The Training sessions and village visits in Qinghai June 2006

Training session on social science research methods at the National Minorities University in Xining

Arabic and Chinese in Xining

Mosque in Xining: You can see the Chinese and Arabic architectural styles in the buildings

Kumbum Monastery (Taersi) in Qinghai

The monks old and young engage in theological “debates” where the older students question the newer ones.  When a newer monk provides the wrong answer the sounds of other monks screaming the correct answer fill the courtyard along with the a constant sound of the older student slapping his hands together to correct the newer student.

According to my friend and colleague in Qinghai, this occurs once a month for a couple of hours.  Although he has been visiting the temple off and on for the last decade (mostly bring guests), this is the first time he has seen this ritual.

Tibetan family and visiting monks: it took us eight hours of driving up mountian passes to reach this plateau and the pastoral village. The village is very poor and most of the households do not have electricity or running water. Still, if you look closely in the picture above and below, you will see power lines across the top of the picture.  There are power lines running across their land, but they have no electricity. This is for the county seat (city) miles away.

Me and our Tibetan host on the high plains.

The Yellow River in the Qinghai low lands near the Sala minority region.

Me and the village leader in the Sala minority village: This is a wealthy village and over 30 percent of the families have migrated out of the village to start restaurants in other cities and provinces.  In addition, a number of men have also migrated out the village for years at a time to work in distance cities and provinces.  We asked the leader about the elections and how people participate and he said that the family representatives come to the village assemblies with cell phones and the distant villagers call in their vote.  Although this technically proxy voting, I think we stumbled across the new “cell vote.”

Despite the remarkable beauty of rural Qinghai, the new roads and “Opening of the West” has brought more jobs and higher income in many areas as well as increasing pollution and environmental problems.