Future unknown~ heartbreaking news coming from Xinjiang about China holding over a million Uighur muslims in re-education centers for the purpose of removing their #faith which they label as a virus. History keeps repeating itself and we humans never seem to learn. Their most recent tactic is breaking up families whose strength and cohesion they perceive as a threat to future China.
It is when you are far away from the thing that you love that you value it and miss it the most. As each trip that I take alone comes to a close, I feel a very strong tug and a yearning to see, smell, kiss, talk to and be with Lea. The last day is a countdown of the minutes and seconds till I see her again. This time she was asleep when I arrived, so I had to wait till the next day to exchange stories with her about the week, to freak out about her cutting her own hair right in the front of her head, to give her the hats and other local keepsakes that I brought back with me from what she keeps calling “high mountains” and to then resume my role as the keeper of the disciplines and balances after her brief unruly time with her father.
After being on an intense journey such as this to one to Xinjiang, the return to the big city is a bit of a shock. When I look back at my over 2 thousand photographs from this trip, it really feels like months were packed into less than a week. To have met Uighurs, Tajiks, Kazakhs, seen their old cities, homes, markets, traditions, to have eaten their food, danced with them, traveled their long roads, sat in their round tents, drank their yak milk, looked into their beautiful eyes, enjoyed their enormous hospitality, puzzled at their secret codes and customs… to have done all that and more and then go back to normal life is a bit of a jolt.
There will be a lot of sharing of their wonderful world in images in the next few days and lots of little stories to tell.
Today’s photo: a composite of sunset from the plane window as we approach Shanghai and bokeh of city lights on the drive home.