The Tibetan Picnic

The vast grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau were the home of nomadic people who, with their millions of yaks and sheep, formed the core of the Tibetan economy. Those who didn’t move about with their animals did so for trade, and movement pervaded all aspects of life. 

Cities were hubs for commerce and its inhabitants had the most leisure time of all. In summer, they sought out what they no longer had, life on the grassland, and recreated it as a source of enjoyment and relaxation. 

Sometime at the beginning of the 20th century, someone came up with the picnic tent concept, soon to become the norm, a canvas tent with a white base decorated with appliqued motifs. These could be outrageously bright and colorful or a more subdued black or navy on a white base. An older Tibetan remembers the summer picnics which took place yearly, at the time of the Zamling Chisang festival. Families packed their belongings, loaded them on carts and pitched their fancy tents, furnished with carpets, tables and cushions, even thangkas on the cloth walls, by the river. Picnic spots were carefully chosen and perfect ones had many attributes: cushy, abundant grass, a commanding view, protection from wind, and proximity to a river or stream. For two weeks, people socialized, sang and danced, cooked, ate and played games. A whole kitchen tent was set up to prepare elaborate food, families outdoing each other with fancy dishes and new culinary creations.  For children, it was paradise. They met all their friends, swam and explored, the adults too engrossed in their own activities to mind what they were doing. “The return to Lhasa, with the packing up of the tents marked the close of the school holiday. The end of the picnic was like leaving paradise to reenter the hell of my dark, boring school”, he reminisced. 

By the middle of the 20th century, picnics in Tibet were an institution that spread all over the Tibetan areas of the plateau. Picnics still last several days, and at festivals such as laptses, clan members gather to make offerings to the local deities, recreate a picnic like setting where families pitch their tents in a wide circle and enjoy themselves for several days, socializing and taking part in horse races. Monks also hold their own picnics that follow the end of the summer retreat. In Labrang, they pitch their tents on the Sankhe plain and enjoy themselves for ten days, cooking, eating and playing games.  Important lamas and scholars also made use of tents when traveling to nomadic areas to give teachings, setting up camps and attract thousands of pilgrims. 

Norden Camp, in its inspiration and set up, has borrowed from both the nomadic life style and the festive feel of the picnic, creating a  contemporary experience of the Tibetan picnic. The Luxury tent, offers a mix of comfort and feel of nomadic life, in a beautiful stop by the river, where one can be immersed in nature. The camp also prepares nature experience of the picnic with a day excursion. An hearty meal is prepared and a beautiful, isolated scenic spot chosen in advance. A makeshift hearth is built on which tea is prepared, and the afternoon spent of walks spotting marmots and admiring the wild flowers. 

TOMO x Norden founder Yidam

A few weeks ago the founding members of TOMO.video - an online directory of like minded conscious hotels - were asked to share a few insights about our own experiences in the hospitality industry. A moment to share the reality of our hotels, the process it took to bring them to life and the importance of our values to make them special. 

Below are snippets of our founder - Yidam Kyap’s answers. Please visit TOMO.video to read the rest of his answers and get inspired by beautiful locations around the world that care about our environment, society and experience. 

What motivated you to become a hotelier?

As a young adult I had the good fortune to travel to many parts of South East Asia. As many people opened their worlds to me and shared their culture, I was reminded of all that I too had that I could share with people from different corners of the world. I thought of the excitement I used to feel as a child when visiting other people’s homes but also when welcoming others to our house. I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life; welcome people into a little space that I could call my own and share with them my land and my culture. 

What was your greatest extravagance in creating your hotel?

The greatest extravagance, I believe might be the location and the concept of Norden in itself. When we first tried to explain Norden’s vision to family and friends, people were skeptical as to who would come to stay in such a remote location. The idea of creating comfort and luxury in the wilderness was seen as an extravagance, a whimsical idea that could not possibly be financially sustainable.

Where do you feel happiest on your property?

I love the camp as whole, made up of creeks and rivers, dwarf trees and myriads of flowers. I would say that the happiest I feel is more at certain times of the day rather than a specific location. The dawn with the first light of the day, the rustle of the birds and the fresh morning dew, is by far my happiest time of the day. 

What do you consider your team’s greatest achievement?

