Counting Coronavirus Cases

China tested 4.75 million people in Kashgar in two days

 

Did you know the Chinese government counts coronavirus cases differently from everyone else in the world? It does not follow the World Health Organization definition of a confirmed case as someone who tests positive.

Kashgar is now in lockdown with five cases?

Instead China will only count cases of those who show symptoms, not those who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic but test positive.

That is why the cases in Kashgar, Xinjiang are counted as five confirmed cases, but 178 without symptoms but are positive. As a result these 178 people are not counted as confirmed cases, though they will be included if they later show symptoms.

China only began releasing figures counting asymptomatic cases from April, but they were only counted as confirmed cases if they developed symptoms or their lung imaging was abnormal.

By late February, one-third of the positive cases were silent carriers or presymptomatic. But it is unclear how many asymptomatic cases China has had so far because accumulated figures were never released.

China counts cases differently from the WHO

It is the only country in the world to have a different definition of what a positive case is. Is it any wonder the numbers since late December are not correct and we may never know what they really are?

Chinese officials argued early in the pandemic that the number of true asymptomatic cases was small, and "there was no evidence" they could spread the disease.

But 10 months on this conclusion does not hold water. Data shows asymptomatic cases comprise a significant percentage of the total positive ones and these patients can spread Covid-19.

For example, the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported up to 40 percent of Covid-19 patients in South Korea were asymptomatic.

In the case of Kashgar, 4.75 million people were tested in two days. So if testing is so crucial, then the counting of positive asymptomatic cases is too and should be included in the total tally. Positive is positive whether they develop symptoms or not.

Xi says China will be more open to cooperation

Earlier today Chinese President Xi Jinping said the country will adopt a more open and inclusive strategy towards international scientific cooperation. He said this during the World Laureates Forum in Shanghai, an online forum attended by hundreds of scientists including dozens of Nobel Prize laureates.

"China is ready to work with top scientists around the world and international science and technology organizations to implement a more open, inclusive and mutually beneficial international scientific strategy," he said.

The country can start by being more honest with its numbers; if the number of confirmed cases is so low now, why are Chinese residents not allowed to fly directly to Beijing but instead quarantine in another city for 14 days first?

 

 

Silk Road: Unsettling Security Measures

People walking by a security truck in the hospital compound days before Oct 1

 Being in Kashgar is unsettling.

The first thing you notice are the sirens that are constantly going off. That's because there are police vans with riot screens driving up and down the main streets at around 20km an hour. As we drove by one, I could see the driver so bored that he was looking at his phone placed on the steering wheel while he was driving -- he was that slow.

And then everywhere you go, from hotels to restaurants and even grocery stores and pharmacies have metal detectors you have to walk through, and some have X-ray machines for your bags, or they wand you before you can go in.

Even at the hospital we had to first show our passports, and most of the time they just waved us through. But then there was one time where the staff at the gate were difficult and told us to go to the next door police station.

We went over and explained to the young officer that we just wanted to go to the hospital to see my dad and showed him our passports. He couldn't read English and barked, "What is your name?"

My mom asked, "Do you mean my husband's name or my name?"

Police checking under the hood of a car for explosives

Your name! Don't play games with me? he barked again.

I was so taken aback I couldn't help stopping myself from saying, "Are you serious?"

Luckily he didn't take me too seriously, and we each gave him our Chinese names (which are not on our passports) and radioed to the hospital gate our names. We were then let through.

Oh yes and we had to put our bags through X-ray machines again -- in every hospital building we went into. Those who drove into the hospital compound had their cars checked -- even under the hood by men in bullet-proof vests and helmets. Security is a serious business.

The Chinese government has spent over 30 billion yuan in security last year, a jump of almost 20 percent from 2016. That's from the creation of these neighbourhood police stations and extra police hires as well as equipment.

The other curious thing is that in restaurants, diners aren't given knives, though in our hotel we were, but they were very dull. One time my dad wanted to eat a peeled apple and we asked the Uyghur teenager who was helping us to bring a knife from home.

Security checks in our hotel lobby

He apologized that he could not carry one at all. We were very surprised and expressed our incredulity. He politely said with a smile, "It's different."

