The day before yesterday, we traveled south of town to survey a caterpillar fungus area. We had to pass a police checkpoint to continue along the dirt valley road as fungus digging is restricted to residents of the area. We were a group of three outsiders and two locals (all Tibetan but me), and the police were happy enough to let us through upon learning that we were researching the fungus and its harvest and sales process for economic development of the region. We joined a group of about 28 people scouring one of the hills for the little, dry grass-like protrusions that indicate a goldmine below. The fungus, also called Cordyceps, is valuable for its use in Chinese medicine and is- I hear- formed when a fungus invades the cocoon of a moth just below the soil surface. It's supposed to do just about everything (you may see an ad for it in your junk-mail box one day) and fetches prices of roughly $3 to $15 per fungus- this in an area where many households subsist on less than $150 per person each year. The search party consisted of men, women, and children from about 8 years old to 60s. I had spent some days searching for the fungus with another family in the valley in 2004 and was this time content instead to watch the pickers and look for other plantlife and animals. It was a rewarding afternoon for all involved- the primary researcher managed to procure a handful of samples and interviewed many of the harvesters, the harvesters sold most of their afternoon's pickings to the researcher, and I got to survey some good Snow Leopard habitat and spy two flocks of Blue Sheep through the spotting scope.
Below is a picture of one of the family's tents, and the backside of one of the hills where we were picking can be seen through the valley notch.
