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I just watched this simple documentary to kick start my quest to master ancient Asian history and I think you guys might like it. It's about the China's ancient silk road and the people who live in the most Western part of China, who by the way, look nothing like an Eastern Chinese person due to all the constant mixing with Europeans (ie, Turkish) and other various nomadic travelers.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neFd2PeI ... re=related

Another good video to watch that I have seen about Western China is the Nova broadcast called, "China's Tocharian mummies - Silent Witnesses of a Forgotten Past"


Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4731979808


"The European Mummies Of China Someone who knows the past, is better able to understand the course of the present... Unbelievable documentary about the Tocharian mummies which have been excavated in North-Western China. Four thousand years ago, a community lived in the Tarim Basin -- in what is now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China -- in the heart of Asia. The Tarim Basin people thrived there for at least 1,500 years. There are indications that they survived as a culture even into the second century. Then they disappeared. Now their remains are being reclaimed from the sands, and the people of that extinct nation are challenging scientists and scholars to fathom who they may have been, and -- if an answer can be found -- where, in prehistory, they came from. According to sweeping physical evidence, they were not Chinese. They were not even Asian in the present day meaning of the word. They were Tocharians; a Caucasian people and, more importantly, Indo-European/Aryan"

Thanks for posting these links. Western China has always fascinated me, the scenery is amazing and they have great food there too. Besides teaching english in China, I have more career choices now, I can try jade prospecting also. Seriously, I wouldn't mind going to Kashgar or Urumchi sometime just to check it out. However, I'm guessing its not a good place to get drunk and meet women.

Taco wrote:Thanks for posting these links. Western China has always fascinated me, the scenery is amazing and they have great food there too. Besides teaching english in China, I have more career choices now, I can try jade prospecting also. Seriously, I wouldn't mind going to Kashgar or Urumchi sometime just to check it out. However, I'm guessing its not a good place to get drunk and meet women.

No it's not, and I would imagine because that area seems to be influenced quite a bit from Islam.