Traveling along the Silk Route

Terminal 3 Beijing Airport

mike_bateson — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:23:00 GMT

OMG! I just arrived at Terminal 3 in Beijing Airport, the building is quiet fascinating and is a true representation of the truly breathtaking architecture that is now currently hitting Beijing.

After my check in and feeling slightly hungover from the night before i am in serious need of some burger type material. Thankfully there it was Burger King (BK) of all places, this is really a treat for me as they just dont exist in most parts of China and lets face it BK burgers are great! I had a Whopper burger meal with cheese and bacon, just what i needed. It had been over a year since i last had one so it was more than welcomed.

After my BK i saw the green lights of Starbucks Coffee (SB) now many may think SB sucks but when you dont really have any coffee in China it really does not taste to bad. I get a latte and go and attempt to put in some sugar, SB’s need to sort out their lid system as this lid was welded firmly on i pulled at it and coffee went everywhere! People were looking at me saying look at that clumsy person, id spilt half my coffee everywhere, this happened twice! I then sat down and started writing my journal, and, guess what? Yep i spilt again only this time it was not the lid but a wobbly table! Anyway thats my poor SB experience moaned about.

It feels strange having so much western influences around me firstly a Burger King and then a Starbucks just to name a few, there are also more westerners cutting around than i have seen in one place in a year which is kinda strange. But there is also many of ‘them’ types around… when i say ‘them’ types i mean you see them at every airport all dressed smart and look well groomed, but i always wonder WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? What do they do? what life do these supposedly high flyer’s lead, if that in fact is who they are. No offense though im just curious about ‘them’ types i should just pluck up the courage to go over over and come rite out with it and just ask “Who the hell are you”?

Still talking about western folk (i may sound obsessed but i have been out of the UK for a year now, it starts affecting the way you thing after a while) because its the Olympic period here now i am convinced i am surrounded by Olympians, i see some guy holding a sports bag and i am even more convinced. To be honest i have no idea who is who but its fun just imagining and it passes the time while waiting for my flight.

Dena goes home

mike_bateson — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:21:00 GMT

Time to get focused; Dena (my girlfriend) has just left China heading back to England. Dena has been here for a year now teaching English at Dalian medical university. All the week leading up to this moment I have been feeling really sad and dreading saying goodbye, I have cried so many times and now while writing this my eyes are still watery and the lump in my throat feels like a heavy burden. Waving Dena off from the front of Down town backpackers – Beijing (Nan lou gu xiang, huton) was really sad, but I feel really happy for Dena as she will be with her friends and family again and that makes the sadness less painful.

Today will be the start of my journey its now 06.40 hrs, at 13.50 hrs I will fly to the ancient capital of Xi’an in Shaanxi province, the start of the Silk route. At the moment I am not sure what to expect, I have read so much about the place and seen it through the eyes of the photographers who have been there before me, but now its my turn to see it through my eyes. I will not be doing this for any glossy publication, nor will I have to conform to any travel agencies set agenda to photograph it in a way that can sell holidays. I will be doing this as an independent so I hope I can show China and the modern Silk route as it is today.

What I am doing

mike_bateson — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:20:00 GMT

Welcome to my blog, for the next month i will be traveling along the China portion of the ancient Silk Route. Below is a short essay about what i will be doing and a little about myself.

“When a man is riding through this desert by night and for some reason -falling asleep or anything else -he gets separated from his companions and wants to rejoin them, he hears spirit voices talking to him as if they were his companions, sometimes even calling him by name. Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again, and many travelers have got lost and died because of this.” From the journal of Marco Polo.

The Silk route has contributed to the make up of Chinese culture today through trade and its influence from both the west and Middle East. Stories of the Roman Empire, Alexandra the Great, the adventures of Marco Polo to name a few add to the imagined essence of the ‘Great Silk Route’. But what is the Silk Route today? How do we imagine it to be and did the glossy travel magazines host influence in peoples visual representation of this famous enchanted route? Is it fair that one close up photograph of a place should be the central focus and visual representation on that place? Should we show a more truthful picture of a destination or could that image damage tourism revenue?

