The achievements of the Paper Road/Tibet Project and the school they established in Lhasa have inspired me to start a similar project in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. My family came from that part of the world, and I was very eager to search and document the diverse arts and crafts among the Uygurs and Chinese Muslims. I also promised some marblers that I would organize a gathering on the Silk Road in Central Asia, because Turkish marbling masters have claimed that the marbling arts came from there to Asia Minor. The printing and bookmaking of ancient Uygurs around the sixth and seventh centuries C.E., and the Mani-Uygur miniature painting arts of those times led me to conclude that I might be able to trace marbling arts and even traditional hand papermaking among the Uygurs in Xinjiang. I came to Urumchi, in Xinjiang province, in 1999, prepared to introduce the art of Turkish marbling—through demonstrations, films, and books—and to give as gifts marbled works of Mr. Hikmet Barutcugil, with whom I was hoping to organize an International Marblers and Islamic Calligraphers Gathering. I also hoped to find examples of old marbling among the manuscripts and books in the Museum of Antiquities, in Xinjiang. I discovered that no marbling was practiced in these parts of China. During my stay I documented on video, for the archives of interested institutions, the work of and interviews with Uygur painters, water colorists, traditional Chinese painters, sculptors, and calligraphers. I interviewed Mr. Ghazi Ahmed, a luminary in contemporary Uygur art history. He had spent forty years directing the art academy and sixty years practicing calligraphy. He was also a first class oil painter and had been the head of many other institutions. I filmed him doing Chinese-Muslim–style Islamic calligraphy, using a brush, rather than a reed pen, on a square, brown piece of coarse-looking paper. He said it was Khotan kaghezi paper, made from mulberry tree bark and used for many centuries by Uygur calligraphers and manuscript writers. He also explained how and why one side was smooth and the other not (the smooth side faced the cloth surface of the mould that it dried on; the rough surface dried exposed to the air). Placing the paper on a large, handmade piece of felt, he started writing. My mind wandered off. Handmade paper was still being made here and what Mr. Ghazi had said about it made me feel different. Having one of the best Uygur calligraphers living show me everything I had been looking for felt like a blessing, filling the missing parts of the paper mosaic. Mr. Ghazi wrote out "Merhababikum," which means "greetings" in Arabic. This to me was a significant welcome to the world of Khotan papermaking. In 2000, I was surprised to discover that every major town in Xinjiang had a calligraphy society. My guide was a calligraphy teacher, Mr. Met Tursun Abdulreshid, from Khotan. He told me that he knew an old papermaker living near Khotan. The day after we arrived in Khotan, we were on our way to a village outside of Karakash (Black Jade). Tohtu Baqi, a short old man with a clean white beard covering his face, greeted us. He radiated friendliness, hospitality, and serenity. In his courtyard, one hundred papermaking moulds leaned on each other, back to back, left to dry. I told him that I came to document what he had been doing all his life and to give his paper to friends in the West who would be interested in him and in the continuation of his tradition. The papermaker's eyes sparkled, as he had found an ear into which he could pour his knowledge and anxieties about paper. His children were not interested in carrying on the tradition. The craft was taught him by his father, who had learned from his father, and the chain went farther back. Tohtu Baqi was helped by his wife and daughters-in-law, while his sons did other work in larger towns. He was almost in tears when he said that after he was gone, papermaking in his family would disappear. What he saw as the fruitless end of his lifelong struggle making paper made him very sad. But he was in a better mood when I asked questions about his craft, which he proudly answered. Mr. Baqi's best papers are bought by calligraphers. His less-good papers are used by herbalists as packing material, by doppa-hat makers as lining material, by silk makers as bedding for silkworm shelves, or for covering window openings. He was only too happy when I asked if he would demonstrate the papermaking process. His wife took some cooked mulberry bark (which looked brown, slimy, and doughlike to me) and began pounding it on a marble slab on the ground. As he explained to me how he prepared the paper fiber, Mr.Baqi showed me where he kept his mulberry bark, the large pot used to boil it, and a bag of ashes for cooking the fiber. The villagers who supplied the bark also sold mulberry leaves for silkworms. Mr. Baqi's wife boiled the bark in water in a large pot, with some wood ash added. Impurities and foreign matter that fell into the cauldron were removed when the cooked bark was ready to pound. Mr. Baqi's daughter-in-law normally did the beating. His courtyard served for both living and papermaking. Opposite the drying paper moulds, a vat in the ground was separated from the wall by just enough space for Mr. Baqi to squat down to form sheets. Mr. Baqi laid a mould in the vat, which was full of water. He took two scoops of diluted pulp and poured it into his mould. With a wooden instrument, he made swirling movements across the mould to distribute the fibers. He then pulled the mould out of the vat and gave it a final light shake before he leaned it against the wall. After he formed some more sheets, each on its own mould, he showed me his finished papers. He kept these in a room, neatly stacked in bundles of a hundred. Mr. Baqi’s paper size was 35 x 39.5 cm and had the pale color of the earth around his village. Perhaps this was because the vat was dug into the ground and the water took its color. The lights went out. Mr. Baqi asked for the genie lamp, Jin Chirak! Out in the courtyard, the darkness was broken by Mr. Baqi holding the primitive lamp above his head, as if to illuminate his world of papermaking. His grandchild reached out for the light and his daughter-in-law continued pounding the pulp, reminding me of the tradition being handed to future generations. Sometime later, Alexandra Soteriou wrote to me, asking if I could show my film of Mr. Baqi and speak about papermaking in Khotan at the Friends of Dard Hunter gathering in western Massachusetts in 2001. She very generously offered to cover