The Silk Road is well known as China’s opening to other great world civilizations, and the trail is protected by mighty military fortifications more than two thousand years old. Places to be seen here show how Buddhist influence first took hold more than fifteen hundred years ago and where remarkable artistic relics remain. More recently the Xinjiang region came under Islamic influences that have created a rich heritage very much a part of this western Chinese area today.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Western adventurers and collectors visited the area and discovered its cultural treasures. Today the central government and people of the region face the challenge of creating sustainable development through areas that have been subject to desertification and salinization. The places we will visit offer a view of many of the features of the Chinese past incorrectly viewed as exotic and marginal. To the contrary, they are key aspects of this agrarian empire’s historical connections with a larger world and through which many of the influences shaping its cultural diversity and richness passed. At the same time, the trip offers a close look at a part of the People’s Republic where the challenges of economic development and social order loom large.

Highlights of our itinerary include the first emperor’s terra cotta warriors who present a haunting and grand image of the military power required to forge China’s first agrarian empire more than 2300 years ago; the spectacular Buddhist cave paintings at Dunhuang that mark that religion’s success in moving from South Asia into East Asia; and China’s largest mosque, Id Kuh, where some 10,000 worshippers pray on Friday afternoons. We will enjoy opportunities to see the vibrant cultural life of Xinjiang on display in places like Hotan where its great bazaar welcomes more than 100,000 people to shop on Sundays for silk dresses, sweet fruits, mulberry paper, fine carpets, and many other articles of daily use as well as those reserved for special occasions. This is a China in many ways quite different from the China some travelers may have previously seen on trips in the northeast, east or south.

Exploring the distinctive features of western China and learning how its history and future remain closely tied to
the more familiar China will provide a broader perspective within which to understand both the Silk Road and how China in all its variety has been part of larger worlds from ancient times to the present day.

Travel with Prof. Wong along China’s Silk Route Aug 28-Sept 11, 2005.

The Pre-Columbian society of Washington, DC is hosting a one-day public symposium entitled “Food and Feasting in the Pre-Columbian Andes” at the U.S. Navy Memorial & Navel Heritage Center, 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,Washington, DC on September 18, 2004. Speakers include Anita Cook, George Gumerman, IV, Christine Hastorf, John Janusek, Justin Jennings and Mary Weismantel. For more information please visit our website
www.pcswdc.org or write to Registration Coordinator, 11104 Bucknell Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20902.

On Saturday November 13, 2004, Department of Anthropology Professor Emeritus, Dr. H. B. Nicholson, will be honored at a daylong colloquium at UCLA. Dr. Nicholson is internationally known for his contributions to Mesoamerican studies. His scholarly interests range from
archaeology to ethnohistory of pre-Hispanic and colonial Mesoamerica with special focus on the esthetic, religious/ritual, ideological, and sociopolitical cultural spheres. For further information on this exciting event and to receive a registration form, please contact: jsilton@ucla.edu.

The Institut für Altamerikanistik und Ethnologie (IAE) of the University of Bonn (Germany) will be hosting the 9th European Maya Conference (Maya Ethnicity - the Construction of Ethnic Identity from the Preclassic to Modern Times) from December 7-12, 2004. It will combine a workshop on Maya hieroglyphic writing (December 7th - 9th) and a three-day long symposium (Friday, December 10th - Sunday, December 12th).

For more information go to:
http://www.wayeb.org/indexemc.htm

Bob Brier and Pat Remler