Wednesday, 10 February

Sixth day of the first lunar month

At 9.00 a.m. I went to see off Liang Hancao. He will take the big lorry to go to all the places in southern Xinjiang. In this terrible cold and icy time, to travel in a lorry in this barren territory for 30 to 40 days is really hard work. I admire Liang Hancao’s courage.

At 9.30, Bureau Head Sheng Shiying accompanied me to visit Shumogou hot springs by car. The hot springs are about l5 Chinese miles to the northeast of Dihua.  The springs are not very big, and the facilities far inferior to Chongqing‘s, South and North hot springs. I haven’t had a bath for several days, so I had a bath there. The spring water was so nice that it was much better than all the other hot springs that I have visited throughout the world. Probably the sulphur content is particularly rich. Bureau Head Sheng said the spring water was very good for cleaning dandruff. He said if you washed your hair 30 times you would never have a problem with dandruff in your life. There was a fire well next to the hot springs which has fire throughout the year. I took a picture there. I heard that this fire well and the hot springs were discovered several hundred years ago.

After leaving the hot springs we went back to the city. We went to the West Park.  The park was quite big and there was a Yueweicaotang of Ji Xiaolan (紀曉嵐) and a live temple of Yang Zengxin (楊增新). As for the zoo, there was only one bear and nothing much to see. After leaving the park we went to see the Urumqi River scenery at the river bridge then I went back to my residence. At 6.30 we went to the Special Envoy’s house. This place was very nice, and the facilities were very good too. At 4.30 we went shopping, but all the shops were closed because the trading time is very short here, from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. We went into one of the biggest shops through the back door but the goods were very limited, and there was nothing worth buying. The prices were quite low. There was not even a single book shop. I am really surprised that Xinjiang’s cultural standard is so low. So in the evening, when Governor Sheng came, I talked to him, asking for the Central Government to dispatch some special planes to bring cultural materials and books here. Because if we don’t try to raise the knowledge level of the Han people in Xinjiang, we cann’t hope to use our cultural power to assimilate other peoples.