Shipston Arts and Crafts Society

AT THE September meeting of the Shipston Arts and Crafts Society members heard a well-illustrated talk by Roger Butler on ‘The Silk Road’, an account of a journey through Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet, the western Chinese province of Xingjiang, and the Karakoram Mountains to Pakistan. We saw slides of the varied topography and the changes from the plains to the high mountains of the Himalayas, and the many varied ethnic groups who inhabit the land making a living from different forms of agriculture practised in central Asia. The speaker brought out the effect of inward migration into both Xingjiang and Tibet of Han Chinese and the industrialisation of Umachi, the principal city in Xingjiang. The largest province in China has long been settled by ethnic Turkic peoples who are Moslems. Their religious monuments include brick mosques in Turfan and Kashgar. In the latter, the domes of the mosques are covered with blue tiles. These are a complete contrast with the stone-built Buddhist temples of Lhasa and the smaller towns of Tibet.