Poker? You Brought 'Er!

I can't figure out an artful way to blog this, so I'll do it artlessly:

James Fallows of the Atlantic took a trip to the remote western provinces of China.

After trekking for hours across a stark, lunar desert landscape awesome in its harsh beauty, our bus rolled into a former Silk Road waypoint where today's craftsmen still specialize in hand-knotted rugs. We passed through a beaded curtain to see, on the place of honor on the main wall, this: