China and Tibet - 1986
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Aberdeen floating village, Hong Kong, 1986. When I first saw it in 1956 Aberdeen was the home of 60,000 people - and there were few, if any, high rises.
When I come across someone who reads Mandarin I will get this banner, in Chengdu, interpreted. I am sure it is a patriotic slogan of one sort or another.
Pet birds, Chengdu. Pet birds are very common and it is quite easy to come upon bird keepers' gathering spots in parks where bird and bird paraphernalia are traded and admired. Note the common, drab clothing of 1986 China.
Chengdu, China.
Street scene, Chengdu.
At a tea house in Chengdu. Men, mostly retirees, spent hours here drinking tea and talking. I was in a tea house once when a story teller using only spoken language and accenting sharp knocks on the table mesmerized a group of 50 or so for over an hour. I was in the back and did not leave for fear of breaking his 'spell', which held all 50 men in rapt attention. The only person moving was the tea server who slid silently around the room. It was in Mandarin, of course, so I had no idea of what the story was about.
Street market Chengdu.
Street market Chengdu..
Chengdu.
Flower vendor, Chengdu.
Chengdu market.
A view from the train between Chengdu and Kunming.
Fish traps for sale at the weekly market on the shore of Erhai Lake, Dali, Yunnan province.
Market day in Dali, Yunnan province.
Fish trap vendor, Dali market. There are about 50 minority groups in Yunnan, totaling 1/3 of the population (the majority are Han Chinese).. The Yi and the Bai are the largest minority groups, both speaking a Tibeto-Burman language, different from Mandarin, the principal language of the Han majority.
Considering a piglet purchase at the Dali market. The dress of most of the ladies was enough of a departure from that of the ladies in Chengdu to suggest they were members of a minority - perhaps the Bai speaking group.
I surprised this man taking a break while returning from the Dali market. It's hard to tell which hat he bought at the market.
A picture taken somewhere in Sichuan or Yunnan province.
Happy with being photographed by a foreign visitor.
Thrashing rice using a"jia" - a flail, two pieces of wood hinged so one piece beats the stalks of rice. Yunnan Province, I believe.
Winnowing rice Yunnan province.
Harvesting rice Yunnan province.
During the rice harvest, Yunnan province.
Threshing rice, Yunnan province.
Potala Palace in Lhasa.. The Potala, the home of the Dalai Lama until his exile to India in 1959, has over 1000 rooms, including assembly halls, stupa-tomb halls (where the relics of the supreme lamas are preserved), shrines, prayer rooms, monks' dormitories, government offices and temples.
Jokhang temple in Lhasa, Tibet. The Jokhang is the most sacred spot in Tibetan Buddhism. Chinese soldier in the foreground.
Chinese army soldiers in Lhasa with what I think is a yak head, Soup, stew?
Opem air market Lhasa. The meat is probably yak.
During a Buddhist ceremony at Sera monastery neae Lhasa. The long horns, dungchen, are very important in Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies.
A monk at Sera monastery with the figure he is sculpting from yak butter. Yak milk has twice the fat content of cow's milk and the butter has a consistency more like cheese, Butter sculpting is common in Tibetan Buddhism. The haze is smoke from yak butter candles or incense - I can't remember which.
A young monk in Sera monastery..
