The ancient Buddhist art of thangka has thrived in a Tibetan town, despite centuries of upheaval
- Thangka, or scroll painting, originated as an aid to spiritual teachings, but has become a celebrated art form, spawning masters and masterpieces
- Rebgong in Amdo, one of the three traditional regions of Tibet, has nurtured generation upon generation of fine artists
As the long and short hands meet at 12, photographer Li Zhengde and I alight at Rebgong coach station. The sky is blemish-free, as it was for the entire four-hour bus journey from Xining, the capital of Qinghai province in China’s northwest.
The road took us along the edge of the Yellow River southwards until the waters veered east, near Chentsa County. We carried on south, following the Longwu – a Yellow River tributary set in a pastoral valley framed by loess hills. From the bus window, the wheat topping flaking terraces looked like the green hair of a dormant giant. The idea that something ancient and profound was buried out there was reinforced by fleeting glimpses of lone white stupas and fluttering prayer flags.
Despite being far closer to Lanzhou than to Lhasa, we are in Tibetan territory. Amdo may no longer be marked on maps of China, but it is alive in the linguistic and cultural mores of the Amdolese Tibetans. Rebgong – or Tongren, to use its Chinese name – is the administrative centre of the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Huangnan, or Malho in Tibetan, means “south of the Yellow River”.
Rebgong’s main drag, Dehelong Middle Road is peppered with the kind of establishments you’d find in any modern Chinese town of equivalent size: mobile phone stores operated by Huawei and Oppo; a few fast-food franchises; and a branch of the China Construction Bank.
The clearest sign that we’ve travelled across six provinces and 2,500km from our starting point in Shenzhen, over the border from Hong Kong in southern China, are the faces in the crowd; elegant Tibetan women spinning prayer wheels, their hair plaited and dangling down their backs to their rumps; maroon-robed monks with no hair at all; the occasional Hui Muslim wearing a white prayer hat and sporting a goatee beard.
The Rebgong Art Museum, situated a block away, is hard to miss. Like so many buildings constructed in a country where size (and impressing one’s superiors) matters, it is a veritable palace of a place, one that attempts to fuse the architectural styles of Stalinist grandeur with the classical Tibetan approach, an awkward melange that satisfies neither intention.
