Qinghai Journey
Tserin Lhagyal smiled paternally as the tiny infant tottered toward the outstretched hand and coaxing voice of her mother, a young bronze-faced woman clad in a colourful chuba, the wraparound robe traditionally worn by Tibetan men & women.
Daughter of the local deer farmer, the year old infant presented the future of Tibetans in this remote region of Qinghai, an area long isolated from outside influence, but now experiencing a transformation as contact with the wider world increases. In the large communal living room milk tea was being served to the guests, the grandmother filling the stove with dried yak dung, the eldest daughter seated on the one bed in the room, cooing to the youngest child, a toy guitar hanging on the wall, a dusty beat-up stereo sitting on the shelf, evidence of the mercantile world beyond the vast plateau & high craggy peaks of the Amnye Machen mountain range.
Yangshuo, February 2007
The town, on the banks of the Li River, was once a sleepy, easy-going place occupied by traders, farmers, and fishermen who docked their bamboo rafts and fishing boats along the wide river that snaked through town. Over the years the town has steadily grown, with new apartment blocks, an underground shopping centre, hotels, western-style restaurants, and streets lined with souvenir shops transforming the area into a tourist haven.
Everything happening to China today is happening here, and it’s far removed from the provincial and rural life of a generation ago. This small, sprawling community is where more and more Chinese choose to be, the place where job growth is the fastest, home building is briskest, and hotels, trade stores and boutique shops are slowly multiplying as newcomers keep on coming. It could, in miniature, be any rapidly developing Chinese city, but Yangshuo is different in some way and has retained its sedentary appeal, and where overcrowding in other cities can be frustrating, in Yangshuo it’s only a slight inconvenience as you head out of town on your bicycle.
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