AsiaQuest: May you live in interesting times

October 4, 1999
Web posted at 11:00 AM EDT

By Dan Buettner

"May you live in interesting times"
- Ancient Chinese Curse

The AsiaQuest team

It's early evening on the western edge of the world's most brutal desert, the Taklamakan. We're in China's most westerly city, Kashgar, about to begin AsiaQuest. Desert dust hangs in the air and casts a weird, silky glow over the city of around 250,000 Uighurs, the Turkic people who live here. Men wearing felt hats ride mule-drawn carts down streets lines with silvery poplar trees. Women, observing their Muslim faith, wear hood-like veils to cover their faces while children tend bagel stands on the side of the road. Though this is the biggest city in this part of China, far fewer ethnic Chinese live here than in San Francisco.

I'm trying to keep from nodding off. Having flown to the other side of the planet, I'm suffering from an extreme case of jet lag. Every thing is 12 hours ahead here. I spend my days in a half-awake, glaze-eyed stupor and stare at the ceiling all night. This does strange things to your body. Your head pounds and your ears ring. You're always on the verge of drooling.

I'm about to begin my fourth interactive expedition with Classroom Connect. These "Quests," as we call them, all work the same: an online audience directs a team of experts to solve a great mystery. For MayaQuest we shed light on the collapse of the ancient Maya civilization. AfricaQuest tackled human origins and the decline of large mammal populations. GalapagosQuest explored the state of the Galapagos Islands, the "canary in the coal mine" of world environments. All of them have an educational component for teachers and their students

AsiaQuest sets out to challenge the legend of Marco Polo. We picked Marco Polo as a central mystery for two reasons. One - it's a cool mystery. For seven centuries, generations have blindly accepted Polo's claim of having traveled from Venice to Beijing and back. He's credited by some for having introduced us to new ideas and products. He's said to have first brought spaghetti and ice cream to Italy. He inspired Christopher Columbus to set sail on the journey which accidentally landed him in America. But what if he made it all up, just pulled together accounts of other travelers? What if, indeed, he never made it past the Black Sea as Dr. Frances Wood, one of AsiaQuest's online experts, suggests?

The other reason we chose Marco Polo is because people recognize him. He can serve as a guide of sorts, a familiar name to introduce the U.S. to the strange and intimidating world of China. Here, the names alone are intimidating. Take Kashgar, an easy enough name but it's in the Xinjiang provence. I've now learned that "X" sounds like "Sh".so you pronounce Xinjiang "Shin-Jang". But how do you say place names like Zhengzhou, or, Guangzhou or Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu?. Say Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu three times fast and you'll know what I mean.

Communication will be a problem The Chinese language is one of the hardest in the world for an English speaker to learn. There are some 50,000 characters in the Chinese alphabet. We have 26. Their words are spoken in four different tones that can completely alter the meaning. For example, the word for "boat" is the same word for "bed" depending on your inflection. This may not sound like an important detail to get right until you invite a new friend over for your first date.

Then there are the people. China has the world's largest population. 1.3 billion people crowded into an area smaller than the United States.

The traffic of mule-drawn carts in Kashgar is a sharp contrast to the vehicle-laden streets of the U.S. and the bike-packed byways of Beijing

Food is another thing. I landed in China expecting menus similar to Chinese restaurants in the US. Forget it. Chow Mein, Egg Foo Yong and fortune cookies never appear in Chinese restaurants. Instead, you get things like dog meat, plump cicada larvae served like a shrimp cocktails, and stewed cow stomach. Yesterday I picked up a dish of delicious-looking chicken fingers. They turned out to be chicken toes, claws and all.

Since most of China was closed to foreign visitors as recently as the 1980s, there's very little written information about our route. We know the sites that Marco Polo described in his book, "Description of the World" and we'll be comparing what's really there with his account. But through most of our 3200 mile-journey across China, we'll have to rely on our wits.

I hate to say it, but it sounds like the next five weeks is going to be "interesting times" for AsiaQuest.

Pedals Up!

Dan