We soon met an affable older gentleman. His name was 寶珠 (BaoZhu, translates to "Precious Jewel," a somewhat peculiar name for him, even in Chinese), and he was a herdsmen in the Ruoergai area.
Larry started speaking to him in Sichuanese, and while I understood most of what Larry was saying, it was harder to catch BaoZhu's accent. He had a tendency to say, “Oh ja!” a lot. It was apparently the lingo up here, the way to say good, or to express some kind of positive affirmation.
What I could make out from the conversation is that he owns 200 heads of cattle, and is from Baxi, a town about 30-40km (20-25 miles) to the east of Ruoergai. What made him more interesting is he had the opportunity to travel around when he was in the army for six years, starting back in 1962. He went all over China, and thus his perspective was wider, less provincial.
Anyhow, he was explaining what it was like to live up in Northern Sichuan. The living conditions are rough, as the air is thin and dry, and there’s not much around. Because of the poor living conditions, many Tibetans also suffer from some kind of fairly uncommon disease, which causes their joints to swell uncomfortably.
As we talked, people gather around us to see what the commotion was all about. They were curious to see outsiders talking to locals. Another Tibetan stopped by, and Larry started to talk to him too, but it was apparent he did not have the same level of education or broadness of experience. He soon left us. Meanwhile, I was left with BaoZhu for a few minutes, and asked him a couple questions. He understood me and responded, but I couldn’t really make out what he was saying, so I just nodded and smiled.
Larry and Baba turned their attention back to BaoZhu, and Baba asked him why he wears his coat on only one shoulder. He replied that sometimes it gets too hot outside, and so he take it off partway, but doesn’t want to take it all the way off in case it gets cold again. Also, having an arm free from the coat makes it easier to do things with that arm. We though it was indeed a very interesting and potentially good idea, so we decided to try it ourselves:
Then we saw the idea wasn’t BaoZhu’s - we looked around, and saw almost everyone in Ruoergai was wearing the same style! We were amazed; it was hilarious how we did not notice.
Two guys walked down the street towards us, with half a coat on, dressed like characters out of a wuxia novel. A few women passed by, also dressed in the same style.
We asked BaoZhu if he wanted to eat, but he said he had already eaten. So we bid him farewell, and continued our search for dining company.
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