We did find a plastic knife and smuggled it in, but it was challenging to peel the apple with it and I gave up after completing half of it. We stuck to grapes after that.

Uyghurs who have either a lot of interaction with foreigners or have a passport and traveled abroad are under a lot of scrutiny.

They can either be disappeared for days or weeks, or they are sent to "school", a room full of men and women from teens to people in their 60s, and they are forced to listen to lectures, learn Chinese, learn more about Chinese law, or propaganda for about two hours everyday.

It is mandatory -- they cannot skip "school" even though they have to work at that time or were planning to be out of town. If not, the consequences could be harsh.

This repression against Uyghurs is tough. Mosques are not allowed to broadcast prayers, while men cannot have very long beards, and women cannot be completely covered.

And as National Day approached, there were more police on the streets, probably part-time police officers who carried riot weapon gear like shields and batons and forks that were more of a deterrent than were actually used. The hospital was even under lock down from 11pm until morning. Is that really necessary?

There were also more check-points on the roads; taxi drivers sometimes preferred to pick up Han Chinese customers because that meant they could easily pass the check-points than be scrutinized by the police.

And by the way, the Uyghur taxi drivers would sometimes take an extra passenger if they were going the same direction as the first customer. Why not if they can make a bit more extra money? We only had one Han Chinese drive the whole time we were there.

Meanwhile, the Uyghurs we met tried to carry on with life the best they could. Women dressed up to go to the hospital, as if they were going out for dinner to a nice restaurant, while some older men wore traditional woven caps.

The Uyghurs we talked to were trying to deal with the situation with as much grace as they could under pressure. To me this was amazing, considering they know there is no way out -- it is near impossible to get a passport nowadays, let alone immigrate.

Many people outside of Kashgar have no idea what is going on here because it's so remote. However, people need to know the situation here. If Hong Kong continues to irritate Beijing, the powers that be could easily punish Hong Kong and turn it into a police state like Kashgar.

It is already happening in many major cities in China, with facial recognition software, security cameras everywhere and bags having to be scanned in every subway station. We can push back, but for how long and how much?

Silk Road: Learning From Uyghurs

In the doctor's office on the seventh floor where most are Uyghurs

Being in Kashgar for 12 days we got to know Uyghurs better than most tourists, and probably most local Han Chinese. It seemed like the two ethnic groups lived in a parallel universe, where they didn't intersect much, unless they had to work together, like in the case of the hospital.

In the neurology ward, practically all the doctors were Uyghurs, the head nurse too, while only a handful of nurses were Han Chinese. Perhaps it was because the demographic of their patients were Uyghur.

Outside the hospital Uyghurs and Han Chinese didn't have much to do with each other. They didn't eat each other's food -- Uyghurs are Muslim and only eat Halal food, and Uyghurs were forced to speak Mandarin to Han Chinese, who hardly knew any Uyghur.

Our first neighbour waiting to be discharged from the hospital

So you can imagine the taxi drivers' surprise when I would say "hello" (yakshimusiz) and "thank you" (rekhmat) in Uyghur, and to my dad's neighbour's family I would say "good bye" (hosh) and they were happy I was trying to be friendly.

There were benefits to being Han Chinese -- you were less scrutinized when it came to going through security. Uyghurs would be subjected to more thorough searches from their ID to the items they were carrying.

When my dad was in the hospital we had three different neighbours. The first was a young couple, with whom we didn't interact much, but we were cordial.

Next came an elderly man, probably younger than my, with his extended family looking after him -- his wife, sister, and daughter-in-law with her children. We spent the most time with the daughter-in-law and her young daughter Madja.

She had very short hair -- it seems young girls have their heads shaved to ensure their hair grows thicker. At first she and we were shy, but after a day or two she warmed up to us, particularly when I gave her a balloon to play with.

Madja didn't know any Mandarin, though her young mother did. She was busy looking after her father-in-law -- constantly hoisting him up, or turning his body periodically for blood circulation.

Then when we came back one evening, the family was gone and my dad had one evening of quiet. The next day another neighbour came in, another man, probably in his 30s, but by then my dad was well enough to be discharged from the hospital and we left a day or two after.

