I articulated to Abby that I had some Silk Road romanticism about this place that I have not realized despite looking in many corners. If it was here, it's not anymore. It has eroded for 30 years. Silk has been replaced by Chinese synthetics and imports from Pakistan specially marked "For Sale in Afghanistan Only."
Glimmers of this romance (something a learned person could dismiss as condescending Orientalism, but it still charms me) may yet exist, somewhere in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or Pakistan. In a brief review of Kashmir three years ago, I think it was there. But it was marred there as here by that same unwelcome that has characterized the relationship between "us" and "them" in the past decade (and that unwelcome is not one sided!).
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