The Happy Corps Goes Hiking

This weekend I joined the "快乐军团" (Happy Corps) for a 2 day hike a couple hours southwest of Shihezi.  The Happy Corps is a hiking group organized by a local outdoor store manager, Lamu (her "outdoors" name).  I was totally psyched to be hiking with an all-Chinese group of 15, although it meant I had to decrease my expectations about the actual amount of hiking involved.

The bus dropped us off in the middle of a high plateau where nomadic Kazakh herders graze their animals.



We then dropped into a valley and followed the "Big Southern River" upstream until we reached our camping spot, which was probably less than 5 miles from where we started. The Happy Corps is more about being happy outdoors (cooking, sitting around a fire, staying burrowed in a warm sleeping bag late into the morning) than taxing the body too much. But the entire way was beautiful, so I couldn't complain. I was, however, very dismayed by the lack of Leave No Trace skills.  It's hard enough to get Chinese people to pick up scraps of plastic from their shrink-wrapped chicken feet, much less used toilet paper.  I had to work hard to contain my anger and remember that most people don't have access to a NOLS education! 

I feel like I spent more time eating than hiking, as cooking and sharing food made up a large proportion of our activities. As the only foreigner, I was warmly treated to noodles, corn porridge, instant coffee, and of course, lots of spam! (I really don't understand the Chinese enthusiasm for processed meats. Nor does any other foreigner.)



The festivities were not complete without baijiu. Everyone was expected to throw down a shot as the communal bowl was passed around the circle. And then, as the esteemed guest, it was my duty to offer a toast to each member of our campfire circle. Things didn't get too raucous, although much laughter was had as "Three Trees" (his outdoors name) shared colloquialisms and dirty jokes with me. "She was a perfectly fine foreign teacher, and now look what you've done!" became the catchphrase of the night.



The next morning, while the others lazed about, I set out with "Loves The Mountains" and "Old Cow" to get some views. LTM is a judge in the local court system, and OC is a retired judge. They spent much of the walk discussing the problem of corruption in the Chinese government and the impossibility of holding valid elections. (I participated in or listened in on several interesting conversations with various members of the group, which I need to mentally sort through before writing about.)

Here's what the others missed out on:



And here's one of me for Mom and Dad!



Aside from the fantastic scenery, I was fascinated by all things Kazakh that we passed along the way. (And my fellow Chinese hikers were completely un-fascinated.) I need to be careful not to fall into the trap of romanticizing and exotifying these people, but I'm so curious about them. As I said to one person, "We don't have this kind of scenery in America," by which I meant "You can't see people living a traditional nomadic lifestyle because white people exterminated the Native Americans." I must admit that I do harbor a kind of Wild Wild West mentality about Xinjiang, as if what doesn't exist anymore in my own country I can somehow find here.

According to Loves The Mountains, the Chinese government owns all the land around here and gives the grazing rights to the Kazakh herders for time periods of 30-50 years. Here's one of their camps:



A yurt:



The entire hike was along herding trails, and several times we passed a rock wall structure which I'm told they use as a winter house. We also passed their animals: horses, cows, sheep, and camels.







What an amazing weekend! I can't wait for my next hike!