This is Chris Bricker, and I’m thrilled to introduce you to Bill Porter – or Red Pine – one of the world’s finest translators of Chinese Poetry and religious texts. For those of you who already know him, and those of you who will get to know him, he prefers to just being your neighbor Bill Porter. Each week, Bill will bring you a series of enticing installments that we’re calling A Journey Along the Silk Road. So sit back and enjoy the journey, every Tuesday at approximately 5:20 and Friday at approximately 12:15. And lose yourself in the mystery of the Silk Road!
(Airdate: March 25, 2025) We’re in Gansu Province, in the town of Zhangye. We’ve already visited the sights in town, so it’s time to hit the road and resume our journey through that narrow strip of land known as the Gansu Corridor. Camels are essential and quite fascinating as we come to learn.
(Airdate: March 18, 2025) We’ve been visiting the Yugu minority, in the grasslands west of Zhangye. The Yugu are a branch of the Uyghers, and they are the only branch that still believes in Buddhism rather than Islam. But still, they haven’c completely given up the religion their ancestors practiced.
(Airdate: March 11, 2025) We’re in Gansu Province, visiting the Yugu minority, 60 kilometers west of Zhangye. The Yugu fled here over 500 years ago, to escape the Islamic fanaticism of Tamerlane. Despite their warnings to the Chinese, Tamerlane was just considered another border bandit.
(Airdate: March 4, 2025) We’re in the town of Zhangye, and we’re now looking for something to do. We think it’s time for something different, so we decided to visit one of the small ethnic minorities along the Silk Road. It just so happened that 60 kilometers west of Zhangye is the county seat of Sunan, home of the horseback- riding, mutton-eating, milk-tea-drinking Yugu, living along the flank of the Chilean moutains.
(Airdate: February 25, 2025) We’re in Gansu Province in the town of Zhangye, where we’re visiting the Big Buddha Temple, a 35 meter long structure depicting the Buddha meeting Nirvana, and from the temple we proceeded to Zhangye’s second most famous site, the city’s wooden pagoda. It was a most unusual structure….
(Airdate: February 18, 2025) In the town of Zhangye, we’ve just entered its most famous site — Big Buddha Temple. On the way through the temple’s front courtyard, we passed a group of musicians who’s playing apparently put the temple’s Buddha statue to sleep. In the main shrine hall, we found the biggest reclining Buddha in China. It wasn’t an especially aesthetic rendering, but it was, as advertised, plenty big!
(Airdate: February 11, 2025) We’re in the town of Zhangye, and after finding a pedicab, we’re visiting the city’s big Buddha Temple where a group of musicians have taken us back 1400 years to the Sui Dynasty and the Emperor Yang, China’s ultimate “party animal.”
(Airdate: February 3, 2025) We’re in Gansu Province and have arrived in Zhangye, where we’ve just checked into the Ganjo Guest House. Of all of the places we’ve stayed on this trip, the Ganjo Guest House was among the worst. For the equivalent of fifteen U.S. Dollars, we got a room that wasn’t as clean as a cattle car on a Chinese freight train.
(Airdate: January 27, 2025) We’re on a stretch of paved highway that runs the length of theGansu Corridor, paralleling the Great Wall. Wuwei is behind us, and before us is the town of Zhangye. The only sign of civilation in between is the town of Shandan, and it’s not much of a sign. Shandan’s only claim to fame is a New Zealander who came there to set up an arts school.
(Airdate: January 21, 2025) When Westerners think of Chinese celebrations, they automatically think of the Lunar New Year, but the Lunar New Year doesn’t begin until two weeks later, with the first full moon. Public celebrations don’t take place until the moon proves once again that it knows how to become round and make things grow. In honor of this event, the Chinese indulge in public displays of likenesses of the moon such as lanterns and round sweet dumplings.
