Artistic Traditions of Amdo, Summer 2007

Morning on July 10 finds us in Repkong, in the Central Amdo region of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It has been a whirlwind the past few days, with not much time to stop absorb the culture at Lanzhou and Xining, both on the Tibet/China border. We are roughly a 5-10 minute bus ride to Gomar, the village where we will be staying with our homestay families.

As Galen mentioned, we met with Prof Kevin Stewart with the Qinghai Normal University a couple of days ago. It has been an eye opener to be introduced to the Monguor ethnicity that comprises some of the population here in Repkong. Some of us are still trying to wrap our heads around the specific distinctions between Tibetan, Hui (Muslim), Monguor, Salar, Mongolian, and Han ethnicities, which make up this region of Tibet.

The bus ride from Xining to Repkong ('Tongren' in Putonghua) yesterday was beautiful - as we got farther away from Xining which is very close to the border with China, we saw more and more stupas and prayer flags animated by the breeze. We were also able to drive along the Yellow River, which is actually a beautiful emerald color.

Here in Repkong it still feels like a mostly Chinese town, as most of the new developments have been in the past 5-10 years (according to our guide Kunchok) and in the style of the ubiquitous white-tiled building. The main monastery in town, Rongpo Gyakhar, is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel, along the main street in town which comprises of stores selling thangkas, religious items, shoes, books, and other household items. Yesterday we also met a softspoken monk by the name of Genden Phetsok who is from the village of Gomar, who also spoke fluent Putonghua.

Jen