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Jon Turk
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Back into the Mountains
- Older in Altai Bike Expedition, 2006: Images from Noey - Newer in Altai Bike Expedition, 2006: Kazakh Shortcut
Mr. Ma Lu Bin joined our entourage for this last leg of our journey. He's thin and frail looking, 54 years old, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life, and he's never been to an exercise physiologist or a personal trainer. Although he worked as a bank clerk for most of his life, he's an oddball, intellectual, self-taought scholar -- living alone, an outsider in Chinese society. But, as he said, "I am strong in my basically."
On a $20 Chinese bicycle, Mr. Ma Lu Bin led us deeper into the Altay mountains that we had been so far, to a land where people still haul their yurts around by camel, where most people don't speak Chinese, and where one curious couple had never heard of America.
At the campfire at night, Mr. Ma Lu Bin told us stories of the Cultural Revolution, how the Red Army "imported" his mother to Xinjiang when she was 16 because the men there needed wives. How even in today's fast paced electronic China, fear lies just below the surface.
If anyone wants to learn Chinese, either here in Xinjiang or in America, Mr. Ma Lu Bin will teach for free in exchange for English lessons and access to American literature. Contact me and I will make arrangements for you.
Dated: 08/18/2006
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