My team is made up primarily of local nomads who came to us with no prior experience in hospitality. I feel our greatest achievement as a team is the genuine way in which we are able to welcome our guests and make them feel safe and at home. This innate ability transcends language barriers allowing visitors to experience a direct and unique connection to the land and the local community. 

What is your dream journey?

My dream journey is taking a few months off to show my daughters the Tibetan Plateau; the mountains, the valleys, the rivers and the grasslands. I want them to connect with the land that they are from and learn to love and appreciate it as much as I do.

Travel Gear

Images of isolated Tibet, the land of hidden valley locked in time have always dominated  impressions of the place. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tibet was a crossroad for trade linking China to the East, Central Asia to the West and India to the south. Except for the more isolated nomads, every household of any importance supplemented their income with trade and dedicated at least one family member to the task to bringing wool to India, collecting tea bricks from China, exchanging horses for brocade, tsampa for butter, cloth and carpets for sheepskins. Travel was a part of life, and people could be on the move for months, part of caravans that crisscrossed the Plateau on a wide range of routes. 

Tibetans were naturally adapted to this life of travel. Their crossed shirt is believed to have its origins in horse riding, where it proves more protective. The chuba can come on and off in parts, convenient for the Plateau weather that can turn from hot to cold in minutes, or the contrary. The horseman could easily liberate one arm, then his torso, wrap the chuba sleeves in a voluminous bunch around his waist and enjoy the sun, then pull it back on in minutes when it disappeared behind a cloud.

Every traveler had his gear, which was so deeply ingrained in the culture that remnants of it could be found even in city dwellers and the costume of officials, who had a small knife and chopsticks (in a case) hanging from their belts. People carried their own bowls, which were mostly, especially in the case of monks, made of the gnarled wood of trunks and knots of birth or tung trees, mostly found in the Mon region, now a part of India. Officials and laymen could carry precious porcelain bowls from China, and had special cases made from wool twisted over a wire frame, to protect them. Bowls were tucked into the ambam, the fold to the chuba, ready to be taken out for ceremonial tea or a break in a journey. 

The main edibles for life on the move were the Tibetan basics of tsampa, dried cheese, dried meat and butter. Except for butter that travelled in a wooden box, the other staples had little drawstring bags made of wool or skin, and would all be placed in a saddle bag for easy access. A full meal thus only required hot water, provided by a fire built on the road, lit with the flint stones that every man wore hanging from his belt. Since riding happened for hours at a time, most travelers also wore a necklace of hard cheese, which they chewed as they went along, to calm hunger until the next stop. 

Tibet is the land of travel and travelers. 

Saga Dawa

It is an extraordinary experience to be in Labrang Tashikyil on the holiest day of the Buddhist calendar, the 15th day of the 4th month on the Lunar year (26th of May).

Sagadawa celebrates the Buddha’s birthday, and the whole month is dedicated to accumulating virtue, as Buddhists believe that any merit accumulated during that time is multiplied manifold, a spiritual investment towards the next life, for a better rebirth. 

In Labrang, pilgrims and beggars alike congregate throughout the holy month, but especially on the fifteenth.  The 3km circumambulatory road will be filled with devotees young and old, holding their prayer wheels, reciting mantras, or doing prostrations, while the beggars and the destitute will be seated along the path, awaiting their alms.

The monastery’s temples will be filled with monks making offerings at the demand of patrons, who will have waited years for an offering ritual during such an auspicious month. A pilgrimage to Labrang on Sagadawa is something to be accomplished at least once in a lifetime, and the will be teeming with pilgrims from all over the Tibetan Plateau. 

Debate Period

Labrang Monastery comprises six colleges, the largest one being Majung Thosamling. Dedicated to the study of Buddhist philosophy and dialectics, its teachers use debate as an central learning tool. 

The curriculums established by the great scholars of the Gelukpa tradition require that a student memorize the root of a text, then listen to its explanation from their teacher. Debate, the principles of which are taught in the first year, is the gymnastic that brings the concepts to life and helps students gain mastery of a philosophical concept through questioning each other on various topics.

Excelling in debate is a source of great fame for young monks, marking their pedigree as scholars, and demonstrates their understanding of the philosophical concepts they were taught. Debate sessions, which take place daily during certain periods throughout the year, take place in a dedicated courtyard, with flagged stones and shady trees.  

