URUMQI, China — I never dreamed I would reach the Silk Road, but Ambassador Carlos Chan, Chairman Emeritus of Liwayway Group of Companies (producers of Oishi snacks) and the President’s special envoy to China, made it possible from August 27 to September 4, 2005. There are 10 Oishi factories spread across China, including one in the Xinjiang province.
It’s nice, now, to look through these photos and remember those times, one of the many wonderful trips I took with my husband, former Philippine STAR president Max Soliven. He was a history buff to the end, and the Silk Road was right up his alley.
Marco Polo’s 12th-century journey through the Silk Road with a camel caravan took three and a half years; and Turkish writer Arif Asci’s 21st-century team, with their small camel caravan, took one full year to walk the 12,000 kilometers from eastern China to western Turkey. Meanwhile our “modern” caravan, made up of Max and me, along with 11 of Ambassador Chan’s friends, made the expedition to the Silk Road via Philippine Airlines. From Manila, we flew to Xiamen and then proceeded to Xi’an — two and a half hours away. This was the land of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi’s terracotta army from 235-207 BC, and the starting point of the Silk Road. Our last stop was a three-and-a-half-hour flight to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, the largest province of China. China’s section of the Silk Road has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
This part of China is an entirely different world known as the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, or Kashgar. People have different features here. Some look like Turks, others Russians or mestizo Mongolians. Nine other countries border the Silk Road, from Turkey to Mongolia alongside Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Tibet.
Three intercultural routes — the Oasis Route, the Steppe Route and the Maritime Route — lie along the Silk Road. An impressive number of monuments and sites are found along these routes, which extend from the Shaanxi Province to Kashgar.
Xi’an, known as the “City of Capitals” since it remained an imperial capital through 12 dynasties or 1,190 years, was a melting pot of languages, culture and races. The great Roman Empire during these pre-Christian times was ignorant of the whereabouts of the mysterious realm, which they called Seres, or “The Land of the Silk.”
Ambassador Chan’s excellent reputation as a businessman and special Filipino envoy to China has drawn respect from the high government officials in China. The governor of the huge Xinjiang province, Simayi-qilivati, personally met us in a formal affair at the Universal Hotel. Meantime, Yang Gang, secretary of the provincial capital of Urumqi, met us in Turfan, the famous agricultural center famous for melons, dates and grapes, which are made into raisins and wine.