And ‘blubbing’... Blubbing went out with ‘decent’ and ‘ripping’. Mind you, not a bad new language to start up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could be due for a revival.

Abduhelil Sadir once lived in a remote village in Qaka Township, Qira County in southern Xinjiang's Hotan Prefecture. People in the village have long suffered poverty, poor transportation infrastructure and flooding.

The windows often frost up in winter.

It was applied methodically, carefully, resolutely, as in the fashion of a Satin-bird with charcoal, desiccated wood or blue from laundry-bags.