Tibetan Winter

Frank, Mark

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/49084 Copy

Description

Title

Tibetan Winter

Author(s)

Frank, Mark

Issue Date

2014-05

Keyword(s)

East Asian Languages and Cultures

Abstract

Life is different at 13,000 feet above sea level. Every day the temperature rises and falls far more rapidly than at low altitude. Scorching heat turns into hail storms on many a summer day. Water boils at a lower temperature. Yaks thrive, but very few edible crops will grow. I study the relationship between altitude and history on the Tibetan plateau,with a focus on the early twentieth century. Tibet is almost exclusively a high-altitude civilization, and while there is a rich body of literature on Tibetan history, historians have not paid much attention to the way that altitude and other physical features of the plateau set the conditions for human relations. Pictured here is the town of Lhagang in China's Sichuan Province, where I began my research on Tibet. In winter, when I first visited and took this photograph, many Tibetan nomads descend from higher altitudes to take shelter in their winter houses in town or nearby.

Type of Resource

• text
• image

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/49084

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2014 Mark Frank

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