The head nurse who spoke very good Mandarin

During our time in Kashgar, our tour guide was indispensable -- he came to the hospital a few times to visit dad to see if he was OK, and helped us arrange our hotel accommodation through his tour guide friend, who also helped us exchange money, and arrange a car for us to go to the airport.

These people were so warm and hospitable despite the situation they were living in on a daily basis. They were keen to show us another side of Kashgar and we were so glad and lucky to be at the receiving end of their generosity. I won't forget them.

Rahmat (Thank you).

Silk Road: Keeping Tabs on Hospital Costs

A Uyghur sleeping on a cot in the stairwell in the hospital

From a patient's point of view, Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital is very basic. You have to buy everything -- soap, paper towels, toilet paper, water, even soft pillows, tissues, anything you might need.

At first I was relieved that our shared toilet at least had soap -- but then a few days later our neighbour left and took their soap along with them! That's how we found out the hospital didn't even provide soap so that people would have clean hands to handle the patients...

A quaint-looking restaurant, but food wasn't agreeable...

My aunt told us that even when preparing for surgery, a barber came by and shaved my dad's head -- for 20 yuan (US$3). She saw the tour guide pay him, so she quickly gave money back to the tour guide.

We were also told to have someone look after my dad 24 hours a day in the hospital  -- which explained why people slept in cots like the one we were given our room, or people slept on layers of blankets on the floor anywhere. In the evenings the hospital looked like a refugee camp.

Our tour guide suggested hiring a young man to help look after my dad and it turned out he was very young -- a 17-year-old Uyghur, just graduated from high school. He was the younger brother of another tour guide and was keen to get into this line of work too.

Another relative sleeping by the elevators

In a way this was a good training ground for him, to be able to deal with a variety of situations, translating from Uyghur to English, and also knowing where to go in the hospital to get things, particularly CT scans and such.

This saved my mom and I the headache of having to run around the hospital trying to figure out where everything was, and focus on looking after my dad when we visited him.

There was also no hospital food available, nor a cafeteria. That meant having to buy food everyday. We tried a Chinese restaurant at the back of our hotel and it wasn't that hygienic.

The same could be said for the string of Uyghur restaurants in front of the hospital. My mom and I went to one of them for lunch and ordered a bowl of hand-pulled noodles with ratatouille and bits of lamb.

What arrived on our table were two bowls of lukewarm noodles. I started tucking in but then heard the sound of chopping behind me. It turns out there was a man using an axe to chop the raw meat of a carcass. My mom watched him and immediately lost her appetite and her stomach didn't feel well either.

She made the executive decision that we would only eat food from the hotel. That meant having to wait until noon for the Chinese restaurant to open for lunch to buy take out for my dad, and then going back again around 6pm for his dinner.

We saw meat chopped like this in a restaurant by the hospital

Most of the time we wouldn't eat dinner until 8pm or even 9pm. The Chinese restaurant barely had any business, or if it did, the function that evening was already over so we practically had the restaurant to ourselves.

While the tables looked nicely set from a distance, the tablecloths were never changed, and the same oil stains were there...

The menu was quite limited in terms of what we could easily transport to my dad, and not spicy either, which left the only choice of dumplings, which were made to order -- we could even see the thumb prints on them. But after a while you get tired of eating dumplings with chives and egg, or egg and cucumber.

My mom and I liked a tureen of thick sheets of noodles, practically like squares, with tomatoes and vegetables in a slightly sour broth. Another delicious dish was wai san or a white mountain root stir-fried with black-eared fungus, though a bit on the oily side.

Comforting tart noodle soup dish with tomato and vegetables

While food and transportation were cheap, we worried about the mounting hospital bills. Every day a strip of white recycled paper was our bill for the previous day and it listed various items and deducted from the original 10,000 yuan payment.

Some of the items listed were ridiculous, including Chinese medicine and that they moved my dad's body from side to side so that his back wouldn't get tired. We saw no evidence of that. So that was how the hospital would overcharge patients...

