"Qiemo" Qiemo by l_joo

A Bribery Encounter
You don't have to know who this bus driver is, he is just another Chinese who hates the policemen that took bribes by force from him at the Minfeng police station (the one just before the entrance of desert highway) in Hotan district. This driver eventually sent us to Qiemo after 15 hours of suffering long drive. In Qiemo, he came to us (foreign tourists) to ask for help. He asked us to write a letter of complain for him to send to the top government officers in Xinjiang province, so that those policemen at Minfeng never come again and again. The whole incident started from the first hour of our bus in Minfeng when a police road block saw them quarrelling for 2 hours for some unsolvable matters. This driver explained to me the entire truth where those policemen wanted to issue him summon for having an extra sleeping seat and was forced to give bribe 200 yuan to settle the matter. Refusing to let go our bus unless this driver pay 200 yuan as bribe. This driver at last had to give 200 yuan otherwise we must sleep at the Desert Highway.

We told him if we write a complain letter, those top peoples definitely read but throw away the letter or even throw without read. Another Chinese guy came out an idea, he wanted us to write a letter to the tourism office to bring up this matter through the media. The conclusion was a letter by us (foreign tourists) to the driver for him to send directly to the highest media in Xinjiang.

The human-meat street

Human-meat, Big-meat in one street
Yes the name of this street is written on top, it was told by a regular customer of this street. The meaning of Human-meat is prostitution while Big-meat represent pork. Because Xinjiang is a province governed by the Uyghur Muslims, therefore prostitution and pork are prohibited but only available here in this street. I saw many shops with colorful pinkish title and weird settings, those were Human-meat shops but disguised as hair saloon. Pork shops need not disguise, so obviously seen. So do you think this is a street suitable for tourists?

The human-meat shop

Hair saloon in multicolors
Qiemo has plentiful such colorful shops where we can see some interesting peoples around doing something very Human. In Qiemo I met a local young man came from ShanDong Sheng, he was a funny character and told me so many things about China and Qiemo. He said his hometown relatives probably influenced too much by their famous ancestor Mr.Kong Fu Zi (Confucius) and whenever they go for gathering, he as younger generation must obey all the traditional etiquettes and he told me he hates that so much. He told me about his great grandfather once told him Confucius actually was not that intellectual, in reality, he Confucius sent somebody to assasinate a guy much more intellectual than him, so that he can become immortal. Upon hearing this, I turned my head over to another local Chinese to ask him whether he ever heard about such thing, he shook his head no....