Ferdinand von Richthofen was the first person that used the terms ‘Silk Route’ in 1877, however the route was around for a long time before that. The Han Dynasty largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian initiated the trade route around 114 BC. Zhang Qian would send his soldiers on Intelligence expeditions to the west. Some of these missions were in order of trying to link up with the Yuezhi people who were forced to northern India by the Xiongnu tribe during the period of the warring states. Zhang Qian wanted to form a relationship with the Yuezhi to gain a tactical edge on the Xiongnu tribe. Qian also would complete the building of the Great Wall of China that was unfinished by the Qin dynasty in order of keeping the Xiongnu away.

From these intelligence missions to the west came the ‘heavenly horse’ Zhang Qian believed these heavenly horses would enhance his cavalry’s capability in fighting against the Xiongnu tribe. In the west, the Greek empire was taken over by the Roman Empire. Even at this stage, before the time of Zhang Qian, small quantities of Chinese goods, including silk, were reaching the west. This is likely to have arrived with individual traders, who may have started to make the journey in search of new markets despite the danger or the political situation of the time. This is the way the Silk route began and then flourished transporting not only silk but gold, ivory, exotic animals, plants, art and culture.
Ironically today this heavenly horse has become the symbol of the China International Travel Service today and there is a bronze statue of the horse located in Wuwei one of the stops I will take on my trip.

The Silk route today is not a trading route of goods but the trading route of millions of tourists who travel the route as part of package tour trips largely advertised on the Internet. Many tourists will travel along the silk route not to see or feel how it was to be a trader all them years ago but to see the sights affiliated to the towns the Silk route passes through. This is due to how the Silk Route is advertised today, while trawling through many tour guide websites I realized that there was no real mention of the travelers that endured the long route east or west however the mention of the sights that were in the cities of the routes is how the trip is sold.

In recent years China has seen a huge growth in the rise of tourism, it is said that by 2015 China will be the second leading travel destination in the world behind America. Tourism in China contributed 2.9 percent to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 with over 131 million travelers hitting the shores of China in 2007 this figure is set to rise.

With the high figures of tourists comes problems, during the country’s three annual week long holidays—national day, international labor day, and spring festival the infrastructure is in capable of handling the mass travelers effectively. In more recent times during the spring festival of 2008 we saw freezing temperatures and snow storms halt the travel industry all together leaving millions stranded.

This mass tourism drive will also have an affect and put pressure on the ancient sights that will be visited during these periods. There has been talk of canceling the three holidays and changing them to another time to spread the rise in tourism throughout the year but this will affect the economy and more importantly the livelihoods of the people working within the tourism industry.

Inspiration to becoming a photographer came from an influence of seeing great photography all around me when I was growing up produced by my stepfather. The first thing photographically I did was photograph a group of homeless people in my home town, I found it fascinating hearing the stories about life on the streets and why these people ended up there. After a few cans of beer and lots of cigarettes I really established a trusting relationship with this group of people and my day flashed past me so quick. It was in that moment when your just chatting and snapping that I realised this was the life for me.

During this time I was in the Army and when my unit caught wind of my interest in photography I was soon handed the job of regimental photographer. I enrolled on to an A level photography course and passed which took me to university to study a BA in photography at the University of Cumbria. My final major project took me back to Kosovo where I served as the youngest soldier in Nato in 1999. My project was about going back 8 years on and revisiting the places I went to as a soldier. Looking at how the country had progressed and finding the people I had met all them years ago from my personal snap shots I took when on active duty in the province. Currently I am living in China studying an MA in International photojournalism, Documentary and Travel Photography with the University of Bolton.

My trip along the Silk Route will start in Beijing and take me to the end in Kashgar, known as the Asian crossroads. I will photograph the route showing what it is today and how it is used while attempting to represent the route visually correct and not just zooming in to one scene like the glossy magazines do which in turn creates a false truth of depiction of that location.

Traveling the route at this time in Chinese history will be a fascinating time to do it with the economy growing, the Olympics coming and Chinas push towards a modern society the Silk route today will be a large contributing factor of China in the 21st century and I want to give it an honest visual representation today.