A few days into our extended stay in Kashgar we started worrying about having enough cash and I would periodically count the red 100 yuan bills to make sure we were covered. Being away from home and no friends or family to rely on, we had to estimate how much more money we needed. We had American cash, but the bills were considered too old to exchange. Even in Kashgar the banks are picky.

Silk Road: Kashgar Surgery a Success

Uyghurs sit in chairs waiting for the blue doors to open

We had been told my dad's surgery was scheduled in the morning so we had planned to go after he woke up. But at 11am, I got a frantic message from our tour guide, saying we needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible to sign another form.

Hadn't my aunt done that already I asked? The guide, who was there when she signed a bunch of papers -- including one promising not to give hongbao to the doctor -- said apparently there was one more to sign, regarding the anesthetic and the risks because of my dad's age.

My mom and I rushed over there, but were bogged down by security -- we had to go through the routine of showing our passports and having our bags scanned, and then figuring out where the surgery room was. All we knew was that it was on the third floor. We asked some hospital staff but even they weren't sure. How could that be?

The line for the elevator was long, so we decided to take the stairs. Once we got there, we saw a room full of Uyghurs, young and old waiting for their loved ones to come out of the surgery area.

We tried to find a doctor and saw no one, and wondered if we were in the right place and went back upstairs to the seventh floor.

In the doctor's office I recognized the doctor who had asked us questions about my dad's medical history and he told us to go down to the third floor. We said there was no one there, and he took us down and told us to stay here.

We were the only Han Chinese in the room, and it made us wonder what Uyghurs thought of us, thought they might have figured out we were not mainland Chinese.

Finally we heard a shrill voice calling our family name.

We rushed over to a small sliding window where a Han Chinese woman wearing a surgical mask gave us a form to sign. It already had my dad's signature on it (or what he could scrawl), but needed us to confirm we accepted the risks of the anesthetic due to his age.

"We are in surgery now! You can't leave! If there is a complication we may need to talk to you!" How reassuring.

There was no water fountain or toilet in this area, nothing. But the best part of this room was that it had wifi. So I used WeChat to communicate with other tour members and our tour guide to give them the latest updates. Our tour guide showed up and we hugged and I cried a bit. The guide was our rock and we were eternally grateful for the help and support.

Transferring dad back to his own bed

After a while the same woman called for us again -- we didn't hear her at first and a Uyghur man motioned for us to come back to the window. The woman with the surgical mask held out a kidney-shaped steel shallow pan that was full of dark blood.

She said the surgery was over and this was how much blood that was drained from my dad's head. I started taking pictures of it, and she encouraged me to do so; she added there were no complications. We now had to wait for him to wake up before taking him back to his room.

My mom and I were relieved the operation went smoothly and I reported this back to tour members. Being able to communicate on WeChat made me feel like we weren't completely cut off from the rest of the world.

It was another hour or so before dad was finally wheeled out of the surgery room. He was groggy but seemed fine. We got into the special elevator to the seventh floor and wheeled him back to his room.

Now we would have to see how long it would take for him to recover so we could get him back home as soon as possible.

Silk Road: Late Night at Kashgar Hospital

The view outside my dad's hospital window of a colourful tower

It was around midnight when we arrived at Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital. We had to have our passports checked at the gate and then our bags screened by X-ray machines.

Turns out we would have to do this every time we went to the hospital, which was twice a day.

Then we went to the emergency room where my dad was lying on a stretcher and he wasn't very comfortable. We took his jacket and tried to make a pillow out of it. Inside the bare room were other patients. To the left was a young man in black curled up in the fetal position with lots of bandages covering his head.

Outside the room a young mother was wheeling her young daughter on a stretcher. The girl, about six or seven years old, was naked from the waist down and her right leg was severely bruised. It didn't look too good.

An ATM machine with cameras above

We were trying to keep my dad entertained while my mom, our doctor friend and the tour guide went to the doctor's office. The doctor was Uyghur and so the guide acted as a translator, explaining each step of the surgery, the surgeon even drew a diagram showing how he would drill holes in my dad's head to drain the blood from the clot.

