In 2004, NPR correspondent Rob Gifford went “On the Road in China,” traveling 3000 miles from Shanghai to Korgaz along China’s Route 312 through Nanjing, Hefei, Xinyang, Xian, Lanzhou, Jiayuguan, and Urumi over 14 days. His seven-part report is available at <http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/aug/china_road/>.
In his last segment, Gifford reaches the westernmost point of the Great Wall in Jiayuguan, where Beijing’s 1300 mile reach begins to fade noticeably in the Uighur people’s “bazaars of Urumqi,” which “smells of spices and flatbread – the smells of Central Asia,” symbolizing the edge of Han Chinese influence in a land historically populated by Muslim minorities. Relations between the Han and the Uighur are tense, and in recent years, Beijing’s program to integrate these people by populating them with Han Chinese businessmen and policemen, combined with the Uighur’s lack of organization, have made them even more tense. Beijing’s program seeks to develop the Western regions in order to prevent discontent and revolt, and in a Urumqi bowling alley, Gifford encounters an ethnically-mixed middle class family indicative of some of the changes these policies have wrought. After a sleeper-coach ride and a hitched ride, Gifford reaches Kazakhstan, observing that the rapid change he saw was clear, but in the face of the lingering or revived old inequalities, where that change is leading (or being led by the government) is less clear.
Gifford’s 50-minute series is highly entertaining and full of sights, sounds, and linked stories and resources about the diversity of China. I recommend visiting the website and browsing through the content as a great way to explore China