Kashgar - Apakhojia Cemetery 阿巴和加摩扎（墓）

The visitor is not only amazed by the artistic shape and beautiful decorations of the structure but also keenly interested in stories behind the cemetery. It is said to have been the eternal place of 72 people belonging to five generations of one family, but only 58 burial mounds have survived from weathering. There people were descendants of Hojiayusupu, father of Apakhojia, but Apakhojia enjoyed a better prestige and a higher religious status than his father—hence the name of the cemetery.

In 1807 the cemetery was expanded and renovated. Before 1949, Kuomintang plundered it and the cemetery was dilapidated. In 1956 the local government allocated a large sum of money to renovate this cemetery, and it has taken on a completely new look. The cemetery has another name after Princess Fragrance (Xiangfei), who was a favourite concubine of Qing Emperor Qianlong (1736-1795). This amorous romance has cast a mysterious and beautiful veil over the cemetery.

In Beijing perhaps more than other capital with a shorter story, almost every ancient building tells a story. A case in point is the Xinhua (New China) Gate which guards the Eternal Peace Boulevard entrance to Zhongnanhai (Middle-South Sea), now the working quarters of the Chinese Communist Party leaders and the State Council. The visitor to Beijing is bound to pass the gate—it lies on the west of Tian’anment Square—but few will be aware of the romantic tale behind its construction in the 18th century. Legend goes it that Qing Dynasty trops went to the aid of a tribe of Uygurs in the far northwest region of Xinjiang and in return for help in winning a civil war against neighbouring tribes, the Uygurs presented Emperor Qianlong with a pretty, 22-year-old concubine named Mamlizhimo. She became a great favourite of the emperor, who christened her his “Fragrant Concubine.” But Mamlizhimo never ceased to pine for her native land; therefore, the emperor had a tower constructed so that the could indulge her nostalgia by ascending it and gazing towards her birthplace. That tower was the Xinhua ate. When Mamlizhimo died in 1763, after only seven years in Beijing, the emperor ordered her remains to be carried back to Xinjiang in a sedan chair and placed in this ornate Apakhojia Cemetery in her hometown of Kashgar, where it stands to this day.

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