Then we had to get dad's paperwork done to have him admitted but more importantly to pay the hospital 10,000 yuan (US$1,506) in cash right away. My mom went to the Bank of China ATM and thank goodness was able to withdraw cash. She could only do it in increments of 3,000 yuan which mean withdrawing at least four times.

We wheeled my dad across the hospital compound into another building -- again we went through security checks before he was put into the elevator to the seventh floor -- the neurology ward.

The nurse asked us if we had paid yet and we replied we were in the process of doing that, but she still wouldn't wheel him into the room until she'd seen the receipt. It was that bureaucratic.

Finally the payment was sorted and dad was wheeled down the hall then to the left.

The Han Chinese nurse flicked on the flourescent lights of a semi-private room (no private rooms exist in the hospital unless you're a VIP on the top floor of the hospital). In the bed closest to the door was a young Uyghur man with bandages around his head, while in the other bed was a woman, his wife.

The nurse shooed the woman out of the bed and forced the bleary-eyed Uyghur woman to help put fresh bedding on the bed my dad would be lying on. Then he was transferred from the stretcher to the bed.

At the foot of the bed was a bare bones metal frame cot with bamboo slats with a thin mattress and lump pillow. We were told that since we were foreigners they would let us use the cot free of charge -- usually others would have to pay to rent it on a daily basis.

My dad was given pyjamas but they didn't fit -- we would later find out we had paid a 100 yuan deposit on them.

Another Uyghur doctor who spoke some Mandarin asked us more questions, the answers he entered in the computer, like how many children does my dad have, what medications is he taking, when was his last surgery.

We were told by hospital staff that one family member would have to be there for the night, and my aunt, my mom's younger sister, immediately volunteered. She insisted, saying surgery would be the next day and that we needed to rest. We also gave her the authority to sign all the papers the next morning for the surgery to go ahead.

But it would be a sleepless night for her having to tend to my dad's needs, while we went back to the hotel before 4am. Our tour guide was amazing, there the whole time, translating and advising us on how hospitals work here.

I didn't get much sleep -- at one point I woke up crying and scared, trying to process what was happening and wondering if things would be OK.

Silk Road: Our First Kashgar Hospital Experience

A standoff simmered between hospital staff and us over my dad's well being

The next morning my dad's situation didn't improve -- in fact at one point he fell in the bathroom and my mom had to get my uncle who was traveling with us, to come and help pick him up from the floor.

After a mini conference that included three doctors, it was decided that my dad should go to the hospital for a CT scan.

The ambulance leaving our hotel the first time

Our tour guide arranged for a non-emergency ambulance to come and take him to Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital -- the best hospital in the city -- but a traffic jam resulted in the ambulance instead driving to Xinjiang Kashgar Second People's Hospital which was closer to the hotel.

The hospital looked drab and since my mother, her good friend and I followed in a taxi, we weren't quite sure where to go look for my dad. We soon realized we were in new territory, as most of the patients were Uyghurs and some of the staff were Han Chinese.

After asking reception a few times in Mandarin, we finally got some directions and managed to find him in a nearby building with two of his doctor friends.

The CT scan did reveal a blood clot and the medical staff there -- in particular the administrator -- insisted that we had to stay and do the operation in the hospital.

One of the doctor friends -- the one who first assessed my dad -- was insistent that it not be done in this hospital which didn't seem to have the highest hygienic standards. He called long distance to a neurosurgeon he knew in Vancouver and briefed him on the situation.

At this point there was a bit of a standoff between the Han Chinese and Uyghur medical staff and us as to what would be best for my dad. Seeing him lying in a bare bones room didn't seem to be the best option for him, and yet the Chinese administrator claimed my dad was in no condition to leave the hospital.

Dad's medical booklet at the first hospital

Finally our insistence was respected -- but not without signing several forms saying the hospital was not responsible for what happened to my dad. My mom had to sign the forms and put a red thumb print on top of her name. That's what you call double-step verification Chinese style.

Eventually he was released and we all returned to the hotel in time for a late lunch.

During lunch we made calls to my dad's medical insurance company in Quebec, Canada, and after listening to the situation and seeing pictures of the CT scan, they insisted my dad could not fly in his condition and that he had to be "treated locally".

