Just got back from a weekend student mobile learning trip to Hangzhou and Nanjing. Good times as always, but I’ve done that trip about five times now and so the excitement of the road is less than what it used to be.
Fortunately, I’m heading out somewhere I’ve never been before…yep, I’m heading west along the Silk Road for Xinjiang. The students and I will be taking a train to Xi’an tonight and then on to Lanzhou/Xiahe, Dunhuang, Turpan, Urumqi, before ultimately ending up in the city of Kashgar.
It’s been a busy month or so with research and the first few weeks of school, especially because I begin every semester with a two-week course on “Understanding China” that meets daily for 2.5 hours. In addition to my usual semester-long course on “Late Imperial China” plus administrative tasks…you can understand why leading a trip of 15 students through the wilds of western China might seem like something of a break from the daily grind.
Everyone should go to Xinjiang, since it’s awesome and awesomely interesting, but that requirement goes double for Qing historians, and triple for anyone teaching courses on “Late Imperial China.” Hope you have fun and hope you write lots about it!
As some of your students might say: Dunhuang is the shit…
Please report on whether they allow you into the actual caves themselves or if the high-tech video presentation is as close as you physically get to the statues and paintings…
“you can understand why leading a trip of 15 students through the wilds of western China might seem like something of a break from the daily grind.”
Yup. And I wish I had the same luxury available to me. Enjoy the break, mate.
Dunhuang IS the shit.
I never realized there was so much travel involved in being a Qing historian, but if this is really how it is then count me in!
Not just Dunhuang but the whole trip is the shit. I wish I had taken that trip with you J… Travel tip– the “Di co” in Kasghar has the best Pakistani-Russian music mix I have ever heard on a playlist anywhere.