Searching for Yoldash

Back in 1990 when I worked in Lanzhou, China, I traveled to a small Tibetan village with a few friends. On the way up our bus started to break down. The driver opened the engine compartment and fixed things right up with a pencil. Ridiculous and ingenious. That is China, everywhere you go. 

I took this photograph on my last morning. I could not resist the rhubarb, so I asked the young monk in training if I could take his picture. This spontaneous pose was a complete and wonderful surprise.

Tibetan communities in Gansu experienced significant protests and repression in 2008, but back in 1990 all this was beneath the surface, and the people we met seemed relaxed and free from the suffocating effects of Communist culture. There was squalor everywhere, to be sure, but there was also dignity, pride, and beauty. Hope wafted from prayer flags in the hills. Big dogs lazed about on every corner. And there was joy in a young boy carrying a fat rhubarb leaf early in the morning.

On the bus ride back, we stopped at one of the countless nondescript towns providing gas and water between nondescript cities. Through the bus window I watched as two boys about eight stood in front of a drab store smoking cigarettes and staring back at the tourists with bored indifference.