The Uyghur knife has become one of the most
sought after souvenirs here in Xinjiang. As
I stand here in the Urumqi International Grand
Bazaar there is stall...after stall...after
stall of Uyghur knife shops.
But the question I have is where did they
originate from?
My name's Josh. This is Far West China. Join
me as I go to the small town of Yengisar,
south of Kashgar, to answer this simple question.
For centuries, the craft of knife-making has
been a part of the Uyghur culture, a trade
skill handed down from father to son. The
steel blades are shaped and sharpened by hand
and the ornate handles are made of bone, horn,
shell and other materials adorned with geometric
designs. They truly are beautiful.
Throughout the far western region of Xinjiang,
Uyghur knives have been produced all around
the Taklamakan desert from Kashgar to Kuche,
but the home of the knife’s namesake is
the small town of Yengisar.
It only takes about an hour and a half by
bus to get from Kashgar to Yengisar.
In the southern portion of the small town, small
knife shops line a dusty street which at one
point used to be busy with Uyghur craftsmen
and teeming with tourists. Now, thanks to
knife attacks and security fears in Xinjiang,
it looks like nothing more than an abandoned
ghost town.
For a while I feared that I wouldn’t be
able to find an open shop – most of them
were locked up or out of business. Thankfully,
I stumbled upon Mehmet, a young Uyghur man
who was sitting outside grinding away at a
metal blade.
He willingly showed me around his shop, explaining
the art of knife making and how his family
has been involved in the craft for generations.
It used to be that every Uyghur male in Xinjiang
would walk around carrying a knife – it
was both practical and part of the culture here.
Those days are long gone, however, and at
this point you can’t even take your souvenir
knife onto a bus or plane with you. Needless
to say, the economy in Yengisar has tanked
and many of Mehmet’s fellow knife makers
have searched for work elsewhere.
Unfortunately, this means that many of the
Uyghur knifes you find at the International
Bazaar in Urumqi and Kashgar are selling knives
manufactured in inner China. Ask any seller
about the real Yengisar knifes, though, and
they’ll pull out their valuable stash, usually
folded up in a towel underneath the display
cases.
The knives that Mehmet showed me were made
from recycled steel he had found and forged
into blades. His family clan number and name
were stamped on the edge, a sign of its authenticity.
I looked through many different knives but
the one that caught my eye was one with a
simple but elegant ram horn handle. Prices
ranged from 50RMB to 500RMB but I paid about
175 or about $25 US dollars for my knife.
How did I get it home? In blind faith I had
to pay for both the knife and shipping with
no guarantee that it would actually arrive
at my home in the capital of Urumqi. Any fears
I had were unwarranted, as my knife arrived
as promised about 3 weeks later. To this day
it's one of my favorite souvenirs from my
travels around Xinjiang.
A quick word to those tourists that are wanting
to buy a Uyghur Yengisar knife here in Xinjiang.
The hardest part about doing so is getting it home. I've
talked to a number of different Uyghur knife sellers
and they've all told me that they don't know
how to ship a knife overseas - or at least
they've never done it in the past. So it's
not necessarily the best way to go about it.
I do know for sure that if you try to bring
this into a train station or a bus station
here in Xinjiang or the rest of China you're
most certainly going to get it confiscated.
So that leaves just one more option: the checked
baggage on an airplane.
As of 2016 I’ve been told that tourists
are only allowed to bring one knife with them
back home. I've also been told that they can
only be 8 inches and shorter. The truth is
that nobody knows for sure and my guess is
that the regulations are purposefully vague.
You can hope for the best but when you go
to the airport expect to be questioned about
your knife and perhaps to have the knife even
confiscated. You wouldn't be the first.
Thanks so much for watching! I hope you enjoyed
this video. Give it a thumbs up if you liked
it or share it with your friends. Also, check
out the other Uyghur and Xinjiang related
videos I have here on the Far West China Youtube
channel.
