Some 800 years ago two brothers, Haraman and Ahman, decided it was time to leave their home in Samarkand, part of present day Uzbekistan. Following a mythical white camel, this band of travelers trudged over mountains and through desserts. After months of traveling, on the verge of starvation and death, their beloved camel suddenly disappeared. After lighting a fire on the side of a mountain, they finally found the missing beast. It had stopped at a spring, knelt down and turned to stone, and in this last selfless act saved the travelers from imminent doom. It was here, in the vicinity of this spring that the Salar settled, intermarried with local people and ultimately became the Salar people. Now, all these years later they are one of China's recognized 56 minorities.
They have their own language, though it is not written, that belongs to the Turkic language family. Living in Xinjiang, I often hear Uyghur being spoken. Salar has the familiar lilt of a Turkic language, yet is distinctly different. Still devoutly Muslim, they were sometimes indistinguishable from their Hui neighbors. Often only after speaking could I tell which ethnicity they were.
So while traveling last week, we found ourselves in the predominantly Salar town of Xunhua. Everyone talked of the famed white camel as a must see while there. Asking the way, and then offending a local driver with our outrageously low bid for a ride in his teeny tiny minivan, we found ourselves at the gate of this famed white camel park. "What's inside?", we asked. "The camel and a few other things." The price? 25 kuai. Sure not a lot when you convert it to USD, but it's not a small fee to get into such a tourist spot. My friend immediately dismissed any intention of going in.
Being the more sentimental, less thrify of the two I decided that I MUST see the white camel. How could I come all this way and not do something just a LITTLE touristy? Plus, if I ever meet a Salar, I wanted to be able to say I saw their famed white camel.
I paid the entrance fee. I didn't even get a ticket as a keepsake. It was as you might expect. A large court yard. A few replicas of Qing dynasty homes sparsely furnished with period furniture, a lot of flowers, a huge wall with 8 stone carvings chronicalling the trek of the Salar's ancestors from Uzbekistan to China, and (you guessed it) the white camel! I felt only slightly duped; this was more a 5 kuai attraction I thought to myself. I did find a large stone with a short history of the Salar written in English....well...sort of an English dialect. This introduction contained some of the finest specimens of Chinglish I've yet seen in China (the source of my history lesson above). I took way more pictures than you'd ever think one would take in such a tourist trap. In the end, I'm glad I went. I had come to the heart of Salar culture, I had captured it on film, and I came out a little more educated about this great world weI live in.
Later that evening, strolling on the central plaza after an AMAZING Salar meal, I met my first Salar friend. How many times have I had someone say, "You are my first American friend!" I always felt a little sad that I couldn't say it in return. But now....now I had my chance. Out of my mouth flowed those beautiful words, "You're my first Salar friend ever!" He didn't seem excited. I feel a bit sad I didn't get more play out of those words. I mean how long until I can use that phrase again? And for the record, I told him that I visited the white camel. He didn't seem very excited about that either.