American journalist Erik Nilsson milks yaks, collects dung and herds sheep with slingshots to discover firsthand what it's like to survive on the frosty Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Erik Nilsson Yaks buck. I learned this when I mounted one year ago while camping with a nomad beneath a glacier in Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture's Qumarleb county.
I clutched the creature's wool and held on for dear life.
Yaks also buck when you try to milk them.
I learned this when I returned to the region in Qinghai province this summer to not only live with but also like the herders who survive by grazing livestock on the frosty plateau.
I also learned I'm not good at milking yaks.
Steaming streams hissed into the bucket when my 46-year-old host Gyayang Tsomao massaged their udders.
When I tried, a few drops dripped into the container.
"Plunk. Plunk. Plunk."
It was like the sluggish staccato of a clock's tick-tock.
And that was only after several minutes of nothing.
Then, the yak tried to kick the pail over.
Ethnic Tibetans greet guests with traditional scarves. [Photo by Erik Nilsson and Tseringbum/China Daily]
Like I said, they buck.
Its hoof blasted forward. So did my arm.
I snapped the container out of the way－just in time.
Nomads tie the creatures' front legs during milking. But their back appendages remain free to flail.
The creatures are also leashed to ropes that organize them into three rows－one of females with calves, one of females without calves and one of calves without mothers.
The night before, I towed a yak to its line.
It tugged back. I tugged harder.
It thrashed its horns. The jolting movements caused the peg at the end of its leash to snap off in my hand.
I grabbed the rope with my other hand. I apologized to my hosts.
They laughed.
Then, they tethered the yak for me.
We went inside once the livestock were in place.
Dub Tsering apologized.
Erik Nilsson discovers milking yaks isn't easy. [Photo by Erik Nilsson and Tseringbum/China Daily]
"We'd slaughter a sheep in your honor if nobody had recently died in our family," the 49-year-old told me.
My friend Tseringbum, who'd organized our stay, explained this is a Tibetan custom.
I was grateful they wouldn't be making such a sacrifice. They'd already shown excessive hospitality.
My mind immediately steered toward the upside-down car crumpled at the bottom of a cliff near the house. I didn't ask out of respect.
Turns out, nobody died when the car whooshed over the edge.
One of Dub's seven children was driving and jumped out of the vehicle just before it plunged off the precipice, he explained, as we sawed meat off boiled yak ribs.
"People see the car and pray because they think the driver must have been killed," Dub says, laughing.
"I wouldn't have thought to jump. My son is smarter in that way."
More importantly, he's educated, the father explains.
"I'm so proud to have children in college," Dub says.
"We want them to study so they don't live like us. I went to school as a young child but never learned to read. I regret that."
He believes better incomes aren't education's primary goal.
Herders tether yaks before sundown. [Photo by Erik Nilsson and Tseringbum/China Daily]
"I can only communicate with livestock. I'm like the animals I herd. If I were in the city, I couldn't find the restroom or the hospital," he says.
"My kids will have knowledge even if they don't get jobs. That matters most."
Two of his six sons have gone beyond receiving education to becoming educators. They teach at nearby Dongfeng township's primary school.
Tseringbum advised the younger instructors: "You're not just teachers. You're students of your students."
But Dub explains two of his adult children had to stay home to herd rather than further their studies.
It's too much for him and his wife to care for 400 sheep and 150 yaks. (Most aren't theirs.)
"We have no choice," he explains.
The family brings in 50,000 yuan ($7,650) a year from livestock and caterpillar fungus, a parasite that grows in ghost moth larvae that's a traditional cure-all in Tibetan and Chinese medicine.
After milking the yaks the next morning, I collected dung, which is used for heating and cooking in the frigid highlands.
I'd believed nomads harvested dried droppings since that's what they burn.
Turns out, the fresher the better, since they're stacked to form walls that sheath dwellings.
The moistness makes them like mortar.
Nilsson's nomadic hosts present him with yak butter and caterpillar fungus. [Photo by Erik Nilsson and Tseringbum/China Daily]
That is, pliable enough to forge fences of feces that serve as fuel.
They're constantly torn down and rebuilt－to burn and to protect.
Once I'd filled the wheelbarrow, it was time to lead the yaks to the mountaintop pasture. My hosts taught me to whistle to get them to hustle.
Next, it was time to release the sheep.
They gave me a slingshot, which locals jokingly call "Tibetan guns".
Herders fling stones to steer flocks.
I twirled the weapon and hit myself in the head.
Later, I visited a shack behind the nomads' home. The family poured yak milk into a filter atop a sputtering machine with two nozzles. One dribbled out the base for cheese. The other oozed butter.
The family gave me a chunk of yak butter the size of a basketball, wrapped in khata (traditional Tibetan scarves) and six sprigs of caterpillar fungus wrapped in tissue as a parting gift.
Tseringbum explained I can slow-boil a single piece of the parasite with a whole chicken or steep several pieces in the deer-blood liquor he'd given me, for at least a year. (The longer the better.)
The first snow of 2017 fell as I prepared to leave. Winter begins in early August.
I waved to the family.
A marmot I'd seen flash from its burrow when I arrived popped out of its den, as if to say goodbye.
And I bid farewell to the people, the wildlife and the livestock－including the yaks that buck.
