‘World Theme Travel – 6400km of the Untamed, Western China’ Part 2 ‘Burning Land, Turpan’ will be broadcast on EBS1 TV today (27th) at 8:40 PM. Lee Chang-woon, CEO of K-content development company, will be joining us.
To the center of the ancient Silk Road, the unknown land of the West!
Discover traces of the colorful cultures that blossomed along the Silk Road, and discover hidden secrets in the vast land, including canyons, grasslands, snow-capped mountains, lakes, and deserts.
Following the traces of the Silk Road, you will also immerse yourself in the vivid daily lives of minority groups living in remote areas, past and present.
Turpan (吐鲁番), known as the “Land of Fire”, has an average summer temperature of 40 degrees. Located in the Turpan Basin, the lowest point in China, it is a desert and fire city with lots of fire, sand, and wind. The way Turpan people beat the summer is “fighting heat with heat”! They go into the hot sand and take a steam bath, melting away the heat. In addition, the heat in the sand, which is 70-80 degrees, is transmitted to the muscles and joints, and various diseases are cured and the body becomes healthy without catching a cold, according to locals. This is a traditional treatment practiced in Turpan since long ago.
There is another place where more and more people visit as it gets hotter. It is the Flaming Mountain, Huoyan Mountain (火焰山), which was the setting for the classic novel. The ‘Burning Mountain’ that Tripitaka and his party encounter while going to get Buddhist scriptures in the novel is none other than Huoyan Mountain. At the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves (柏孜克里千佛洞) located behind the mountain, you can see the Buddhist art of Gaochang, which flourished for about 800 years since the 6th century. However, the scars of grave robbery that remain here, which is a representative Buddhist relic of the Silk Road along with the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, weigh heavily on your heart as you appreciate the murals in the grottoes. You can read the twists and turns of history here, where both the culture that flourished brilliantly and the scars of plunder are engraved. On the way out, you meet a street musician who has been playing traditional Uyghur instruments for 30 years in front of the Thousand Buddha Caves. I try to soothe my bitter heart with the sounds of music that contains the traditions and history of the Uyghur people.
The journey continues to the west of Huoyan Mountain, to the grape valley of Putaogou (葡萄沟). This area is famous for its high-sugar grapes, so much so that it is called the grape valley. Located between two grand gorges, this area is like an oasis with clean glacial water flowing. The reason why this area is covered in vineyards is because of the irrigation canal, Kan’erjing, which brings water from the Tian Shan Mountains to Turpan and other places. Because of this canal, Turpan, the city of fire, could flourish as an oasis city on the Silk Road. Another part of Turpan’s history, once a strategic point on the Silk Road, is preserved in Gaochang Old City (高昌古城), Gaochang Old City. Here, we visit the temple site where the monk Tripitaka and Monk Xuanzang, who appear in novels, actually gave sermons and imagine the most brilliant days of Gaochang.
Photo courtesy of reporter Park Yu-mi = EBS World Theme Travel
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2024-08-28 01:04:20