In 2006, westerners could travel into the Tibetan regions of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu provinces relatively freely. For one shining moment in early 2007, it looked like the group-tour-only restrictions on Tibet Autonomous Province itself would be lifted. It was a Golden Age, the time when China boosters found most evidence for their prediction that the country would continue to liberalize and ultimately democratize. The Olympics changed all that. Riots and protests brought unprecedented clampdowns in western regions. The internet was simply switched off in sensitive areas and politics nationally took a new, harder-line direction from which it’s never really diverted. Since then, troops are often on the ground in sensitive towns, and for a few years there was a spate of self-immolations. Foreigners are often thrown off buses at Kangding and other towns, long before they get anywhere near the western reaches of Tibet. Cynicism and uncertainty grows on the eastern seaboard, though you don’t notice it unless you pay attention. But out west, by most accounts, well, it’s quite, quite different to how it was when we visited.
In amongst all that, the Litang Horse Festival, a longstanding fixture on the Tibetan cultural calendar and the backpacker loop, was cancelled, and stayed that way until very recently.
On our own journey of exploration in the summer of 2006, we saw one of the last Horse Festivals before the big crackdown.
Summer 2006: It’s a long, slow, cold and dirty climb for the daily bus from Kangding, a city about eight hours by bus west of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, where we’d arrived after an even longer 27 hour hard-seat train ride from Beijing. Litang, a three-day overland journey from the capital, lies at just over 4,000 meters above sea level, a full 1,500 meters higher than Kangding.
It took a few days to acclimatize, and we each had dull headaches and roamed the streets slowly.
 Pregnant in Yunnan |
 Qinghai Tibetan lands |
 Gansu Province Great Wall |
Litang is a small town in Sichuan Province’s Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, with fewer than 50,000 residents, almost all of them Tibetan. It’s little known, at least among travelers, that Tibetan culture spreads far beyond the borders of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In those days, a visitor interested in meeting Tibetans and exploring their culture was often better advised to visit western Sichuan, or parts of Qinghai and Gansu, rather than “Tibet” itself, where government controls were much tighter. These days, it’s locked down in many places.
Our first hotel in Litang turned out not to be licensed to take foreigners. The police arrived, late at night, and told us we had to move on the next day. They were friendly at least, as was the hotel lady (ethnically Chinese) to whom we offered our apologies as we shuffled out (she would be fined for registering us). We asked around and learned that the Horse Festival started the next day, so we quickly found another place to stay and started the slow walk out to the Festival grounds. We saw some amazing riding under the gloomy clouds. Next morning, the sky was blue and beautiful. I can’t recall the exact chronology of events but what follows occurred over those two days.
Many Tibetans, even today, live a nomadic lifestyle. For hundreds of years, they’ve herded yaks from pasture to pasture, moving around in family groups and meeting at regular times and places to trade and catch up. The Litang Horse Festival had long been one of these opportunities. Somehow it had become a popular tourist attraction too – perhaps because it was relatively easy to reach (just a tough 9 or 10 hour bus ride out of Kangding…) – or more likely thanks to its dramatic celebration of horsemanship.
The most visually interesting aspect, though, was the vibrant and diverse mix of people. Just like a day at the races anywhere in the world, the ladies in particular were out in all their finery.
All these next photographs are taken by Yonnie.
There were some interesting other faces around, too. A lifetime of living and working outside in the harsh elements lent real character to some of these people.
Apart from the beautiful outfits there was some pretty decent horseriding those two days. The competition seemed mostly to focus on a man’s ability to ride his little Tibetan pony quickly and accurately, reaching down to grab something cleanly from the ground as he raced past. There didn’t seem to be any women riding. The crowd surged a bit here and there and the local police enforced the crowd line with a baton. I was pretty careful to make eye contact with the nearest cop before he raised his baton in my direction, and to shield Yon. To our advantage, though shamefully overall, he seemed to be most focused on enforcing the crowd line with locals. I was too busy avoiding injury to really get a photo of this situation. In between the batons, I was able to get some pictures of the action (on Fuji Provia slide film, scanned here).
With crowd in place, the galloping began. It was hard to know what was really happening, but it was quite exciting. The horses could really trot, and their riders knew precisely how to aim them, so they raced past very close. Because the crowd kept moving forward, then back as the police raised their clubs, it was never really clear where the people finished and the racetrack began. Part of me kept waiting for an awful collision, but none came.
It was an intimate competition, horses and riders whinnying and whooping and breathing and sweating right amongst the rest of us, who were doing most of those things too. As each horse approached, we all held the line, and then as it swept past we all surged forward to get a look, only to hustle back if the policeman looked our way. Barring the occasional sweep of the baton, everyone had a great time. Especially the horsemen.
Later in the day we walked past some Tibetan tents. Suddenly, we were invited inside to share tea and momos, a sort of Tibetan dumpling similar (actually practically identical, but don’t tell anyone) to regular Chinese jiaozi (饺子) dumplings. Here we explained our background to the friendly extended family, and tried to understand their stories. For all of us, Mandarin was a second language (and I’d only been in China a few months then so mine was even more rudimentary than usual).
A warm and friendly welcome for two total strangers, and a very comfortable tent. I sent a print to the address they gave me, but I have no idea if it was ever received.
The whole festival had a great atmosphere and it didn’t feel too overwhelmed by outsiders. There were some remarkably inconsiderate Hong Kong tourists who ran onto the stage during a dance performance, literally grabbing the cute kids for photos while they were in the middle of their routine. Yon was mortified and cut into them in Cantonese before the police came along and took over (by then everyone had seen their baton-wielding style so they quickly retreated). But for the most part the visitors (including us) did their best to stay unobtrusive. Our feeling was that the festival had a soundly local feel. The local participants, Tibetan and Han alike, were certainly warm and friendly. I found out much later that this festival was actually originally a local government effort to increase tourism to the region, but for all that, it definitely felt like mostly locals were present.
Like any good horse show, there was a sideshow alley. A whole section was set aside for gambling, with a favourite game being “fish-prawn-crab” (鱼虾蟹). In this fairly simple game, in which my Hong Kong relatives thoroughly fleeced me a few Spring Festivals back, you bet on whether a fish, prawn or crab will show up on the specially marked dice. Easy to play, easy to lose. This version had animals more suited to the Tibetan plateau (less with the crabs, more with the chickens), but it seemed to be the same deal. After my experience in Hong Kong, I knew better than to join in.
These guys were throwing 1 kuai bets (less than 20c), so even doubling down wasn’t going to break the bank. And the crowds weren’t just interesting for the foreigners, either. Even the locals were impressed with the diversity, or so it seemed.
If it ever happens again, try to make it up to Litang for the Horse Festival (at the time of re-posting, it apparently is running again). It was fun, and deeply interesting. A lot of these guys ride motorbikes now – it’s their choice, and they know what works for them – but hopefully the horsemanship will be carried on too, preserving the traditions of the past in some meaningful way.