For a skilled debater, these sessions are the most exciting time of the day, and can become very animated. Inter college debates, which occur at certain times of the year, give a scholar the opportunity to engage with those from other monasteries and yearly examinations, where a monk has to defend his stand or question a peer, attract large audiences of illustrious teachers. Great scholars thus gain their fame not simply in their own monastery but in others as well. 

Winter Homes

With the coming of spring, nomads will soon leave their winter houses and resume movement. Nomads’ lives revolve around those of their animals, and the cycles of nature that they depend on. Winter is marked by nature shutting down and the transhumance of men and beast coming to a close, except for high altitude grazing conducted by the young and fit, who lead yaks to graze certain highly nourishing grasses.

The major portion of the herds, and all the sheep remain in one designated area feeding on the leftovers from the pasture supplemented by oats harvested for that purpose. Still, it is a lean time that carries over into the spring and that most animals survive thanks to abundant summer and fall grazing. 

Winter dictates a different lifestyle, and thus, the winter house. Until the last few decades, nomads set up winter camps, with a designated spot a family would return to each year, a site that offered natural protection and easier access to supplies.

The concept of a house remained alien to nomads until recently, and in Central and Western Tibet, more prosperous families would build small dry stone structures to protect their assets and surplus food and continue to live in their characteristic black yak hair tents.

Nomads in the areas around Norden Camp began building houses on their winter plots, and since house building was a new concept, they were plain, with the sole purpose of putting a roof over their heads. Built of single bricks with a tin roof, they may have  one or two rooms, a walled yard for animals and a spot to park their car. Some families evolved into more spacious lodgings with wooden floors, a supply room and a glassed in veranda to catch the sun.

Each summer, they are emptied out and nomad families can be seen with their possessions loaded on a Blue Camel, the 3 wheeled pickup that take them back with their animals to higher summer pastures where they resume their more migratory patterns. 

Nomads on the Move

There is evidence that the Tibetan Plateau has been the site of human activity for hundreds of thousands of years, beginning with groups of hunter-gatherers who followed herds of wild yaks and hunted them for sustenance. Gradually, they domesticated the yak and led the herds across the Plateau in patterns of seasonal migration.

Though the pasture may seem vast and empty, and today’s nomads are often perceived roaming freely, they have spent centuries carefully managing their resources, a complex and highly regulated lifestyle. For a nomad, satisfying the needs of their animals while preserving pasture for future use is a delicate balancing act. Each area, with its designated inhabitants, has a defined territory that the nomads manage in common. This takes a high level of coordination, with limits on grazing for areas in certain seasons to ensure sufficient grazing to satisfy everyone’s needs.

Nomads move pasture three to four times in a year. The number of animals grazing and the quality of the grass determines the length of their stay, and when they judge and the area has been sufficiently grazed, they pack up their tents and possessions and prepare the move. They used to load yaks but lately have mostly switched to three-wheelers called Blue Camels.

The same families move together, and the sites are pre-assigned by agreement. There are spring pastures, summer pastures, late summer, and fall pastures, depending on the area. They choose a sheltered area to establish camp, one close to a river or stream and build a mud-brick stove at the center of the tent. The families from one group erect their tents in proximity to one another and the chores are shared between the different family members.

Written by: Kim Yeshi

The Spirit of Norden

The Origin

The Tibetan Plateau has been the site of human activity for hundreds of thousands of years, beginning with groups of hunter-gatherers who followed herds of wild yaks and hunted them for sustenance. With time, they domesticated the yak and led the herds across the Plateau in patterns of seasonal migration in search for pasture. 

Though the pasture may seem vast and empty, and today’s nomads are often perceived roaming freely, they have spent centuries carefully planning their movement and managing their resources. Having a complex and highly regulated lifestyle means that there is no time or space for nomads to authentically reflect and respond to the modern day disruptions that are now impacting life on the Plateau; From globalization, to climate change and the rise of urban living. 

Arrival of Transformation

Norden evolved out of the need of creating space where nomadic traditions are respected and cultivated while change brought by the passage of time is embraced. While nomads move with the changes in Season, Norden stays put, adapting to the time and place by becoming a platform to facilitate change and innovation, translating nomadic traditions and weaving them within the modern context. 

Summer

Fall

Winter

Spring

Norden and an Embrace of Impermanence

Norden is built from respect both for the plateau and our community. All structures are built above ground and the camp could be folded up in a matter of days, leaving the pasture intact, as a nomad camp would. Norden is a mirror for an inclusive and conscious change; we adapt to today’s reality and provide paths for the nomadic community around us to take advantage of the what change has brought them. 

