman Mao Zedong in all of China, recalling their meeting in 1958.

To the left is an image of a monumental statue of this meeting in the town of Keriya / Yutian. Below right is an image of a monumental statue of this meeting in Unity Square in Hotan.

As the story behind this statue goes, Kurban Tulum -- whom the Chinese call Uncle Kurban or Uncle Kuerban (库尔班大叔 kù ěr bān dà shū) -- was a Uyghur electrician, born in 1883 in the Keriya oasis in what is now Keriya / Yutian County in southern Xinjiang in northwest China.

When the People's Liberation Army marched into Xinjiang, a few years after the 1949 revolution, Kurban Tulum was so hopeful, after the deep difficulties under the corrupt Republican officials and the regional warlords that had held sway in Xinjiang, he wanted to express his gratitude. He rode more than 1,500 km around the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang to the provincial capital of Urumqi on his donkey (or donkey cart) to bring grapes/raisins (or, in other versions, a melon) -- symbolic of the agricultural wealth of this large desert river oasis -- as a symbol of appreciation for Chairman Mao.

Seeing a public relations bonanza in the making, the Party officials in Urumqi arranged for him to be flown the remaining more than 3,000 km to from Urumqi to Beijing to meet with Mao Zedong.

The first meeting took place on June 28, 1958, in Beijing. The handshake was reenacted by the principals some time later in front of a Communist party meeting, where the famous photo of the handshake was taken on which these two monuments are based.

The Chinese government likes to hold up 'Uncle Kurban' as an ideal for Uyghurs, who they believe should welcome the government's policies in Xinjiang. Many Uyghurs resent him for the same reason, perhaps like Native American Indians would view the Lone Ranger's partner Tonto or African Americans would view Uncle Tom. He is also encouraged by the government as a model for other ethnic minorities in China. The name Kurban, a popular Uyghur first name, derives from the Uyghur word for a sacrificial animal.

All Chinese children learn the story of Uncle Kurban in school, along with the ditty "Very Happy Uncle Kuerban."

One of China's best-known revolutionary songs carries his name - "Where are you going, Uncle Kuerban?" (库尔班大叔你上哪 Kuerban Dashu Nin Shang Na Er), which you can listen to here at The Old Record (Lao Chang Pian).

In 2002, yet another movie was made of the story, "Uncle Kuerban visits Beijing" (库尔班大叔上北京 Kuerban Dashu Shang Beijing). The story has morphed into the myth of a simple-minded country bumpkin with beatific faith in Mao and the salvation of Communist liberation. See a roughly translated review of this movie. (Note that, in the automatic Google translation, the Chinese characters used to transliterate the foreign name Kurban are the same as the characters for, and are thus automatically and unfortunately translated as, cabinet and those for his last name, Tulum, as vomit.)

Kurban Tulum meets Chairman Mao Zedong Photo source: Michael Manning, The Opposite Side of China

.Kurban Tulum was an ethnic Uyghur (also spelled Uighur, Uygur, Uigur and, in Chinese, 维吾尔 Weiwuer). The Uyghurs, who speak a Turkic language and have a Turkic culture closely related to that of the people of neighboring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, made up more than 90% of the population of Xinjiang at the time of the 1949 revolution. But Uyghurs today make up only about half of the Xinjiang population, due to an intensive government program of migration of Han Chinese into Xinjiang. They still acc

This monumental statue, to the right, is in Unity Square in the center of Hotan, an ancient city on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert, famed through the centuries for jade, carpets and silk. See 200 images of Hotan -- including sights, tours, silk workshop, carpet workshop, ancient ruins, hotels, restaurants, and more -- here at Flickr at this collection: Collection: Hotan, Xinjiang, China

For much more detailed travel information about Hotan, see Central Asia Traveler on Hotan, with more than 30 pages on sightseeing, transport, hotels, restaurants, history and culture.

Read more about Keriya / Yutian, Kurban Tulum's home region -- with maps, sightseeing, transport, lodging, and dining details -- at my Central Asia Traveler on Keriya / Yutian page.

See a wider perspective photo of the Hotan statue at Meeting Uncle Kuerban (見到庫爾班大叔), where you can see that the figures are about 7 meters tall.

See a wider perspective image of the Keriya / Yutian statue at Nanjiang visit - I see Uncle Kuerban (我见到库尔班大叔). (Nanjiang is a Chinese contraction of nan (south) and Xinjiang).

A building in Ga Tuoluo Zi village, 15 km from the town of Keriya / Yutian, houses a small museum dedicated to Kurban Tulum. (When reading Google's translation, note that his Uyghur first name, transliterated into Chinese characters, 库尔班, is often, unfortunately, rendered by automatically translators as cabinet and last name (turumu or tulumu) as vomit.) See here pictures of the Memorial Building and inside the museum, which is still tended by members of his family. Kurban Tulum died in 1975 at the age of 92.

