THE LAST MONGGHUL HERDSMAN ON THE KUUSHINZHANG ALPINE PASTURE, HUZHU COUNTY, QINGHAI PROVINCE, PR CHINA

After the year 2000, rural Mongghul areas were dramatically affected by families increasingly migrating to urban areas to find salaried work with small businesses, street and toilet cleaners, gate guards, and supermarket cashiers. Urban life was seen as comparatively more comfortable with better work conditions than village life that depended on agriculture yields that were considered uncertain because of drought and hailstorms. After years of saving money, the city migrants generally buy urban apartments and do not return to live in their village homes. An example of a small community that follows this pattern is Pudiu, a village located in Songduo Township at the bottom of a narrow valley surrounded by high mountains. Fifteen kilometers separates Zhaxi Langwa and Pudiu, which was once home to twenty-five households and one hundred residents (all Mongghul). When the author visited in the summer of 2019, twenty-two families had locked the front gates of their home compounds and worked outside of Huzhu County. Many had bought apartments in cities. Of the three families still living in the village in 2019, two had purchased an apartment in Ping'an Town, Ping'an Region, Haidong Municipality, Qinghai Province, and planned to move there the coming winter. This would leave only one family living in Pudiu Village. Galizangzhunbu plans to continue tending his yaks and sheep. He told me, "I will continue to herd my livestock here in Kuushinzhang. I am older than most migrant laborers, so it would be hard for me to find a city job. Furthermore, I'm accustomed to living here in Kuushinzhang and herding yaks and sheep."