Taxkorgan, the Stone Fortress

Postcard CN-1385641 from China is a postal stamped card by China Post, showing the 2000-year-old hill fortress in Taxkorgan (塔什库尔干), meaning Stone Fortress, seat of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, Xinjiang, China. It had been a strategically important junction on the historical Silk Road, as major caravan routes converged here leading to Kashgar in the north, Karghalik to the east, Badakhshan and Wakhan to the west, and Chitral and Hunza to the southwest in Gilgit Baltistan of today's Pakistan. Today, as the last town in China 120 kilometers or 75 miles from the border with Pakistan, Taxkorgan is on the Karakoram Highway that follows the old Silk Road route from China to Pakistan.

Hui Woman in China

In this Mother's Day, we present a portrait of a woman from the ethnic group Hui in China, by Taiwanese artist Chen Shu Fen (陈淑芬), as shown on the postcard US-1869517 to Taiwan.

The Hui people (回族) are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in China, largely concentrated in the Northwestern provinces and the Central Plain along the ancient Silk Road Trading Route. As of 2011 census, there are approximately 10.5 million Hui people, who, while many of them are ethnically similar to Han Chinese, have retained some Arabic, Persian and Central Asian features. The Hui people are one of 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China. Chen has painted stunning portraits of women from each one of the 56 groups in their traditional dress.