Our doctor friend tried very hard to explain where we were (we're in a remote area in China!) and the conditions of the hospitals here, but the insurance company didn't seem to care. I would later find out that flying in dad's condition would have been impossible.

in the evening we gathered again for another conference, and there were suggestions of getting into Xinjiang Kashgar First People's Hospital tomorrow morning. And then someone threw out the idea of going now to avoid traffic jams.

By now it was 11pm and I contacted our tour guide again -- can you help us arrange for an ambulance to take my dad to the hospital? The guide rushed over and accompanied my dad, the doctor friend and my mom in the ambulance.

I was not far behind with my aunt and uncle. It was going to be a long night ahead.

Silk Road: Something's Wrong

One of the side streets near Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, days before October 1

 There were already signs that my dad wasn't doing well. He was walking slower and slower, and his brisk steps were down to a shuffle. Many of our tour members were getting concerned. "Is your dad OK?" they asked.

At first we thought it was exhaustion -- we were on a 17-day tour and we were waking up at 6am to getting out the door by 7.30 to drive three to four hours to the next destination. He was napping on the bus at every opportunity, but he didn't want to miss out on any sightseeing opportunities either.

Kashgar is the furthest west city in China and Xinjiang

The first sign of trouble was at Urumqi airport, day 12 of the tour. I was the last one of the group to get my boarding pass because I had mistakenly checked in a battery charger in my luggage. Of course my dad chastised me for this, but he wasn't his usual fiery temper which was unusual.

Then the two of us went through security, me first, him behind. As I was packing up my stuff, I heard a cry for help and turned around to see my dad being caught by a young security officer who was trying to get him onto a bench and then help him put on his shoes. The young man asked me if I knew him and I said he's my dad.

The officer politely explained he had to go back to work and I thanked him for helping out. I asked dad what was going on, and he said he thought he sat down, but missed the bench.

I thought it was strange, but helped him get all his things together and we walked slowly to the gate. Mentally he was fine, but physically there was something wrong.

After we arrived in Kashgar and got off the tour bus to go to the restaurant for dinner, dad had trouble getting off the bus and luckily the tour guide caught him and steadied him.

Later that evening back in the hotel, my mom asked a doctor friend who was on the tour with us to see if my dad was having a stroke.

The doctor friend observed my dad carefully and he was a compliant patient; perhaps he also knew something was wrong. The doctor ruled out a stroke because my dad didn't have slurred speech and was still mentally fine, but that something was wrong with his motor skills.

He suggested we see how he was in the morning and then perhaps go to the hospital to get a CT scan of dad's brain.

Silk Road: Chinese Hotels' Version of "International"

The Hilton Urumqi -- the gold standard in hotels along the Silk Road

During our Silk Road trip, we checked in and out of a number of hotels and I can barely remember their names. These local hotels claimed they were at least four star with "international" in their names, but they were far from western standards.

"Slip Carefully" in a hotel in Lanzhou

Many of them were relatively new hotels, but inside the rooms they looked dim (not enough electricity for the lights), the water pressure was very low, and in many cases things were installed crooked.

And what's with this obsession with having a glass window in between the bedroom and the bathroom! We don't need to see what the other person is doing in the loo...

Here are a few observations with photographic evidence of these hotels missing the mark.

One of the first hotels we stayed at in Lanzhou tried really hard to give clear explanations in the bathroom. The glass shower door had a sign that said: "Jog gently pull", and nearby a sign that read: "Slip carefully". Yikes! How does one "slip carefully"?

The lever on the left wasn't installed straight

Another fancy hotel had a marble bathroom which was impressive, but the lever to turn the water on for the shower was installed crooked. And in the room by the bed there was a sign instructing guests not to smoke in bed, but next to it was an ashtray... how about advising guests not to smoke at all? It was supposed to be a non-smoking room anyway.

On the tour I was the odd person -- I didn't have a travel partner to share a room with. Usually I had a single king-sized bed. But in Zhangye, in this impressive-looking resort in the new part of town, I was given a suite! It was massive complete with a living room and one and a half bathrooms. My mom insisted on staying with me that night to have some space...

