Nightlife

Most Han Chinese believe that Uighurs, like all Chinese ethnic minorities, love to sing and dance (neng ge shan wu). As one Chinese guidebook notes, "although very few Uighurs speak Chinese well, they will often spontaneously break into song and dance to show their friendship." If you're already not exhausted by all the singing and dancing, the best-known song-and-dance troupe is the Xinjiang Gewu Tuan, which performs at different venues around town. They are housed in the former Russian Consulate, at Shengli Lu 193, whose elegant, decaying buildings and grounds are a must-see for aficionados of the Great Game, a drawn-out battle of espionage fought out in central Asia between Russian (and later Soviet) diplomats and their counterparts in British India.