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May 21, 2007
The Sunday Cockfight
I went out to a village in the countryside today with a few friends to pick mulberries. One of the best things about living in Xinjiang is the availability of locally-grown fresh fruit all summer: first watermelon, then mulberries, apricots, all sorts of other melons, tomatoes, red dates, fragrant pears, and apples. The trip also included lunch at a Uyghur friend of a friend's house: kebabs, polo, three types of naan bread, cold beer, some dry red wine, and a hunk of jalapeno pepper jack cheese that I scored in Urumqi.
After gorging on huge chunks of lamb and buckets of mulberries, we lay around in a stupor for about thirty minutes... and then the questions was asked: does anyone want to go and see the Sunday afternoon cockfights? Now I know that lots of people have a problem with cockfighting. I wouldn't want to be slashed to bits by razor-sharp claws, either. But what the heck? I'm not closed-minded... I figured I'd check it out.
After a ten minute walk to an otherwise unremarkable intersection of dirt roads, we came upon a crowd of men and boys sitting in a loosely formed circle. It turns out that the feathered fighters weren't cockerels at all, but kakaliq, which look more or less like pheasants. (Anyone know an English or Latin name for this bird? I think it might be Pallas's Sandgrouse.)
Other suprising observations: the fighting wasn't really all that violent. I mean, there was squaking and pecking and jumping around, but no gouged-out eyes or blood-spurting death throes. In fact, there were no visible injuries at all. The fighting proceeded round by short round, with each owner caging his bird as soon as the lesser fighter appeared to lose its nerve. Also, no betting seemed to take place.
Just a bunch of men, relaxing on a Sunday afternoon, watching fat little birds unsuccessfully try to kill each other.
posted May 21, 2007 at 01:07 AM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!
Comments
Yo this be Michael, wassup y'all. I iz back in tha game, Rezpek my Michaelizzles! I be roastin those birds,yo! Aight I gotta go now! Peace Out, bitches!!!
The comment above was posted by Da Real Slim Michael D Shaddy Manning. Rezpek HomeBoi! at May 21, 2007 07:56 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
May the real Michael Manning please stand up, I repeat, may the real Michael Manning pls stand up!
The comment above was posted by Me Is Michael, I iz Friend, aight! at May 21, 2007 04:33 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
That would be me.
The comment above was posted by michael at May 21, 2007 08:14 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Looks like the IP (58.169.27.50) of the poster is from Canberra, Australia. Now what Aussies do I know?
The comment above was posted by michael at May 21, 2007 08:20 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Hi Michael,
Nice post. The bird's name "kakaliq" must have been "keklik", and according to http://www.uyghurdictionary.org/, its English name is: chukar (Alectoris graeca).
The comment above was posted by Heverci at May 21, 2007 09:42 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Heverci's Uyghur skillz to the rescue! It does indeed appear to be a Chukar. (Check out http://www.answers.com/topic/chukar for more info.)
The comment above was posted by michael at May 21, 2007 10:13 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
If the comments are working again, I should see this message! Hooray.
The comment above was posted by michael at May 26, 2007 05:06 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Hi Michael, I iz sorry, aight. I thought it was funny. Hey nice blog. Keep it real, yo!
(Nice vids at youtube aswell)
Yours Sincerely,
Tha dude whos been postin tha funny comments
The comment above was posted by Dave Chapelle at May 26, 2007 03:46 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Hi, great blog. Just wanted to let you know I cited you and used your photo in my Blog Parade post on Shanghaiist. Hope you don't mind. If you do, please let me know and we will remove.
http://www.shanghaiist.com/archives/2007/05/28/china_blog_para_1.php
Thanks
The comment above was posted by sushipanda at May 28, 2007 01:32 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Michael, great job! May I use your pics and text for our forum, if you don't mind?
Contact me if someday you will plan to go to KZ to see that gorgeous girls:))
The comment above was posted by chon_dada at June 22, 2007 06:43 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Called keklik in Turkey and Kazakhstan too, and used for fighting in at least Turkey (and Afghanistan)
The comment above was posted by Steve Bodio at July 27, 2007 09:29 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.
Per Fischer of the Danish Society for Central Asia sent me this informative information:
"The birds you have seen must be Tibetan Sandgrouse (Syrhaptes tibetanus). In Tibet it is called Kaka Lingma or Kakakli."
The comment above was posted by michael at August 7, 2008 08:46 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.
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