At Jiayuyuan, after our trip to the Great Wall, we settled into a hotel that again looked flashy with new fixtures, but the markings were still there on where exactly to install them, and the plastic not taken off the frame of the shower door...

Our best hotel on the entire trip was in Urumqi where we spent the night before flying to Kashgar -- it was the Hilton Urumqi.

Markings were left after mirror was installed

The room was clean, the towels weren't damp -- some hotels didn't have completely dry towels -- the water drained from the shower and didn't flood the bathroom, light switches were in English and Chinese,

Our breakfast buffet spread the next morning was also top notch. Usually the Chinese hotels had only Chinese dishes -- various vegetables that were mostly spicy, along with congee, millet congee, fruits, boiled egg, salad, yoghurt in plastic cups and steamed buns.

But at the Hilton Urumqi there was all the above and western-style food, like bacon, eggs fried how you wanted, noodles cooked a la minute with garnishes of your choice, even waffles. Needless to say we loaded up.

Finally in Kashgar, our hotel room was quite nice, two large double beds, with a big bathroom that included a shower and a bathtub. We were given a fruit plate once a day, though a complaint about the toilet paper rolls is that they were so small -- one third the size of a usual toilet paper roll. On top of that they were thick so they ran out very quickly. We went through at least three rolls per day.

Hmmm the button for the 8th floor is missing

And in the elevator, the buttons on the left side worked, not the ones on the right. Some elevators even had holes where numbers should have been that was further evidence they were a facade and didn't work!

Chinese hotels still have a ways to go in reaching international standards. They really need more exposure to Western ones and understanding where the gaps are and fixing them. As more Chinese travel within the country, they are going to expect better facilities and service. It's a challenge that should be tackled the sooner the better.

Silk Road: Uyghur Culture

Two musicians playing amazing instruments, a woman on tambourine

After we arrived in Kashgar, we quickly noticed things were much different here in the westernmost city in China and Xinjiang that borders Kazakhstan. All the Uyghurs look very different, some fair skinned, almost European, and others very dark and could be mistaken for being Mexican, much like how the Spanish can have various shades of skin colour.

Our first meal was at a Uyghur restaurant that looked traditional and probably for the benefit of tourists. In the middle was a bar (with no alcohol) and a dancing floor with a platform where three musicians sat playing instruments. Two dancers, a man and a woman performed folk dances for guests.

The woman would also dance with her partner for diners

It seemed like the Han Chinese sat on one side of the room, while the other featured Hui ethnic minority people, who are also Muslim, the women wearing simple headdresses and clapping along with the music.

We were given an array of dishes to eat, like a ratatouille with noodles, a large dumpling filled with lamb, and sweet rice seasoned with spices, and of course lamb kebabs. We were also presented with baked buns with minced meat inside.

The music was fantastic, mesmerizing to listen to -- a pity we were not given an introduction to the instruments! And it was interesting to watch how the dancers interpreted the music through their dance steps.

A bowl of noodles with a kind of ratatouille

After dinner, I wanted to share some moon cakes from Hong Kong with the rest of the tour members -- 30-year-old mandarin peels with red bean paste -- but I needed a knife to cut them.

We asked one of the waitresses in Mandarin and she violently shook her head and waved her hand. Then we thought she didn't understand Mandarin and drew a picture... not the best drawing, but when we showed it to her she again shook her head.

Finally we managed to flag down our Uyghur tour guide to ask for a knife and he said we were not allowed to have one in the restaurant. In the end we had to settle for a spoon which I used to cut the moon cakes into quarters. It wasn't the best solution, but it was the only one.

Sweetened and spiced rice with lamb kebabs and a dumpling

We later found out that Uyghurs are not allowed to carry knives anywhere and they are only allowed in the kitchen, not for guests to use. It's just another of the Chinese government's strict measures to try to control this "restive region" following some attacks in the last eight to nine years, some of which involved knives.

The longer we stayed here, the more we realized how oppressive life was like for Uyghurs -- on a daily basis.

Silk Road: Urumqi Diwopu International Airport

Urumqi Diwopu International Airport with very strict security measures

Going to the airport in Urumqi -- or any airport in Xinjiang -- is an experience.