VISIT OUR TOURISM GUIDES FOR TOWNS IN SOUTHERN XINJIANG

Though not on most itineraries for Xinjiang travel, the towns of the southeastern rim of the Taklamakan, have much to offer the traveler. A major draw is the native ethnic Uyghur people. While their percentage of the population has fallen to less than half in much of Xinjiang due to a government policy of Han Chinese migration, more than 90 percent of the residents along the southern rim are still Uyghur.

Other sights in this area include 2,600-year-old mummies, museums, nature reserves, handmade silk and carpet workshops, jade mines, oil field, rock carvings, shrines, mosques, bazaars and twisty old towns to explore, as well as desert sand dunes and the extensive Chinese desert-taming systems trying to keep them at bay.

Our guides for each town include extensive information on sightseeing, transportation, dining and lodging, as well as many photos and maps.

Niya / Minfeng

A small town with a big reputation as the gateway to the most famous Xinjiang archaeological site of ancient Niya. Today, more famous as the southern terminus of the Tarim Highway across the heart of the Taklamakan Desert, providing access to the enormous oil reserves there. The monument with the quote from Chairman Mao is the most obvious tourist sight, and the main bazaar is on Sunday. But the visitor pleasures in town are mainly access to the daily life of the rural Uyghur people in this oasis town, wandering Uyghur neighborhoods, agricultural roads and sheep pastures. A short taxi ride can take one to sand dunes for the visitor to climb like the caravans of yore.

Restaurant and lodging details are provided, along with bus schedules north, south, east and west, and Internet access.

Ninety kilometers north of town, and five kilometers north of an isolated hamlet in the desert, is an Islamic shrine, Mazar Imam Jafar Sadiq, famed as the Mecca of Turkestan, though the site likely has Buddhist and even pre-Buddhist roots as a sacred space. Information is provided on Tazhong, the rough oil field town near the derricks and pipelines.

Keriya / Yutian

Visit the mosque with its intricate brickwork in this town 180 km east of Hotan. Wandering the winding Uyghur neighborhood along the river, inhabited since Han dynasty times at the dawn of the Silk Road as the Kingdom of Jumi. Eat at a Uyghur restaurant while watching the langmen noodles pulled by hand at the next table.

View the statue of an elderly Uyghur electrician who is the only person to share a monument with Mao Zedong in all of China. For a contrast, first wander the new Keriya International On-Foot Street shopping mall and then cross the street to explore the traditional Uyghur bazaar. For the expedition minded, visit the ancient cities buried in the desert, Karadong and Dandan Oilik.

The Charklik / Ruoqiang page, about this easternmost of the towns along Highway 315 along the Taklamakan, describes this small desert oasis town with its central plaza and several lodging and dining options and bus schedule. Some history of the area is included.

This page assist you to access the famous ruins of Miran or Loulan and the enormous dried lake bed of Lop Nor across Marco Polo's notorious Desert of Lop. The enormous Nature Reserves in Lop Nor and the Altun Mountains are discussed, along with the nuclear testing sites in the greater Lop Nor area.

In addition, Charklik / Ruoqiang is the back door to the roads much less traveled through Qinghai to Dunhuang, Xining, or Golmud, gateway to Lhasa. Detailed information is given on this little known route, including transport schedules and some information on the lodging and dining options.

Hotan

Hotan offers a vast array of delights. The largest city on the southern rim, Hotan is also called Hetian or Khotan.

See silk made by hand in the ancient tradition from cocoon to the colorful King of Silk as well as, on the other side of town, the entire process in a modern, mechanized factory. Watch carpets tied by hand in millennium-old patterns. Observe jade being carved into fantastic shapes, and paper being made from mulberry bark and desert plants. Wander the Sunday bazaar rivaling Kashgar for the largest in Central Asia.

Visit an excellent museum in its newer, larger site that brings together the region's 5,000 years of human history on the crossroads of Indian, Central Asian, Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern and even Greek cultures, a corridor for and center of shamanism, Buddhism, Christianity, Manichaeism and Islam plus an entire floor more recent cultural treasures of jade, jewelry, musical instruments and Uyghur traditional medicine.

Beat the heat along more than 1,500 kilometers of shady grape corridors, or in one just outside your hotel door. Wander around neighborhoods with traditional Uyghur architecture. Watch nightly Uyghur traditional music and dancing and eat polo from a bottomless cauldron in a packed Uyghur restaurant and nibble your way along the stalls of an ancient night market.

Or dance the night away at a score of flashy night clubs, grab a burger or fried chicken at a Chinese chain, wander the endless aisles of three enormous supermarkets, pick your live seafood for dinner from two walls of tanks more than 2,500 kilometers from any ocean, or watch the world pass by from your table at a number of modern coffee bars or internet cafes.

Spend Y20 to Y2,000 per night on a range of accommodations. Visit aSunday bazaar that rivals Kashgar's for size, or headout on Thursday to a weekly tiny bazaar and festival in the desert at an ancient sacred site of pilgrimage. Visit one of several nearby ancient ruins from the fabled Silk Road.

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