Staying in one place has given us the power to observe what we have, how to appreciate it and transform it so that it serves us and our community: From experimenting with nomad’s basic staples for our menus at Norden, to creating unique spaces where the grounding nature of the Plateau can be observed in comfort, and redefining our use and appreciation for the simplicity of furniture and implements made for a life on the move. 

Norden provides employment for local youths, the future voice for the community, and offers a window for them to see into how other people appreciate what they may have taken for granted all their lives. In 2016, Yidam Kyap, our founder, helped a group of 20 families set up the Lungta Cooperative with their 200 yaks.

From using local material and traditional building techniques to their mission, Lungta is a transition and a space for exploring the potentials of nomadic way of living on the plateau today. While Lungta produces dairy products for the local market, visitors can also experience immersion in a nomad environment by visiting or staying at their cooperative. They also provide milk for Yidam’s nearby cheese factory, which transforms the milk into high quality cheese based on French know how.

The Future For Tibetan Nomads

The current issue faced by local nomads with modernization is in essence a concept of impermanence. That all things change - and to thrive we need to transform, revitalize and adapt. And at Norden we are exploring with our community the possibilities of how we can transform the nomadic way of life as a means to serve our community in a better way. Respect of tradition, and the openness that allows transformation through innovation is the basis for moving forward.

Nomad Black Tents

Nomads lived in large yak hair tents moving camp 3 to 4 times in a grazing season, following their animals to new pastures. A generation or two ago, families were much larger and everyone participated in the daily chores; women milked the dris and processed the milk, making butter, dried cheese and yogurt and made the dung ready for use as combustible. Children from the age of six took sheep to graze, and men lead the yaks to higher pasture and brought them home every night. In the evenings, everyone gathered around the fire and a meal of thukpa, and the elders told stories.

Now families are smaller and scattered, children at school, old people nearer to the monastery and the children, leaving the young couples to tend the animals. The tents are more reduced in size and lighter, and most often made of canvas.

Lungta is a cooperative comprising about ten families and their common animals, 140 yaks. They have set up a yak hair tent as they were in the times of large families, with a large mud stove in the middle, bringing back typical nomadic implements, bags containing supplies lined up on the inside, yak hair ropes and cheese drying cloths woven from yak hair and sheep wool. It is a beautiful and inviting space for all to get a glimpse of a lifestyle on the wane.

Yartsa Gunbu

‘Golden worm’ or caterpillar fungus fever comes every year around May, with people dropping whatever they do to seek their fortune crawling on the pasture in search of the worm. I had heard about this magic worm for years, its name meaning “ grass in summer, insect in winter” and was made to believe that it seasonally switched from one form to the other. I tried to argue that this sounded absurd, but it was one of those things that made no sense but was rock hard in people’s beliefs. Curious, I looked it up and found out that yartsa gunbu was a mummified caterpillar, the underground-dwelling larva of the ghost moth that had been infected by a parasitic fungus called Ophiocordyceps sinensis. The fungus devours the inside of catapillar’s body leaving only the exoskeleton and blooms in spring in the form of a brown stalk, called the stroma, that erupts from the caterpillar’s head. This process happens only in the fertile grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau and all attempts at farming the fungus have failed. This information enabled me to tell guilty Tibetans that they was not the cause of the caterpillar’s death, that it was already dead. They didn’t mind hearing that. By the year 2000, the boom was in full swing, and when we got into the yak khullu business, we found that it interfered with yak khullu picking, which happened at the same time. People boasted how much money they could make from picking the worms, and every nomad who wasn't tied down to his or her animals would spend a month or two crawling through the pasture on hands and knees. Ritoma nomads had to assign guards to make sure outsiders didn’t intrude into their pastureland, reserving the pursuit and collection of worms to their own. Dechen and I watched all this with some dismay. Some boasted that it Yartsa gunbu was a windfall for nomads, that it had lifted thousands from poverty. Yes, but at what price? Already, we could see that some workshop employees who had quit their jobs to look for worms were asking for them back, saying the returns were too poor and their backs hurt. Yidam’s cousin, whose herd grazes in summer on the high grasslands of Sankhok, said that twenty years ago, the little stroma stalks were everywhere, and now no longer. We were sure they had a part to play in the delicate ecosystem of the grassland, where yaks eat medicinal plants and fertilize the pasture with their dung, enabling certain plants to complete their cycle. No one would know until it was too late. Last year, on the road to Norden camp, we saw the telltale sign of two cars stopped on opposite sides of the road. Two nomads were gathered around something on a white cloth and discussions were going on. It was catapillar season and Yidam knew right away they were engaged in trade. We stopped by and looked at the offerings; an array of worms still covered in the rich brown earth of the pasture. They made their deal and the buyer left, crossing the road to his car. Yidam bought a few caterpillars, for 20 Yuan each. By Kim Yeshi