We were forewarned not to have any battery charging equipment in our luggage, all electronic equipment in our carry-on, no liquids exceeding 100ml and no sharp objects at all.

When we were checking in, our luggage was screened at the same time so that if there was a problem, we were pulled aside to open the suitcase for inspection. In my case I completely forgot about a mobile phone charger I had in my luggage.

Only after this was sorted by putting it in my hand carry bag was I finally given my boarding pass.

Anyone want a lavender squirrel?

Then we went through rigorous security checks. One tour member was found to have a pocket knife in their bag -- they forgot to pack it in their luggage. It was confiscated.

And we were definitely patted down -- practically everywhere. We even had to take off our shoes and lift our feet off to be wanded in case there might be explosive powder or something on them.

But admittedly after going through this rigorous process I did feel rest assured that our flight would be safe, otherwise these security officers would surely get into trouble...

The airport looks new, but the design is so counter intuitive. Gates are down a flight of stairs -- why not make them all the same level? And all the shops sell the same things at the same prices... it got boring very quickly. How many more dried dates can I buy? And purple squirrels with a lavender smell?

Or how about a book on Jack Ma?

Or you could go to the bookstore (all in Chinese) and get a book on how Jack Ma Yun of Alibaba became a billionaire. Just in case you wanted to know.

You could tell which restaurant was the best just by seeing how many people were there; if there was a line-up that was the one to go to. The others were either too expensive or didn't taste good.

Our flight from Urumqi to Kashgar was about an hour and a half, and when we arrived, we had to walk down the stairs to a shuttle bus that drove us to the terminal. When we got there, there was only one baggage claim. Guess that was ours.

More Unrest in Xinjiang

Soldiers surveying the scene of the explosion at a railway station in Urumqi

Tonight there was an explosion at a railway station in Urumqi, Xinjiang with some 50 people reported injured so far. It is the eve before the three-day Labour Day holiday with many people traveling around the country.

The blast happened around 7pm where some suitcases were left on the ground between the station exit and the bus stop outside.

Reports say the explosion was so powerful, some people nearby thought it was an earthquake.

This incident happened just as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his four-day visit to the region. It was not clear if he was still in Xinjiang at the time.

Ironically he had called Kashgar  the "front line against terrorism".

He visited a military unit and and armed police squad and then he was pictured touring a police station in Kashgar and watched an anti-terrorism drill.

"You must have the most effective means to deal with violent terrorists," Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in wartime."

Ominous words...

At least 100 people have been killed in violence in Xinjiang over the past year, and over the past two months Xi has publicly discussed battling against terrorism 15 times.

Two days before he toured Kashgar, Xi vowed in a Politburo meeting to "resolutely crack down on terrorism and separatism with high intensity to safeguard national security".

And then in a strange twist, Xi visited a school and urged ethnic Han teachers to master the Uyghur language and to help Uyghur students become fluent on Putonghua.

"It's important to [have] bilingual education for minority children. [They] will be able to find jobs easier in the future by mastering the Chinese language, and more importantly they will contribute more to national unity," he said.

His comments just add to the frustration that he and Beijing don't understand what the real issues are in Xinjiang, why there are terrorism incidents in this restive region.

Already he is calling Uyghurs "terrorists" and "separatists", and how he wants to crush them for the sake of national security without realizing why these people have resorted to violence. It is because of the Central government's own policies of forcing the ethnic minority not to learn its own language and practice its culture and religion of Islam. The government has also destroyed their native homes and put them in sterile apartment blocks.

By not allowing them to do what is indigenous to them, the Uyghurs feel repressed and frustrated. The pro-Han economic policies make things worse, leaving Uyghurs behind in the race for riches.

Which is why it shouldn't be surprising that the desperate feel they have no choice but to voice their anger through violence, a bloody protest that makes things worse for everyone.

And on top of that, detaining the one clear rational voice for Uyghurs, Ilham Tohti, the academic who could have helped bridge the divide, is a major step backwards in Beijing's dealings with this ethnic minority group.

We are not surprised this explosion happened... but will Xi really get to the heart of the matter to end the violence?