my expenses and I gratefully accepted. On my way to the meeting, in Boston, I met the contemporary Dard Hunter of the opposite gender, Elaine Koretsky, and her husband, Sidney. I rode to the meeting in the Koretsky Caravan: the car was loaded with fibers and plants, and a huge Burmese paper bird sat on my lap. To my surprise I found out on our way to the gathering that the Koretskys had been to Xinjiang and had made a documentary film called "The Last Papermaker on the Silk Road." Their subject was a Uygur lady, Mrs. Raziye Han, from Khotan. I was going to present information about the same thing with a different cast; at least I had the second-to-last papermaker! I found consolation in being Uygur myself and in knowing that the tradition of hand papermaking was not yet extinct in Khotan after all. In my talk I made the argument that papermaking in Samarkand predated the Talas war (751 C.E.). I also mentioned the influence of felt making in Central Asia in the invention of paper, and rag papermaking on the other side of the Great Wall of China. After the meeting, I traveled to Washington, D.C., with Jane Farmer. She was curating an immense paper project for the Folklife Festival of Smithsonian Institution. The festival would focus on Silk Road cultures and it was agreed that a Khotan papermaker would demonstrate next to papermakers from Xian (China), Yoshino (Japan), and Fabriano (Italy). We decided that I would assist Jane in Xinjiang when she started the fieldwork and coordination in China and Japan. In the spring of 2002, I met Jane in Khotan and we went to visit Tohtu Baqi. Jane’s presence in Mr. Baqi’s courtyard attracted all of the neighbors and the papermaker was electrified at this proof that people were interested in his craft after all. He sounded proud and confident and was very attentive, so as not to miss a thing that Jane had to say and or ask. Jane took notes and pictures and I filmed as Mr. Baqi went through the whole process of papermaking. Jane then demonstrated how to make watermarks, notebooks, and bookmarks, and how to color paper with natural dyes. We were sure that our audience would give birth to new papermakers in the neighborhood. On her laptop computer she showed pictures of papermakers and papermaking in Xian, Tibet, and Japan. Mr. Baqi was surprised to see the different techniques and amazed at the paper made in Tibet. The next morning, we wanted to trace any other papermaking in Khotan. Mr. Met Tursun’s wife had mentioned a neighbor who was an old papermaker, so we went to the old papermaking area of Khotan, the Lop district. With no address but good intentions, we found the man. Mr. Masum Ahun was in his sixties, younger than Tohtu Baqi. He had a similar courtyard that he used for the same purpose and he knew what we were after. He showed us everything before we could ask him. Later I found out that Swiss paper historian Peter Tschudin had come and interviewed him, then wrote a book on him in German, called The Last Papermaker of Takla Makan. When we were conversing with Mr. Ahun, I asked him whether he had heard of Ms. Koretsky and the female papermaker that she had made a film of. He said he was related to this other papermaker, another amazing paper link. Mr. Ahun led us to Mrs. Raziye Han’s house, not far away. Unfortunately she was paralyzed and could not speak except to nod to acknowledge that she understood. I told her that Ms. Koretsky had introduced her to the world of paper historians, researchers, and papermakers, and that she had won the sympathies of people around the world. We could tell from her eyes that she was happy, but it was heartbreaking for us to find her in this state. Her daughter was now making paper for the family income and she showed us the courtyard. Before I left Khotan I would buy some of her paper, which measured 44 cm x 39.5 cm, the same as Mr. Ahun’s, but a bit larger than Mr. Baqi’s. Like the other papermakers we had met in Khotan, she had exactly one hundred moulds. We returned to Tohtu Baqi, to give him the good news of the invitation from the Smithsonian Institution to participate and demonstrate at the Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C., along with the other papermakers from the Silk Road. Jane left nothing to chance. She double-checked everything and made sure that each detail was understood by all concerned. Mr. Baqi would come to United States and bring his papermaking utensils, some mulberry bark, and some of his best papers and notebooks. At the 36th Smithsonian Institution Folklife Festival, the director, Richard Kurin, announced the last caravan stop on the Silk Road: Washington, D.C. More than a million visitors experienced for two weeks the diverse cultures presented in music, food, art, and thought, through the eyes of Rajeev Sethi, who had created a colorful Silk Road environment on the Mall, with tents and bamboo structures. Jane Farmer created a miracle in the Paper Garden section of the festival: she fused the world of paper in her neatly organized oasis. Tohtu Baqi was showered with love by papermakers and visitors. His neighbor papermaker from Xian, Mr. Zhang Fengxue, used sign language to communicate. The Fukunishis were in the safe hands of Mina Takahashi and Yuriko Yamaguchi. Lynn Sures demonstrated pulp painting and aided the papermakers from Fabriano. And Tom Leech assisted Turkish marbler Feridun Ozgoren. I was at the festival, too, but in a different section, demonstrating my work with colored glass in the Jewel Garden, which I shared with a family of Syrian glassblowers and an Italian bead maker. Tohtu Baqi will add his own version of his visit to Washington to the repertoire of Silk Road stories told around Khotan. Sales of his paper while he was in Washington enabled Mr. Baqi attend the hajj (the annual Islamic pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia) in February this year, fulfilling for him the lifelong goal of every Muslim. I am off to making my own paper and am already entertaining ideas of making colored pulp calligraphy or sprinkling glass powder on wet pulp! I hope to spread the art and craft of papermaking in Turkey. I will also work on establishing a center for orphans and disabled people of minority nationalities in Khotan, teaching them how to make paper, dye, collage with flower petals, and make other products from the paper. Papermaking will continue in Khotan, Xinjiang province, China. I am grateful to all of the people and institutions mentioned here, and many more, for their friendship, interest, hospitality, and generosity in helping Khotan papermaking be known to the world.