Two thousand years ago, silk merchants made Kashgar in southern Xinjiang a major hub on the trade route between Central Asia and Europe. Other than silk, one of the most popular products traded along what became known as the Silk Road was tea. Still today in the old city of Kashgar, teahouses are popular meeting places. It’s common for the elderly locals to bring their own naan bread, buy a three-yuan pot of tea, and stay for many hours. An old man named Ubul is a daily visitor to his local teahouse, where chatting with people is a way of escaping his loneliness.