By Xuefei Chen Axelsson
On the afternoon of August 26, more than 30 Chinese and foreign journalists visited Changji High-tech Industrial Development Zone, an hour drive from Urumqi. We visited Maiquer Group Co. Ltd., Impressed Gobi Winery, Changji Snack Street, and watched the “Going to Western Region for a Thousand Times.” performed at the Xinjiang Grand Theatre.
Upon Mid autumn festival, Chinese always eat moon cake, not just for fun, but also carry on the culture and tradition.
As we entered the company, one can smell the good smell of moon cake and appreciate various beautiful packaging of cakes.
So many moon cakes were actually produced here. Chinese like to send friends and relatives moon cakes as presents. No wonder! Because Xinjiang has good sunshine and the wheat quality is very good. Thus various products made of flour of Xinjiang are also very good.
Maiquer imported a whole set of milk production line from Sweden with a total of 200 million yuan (or 33 million US dollars). Shaliyef, vice director of Xinjiang Information Office said in Xinjiang people are very honest and trustworthy. There has never been fake food product report.
Looking at these beautiful photos of various dairy products, it is really so attractive.
Talking about food, one has to mention that Xinjiang also produces wine. Journalists came to the One thousand acre grape plantation field and visited the Impression Gobi Winery.
Fuqiang, General Manager of the Winery said the reason he named his company Impression Gobi and took lizard as his company’s totem is because he thinks that lizard has an unremitting effort. He himself worked in this field for ten more years and accumulate his “first barrel of gold “ and invested about 20 million yuan (3.3 million US dollars) into this winery.
Of course, the winery provided not only job opportunities for the local farm workers, but also the sales opportunity for the local small scale grape growing farmers. Therefore he made a good contribution to the local economic development.
He said his winery was very special because he used APP sofeware to let his customers see how the grape is growing and know that these grape is pure organic grapes.
Having tasted the red and white wine in Yinxiang Gobi or Impression Gobi, journalists went on to Changji food city.
The first impression is that the building here is very artistic and full of culture.
The grey color and the vivid sculpture implies the artistic atmosphere.
In this food street, one can taste all kinds of food and culture. The architecture itself is an art and culture.
The manager of the food street said they have strict management system with bonus to encourage the good restaurant and those who did a bad job will be costly too. And they also discuss and have an appraisal so that a good working style is formed.
To welcome journalists, the management in the food street also asked various restaurants to bring their special dish so that the journalists can taste them. Due to the demand from my reader, I took a lot of photos of Xinjiang food.
Fried Geda, a kind of pasta, meat balls, hand-picked rice with beef, fried motton, Jiasha and hand-picked mutton are all specialties for Xinjiang and it is almost spread all over China.
In the evening we went to the Xinjiang Grand Theatre and watched the huge performance Going to Western Region for A Thousand Times. It felt going back to the ancient times when the caravan was walking in the Gobi desert. Plus VR, time goes back and forth. It is really magnificent and wonderful!
In Xinjiang, there is good organic food and good water, with beautiful art, singing and dancing. Xinjiang Uygor Autonomous Region likes to tap the potential of the core area of Silk Road Economic Belt by promoting tourism and attracting tourisms from all over China and even the world. It is also a kind of green economy.
I have to say that the performance at the theatre Going to Western Region for a Thousand Times has gathered history, culture, love, and folklore all on the stage. So the audience can enjoy it very much. The performance combined with VR and modern audio and video effects forming a strong impression on people. It is really world high level and unforgettable!
Photo and text Xuefei Chen Axelsson.