Tents in Tibet

Tibetan society was and still is largely a nomadic one, with migration central to the culture. People lived in tents, and every few months, a whole group of households would pick up and move to another pasture. Even as cities developed and a trend for a mixed economy, having both fields and herds, began to spread as early as the 8th century, this idea of mobility remained rooted in Tibetan lifestyle. Tables fold, paintings roll up, cupboards can be dismantled into several parts, and goods are stored in easily movable trunks or boxes. Later, when chairs appeared as a result of Chinese influence, Tibetans managed to make a foldable version. Today, tents are still central to Tibetan lifestyle. Nomads in many parts still live in the large black tents made of yak hair. They cut the long strands of hair that hang down on the side of the yak, spin it into thread and weave it into long strips on a backstrap loom. They then sew together these pieces to make the tent. The whole process rarely happens at once; every year, they replace part of the strips, taking down the old ones, and replacing them with new ones, taking about twelve years to recycle the tent. Nomad tents were functional, but not very practical. Smoke helped fill the gaps in the cloth, though it was later discovered that plastic sheeting was more efficient to keep out the rain. Large families had large tents, with separate areas for men and women, sometimes sheltering as many as twenty family members. The sides of the tents were lined with sacks or trunks filled with supplies and provisions, as well as an altar with statues and photos of lamas. In the middle is the hearth, built of mud and a makeshift kang warmed by a pile of sheep droppings in a wooden frame and covered with layers of felt and sheepskin. Yak hair tents are heavy and moving camp involved labor by many. Nowadays, many prefer to use army tents, which are lighter and more practical as well as more efficient in keeping one dry. The downside is that they are flimsy, and people still view the yak hair tents with nostalgia. For those who live in urban areas, there is the picnic tent. The trend started in Lhasa in the early 20th century, when people pitched light canvas tents by the river side or in parks, cooking, eating and playing games for days on end. These tents were decorated in bright colors or in blue and black patterns. Today, they are still the trend, and are used for summer picnics in all parts of the Tibetan plateau. Norden took the Tibetan nomad tent to another level by giving it a metal frame, windows and wooden floors, introducing visitors to the best of both worlds.

A Ray of Sunshine

The visit of a holy being into one’s home is considered the blessing of a lifetime. Norden’s landlord received this blessing on May 2nd, when the young incarnate of the celebrated Gonthang Rinpoche from Labrang Monastery visited his home on his way to Norden Camp.

Sankhok nomads have only recently begun to live in houses. Twenty five years ago, the area was divided into large plots of several hectares which were fenced and allocated to the local nomads. Most families built amakeshift house on these plots and live there from January to June, the rest of the time spent in the higher grazing areas. In summer the houses are left empty, in winter they serve as shelter, only a little better than a tent.

The lama came around noon, two large vehicles, from where he and his entourage poured out. While they were offered a generous meal in the two tiny rooms that made up the house, the family busily organized the blessing ceremony for the fifty so relatives and friends who had gathered. A dzomo and a horse, attired in brocade waited impatiently to be offered in the yard. I had seen both of them wandering in the camp several years in a row and the dzomo had a colorful cloth around her neck, identifying her as having had her life extended for some years.

In front of the house, several men were actively trying to upgrade a plastic chair into a throne of sorts from where the lama would dispense the blessing. I knew I was not to take photographs unless asked to do so. Yidam had brought me there, knowing I would love to see this and I waited patiently until I was asked to come into the room and take a formal picture. I decided to restrain myself from taking the blessing scene out of respect, though I did get the crowd.

The animals were offered on the Lama’s way out, and he happily continued to the camp. The next day, I spotted the horse and dzomo wandering in the camp, the horse gallivanting across the center with remnants of his brocade ornament.

By Kim Yeshi