Gumpta

Gumpta is a large Tibetan mountain motorcycle man, with a ponytail and a beard, dressed in long robes, wearing sunglasses, and resting on his bike. We met Gumpta on the main road of Langmusi. He was eavesdropping on our conversation about Tsampa and laughing at all the right moments. When we finally addressed him directly,he responded in a British accent tweaked with a surfer-dude tone. One should go to Langmusi and make a documentary about him (we will in another life).

He was raised on the high plains of northern Sichuan by nomads and never went to school. As a younger man, he spoke no Chinese, but only the local dialect of Tibetan and was illiterate.

At the age of 22 (he is now around 30), he attempted to board a bus headed for the local city of Zoige. Because he could not speak Chinese, he had a very difficult time asking the bus driver how much and where to get off. The bus driver yelled at him, saying that he was as stupid and as dirty as a yak.

This insult prompted Gumpta to go to Lhasa to "make something of himself," as he said, which included learning Chinese. There, he also experienced discrimination, unclear if it was from both the elite Tibetans and Chinese. Eventually, he became friends with a Tibetan English teacher, who taught him English for 6 months (remarkable to learn as much as he did in a short time, and from someone for whom English was a 2nd language). Then when he came back to China, he went to Beijing to learn Chinese in a program for overseas students.

Still unable to read Chinese, although he can speak some, he has returned to Langmusi. His family is still on the plains. They move every 10-20 days. When visiting, he has to look for them for up to an hour, as he does not know where his clan has moved to. To earn a living, he has opened a small clothing shop and hopes to expand into the backpackers world by offering travelers an "authentic" experience of Tibetan nomad culture. We wish him luck. If you go to Langmusi, tell him we say hi.