What I’ve learned so far:

Desert people don’t look at sand as annoyance, instead, sand is vital to the desert ecosystem. They transport water quickly down; many plants in the desert need sand to help them spread; there is a big difference between healthy desert with a combination of stable and moving sand and other landscape turning into desert. Beneath a healthy desert here in Alxa, it is not uncommon to dig a small hole of a foot deep and find water. When it looks like rain is coming in the spring, herders would bury their sheep in the sand up to their neck so they won’t freeze to death.

There are so much life in the desert. The plants here have evolved to have so many ingenious ways to survive. And it is not necessarily a good thing to have more plants especially trees in the desert. A sparsely vegetated desert where camels come and trim regularly stays healthier than a deserted desert. When sandstorms hit big cities hundreds of miles away, please don’t blame the camels who graze here, think whoever that hijacked the water source that feeds the desert from underneath.

Nomadic culture has survived on the desert land for thousands of years and there are good reasons why. It is a moving culture and a culture of rounds — gers, fences, and of adaptations. The agricultural ideas are sedentary, squared — plot of land, houses, and built upon modifying nature, to however degree. It’s not really wise to apply agriculture concepts to nomadic land, but it is happening here in the Tengger desert and elsewhere. Herders are encouraged to give up camel herding and turn into farmers, even though the water usage of farming could be hundreds of times higher that of herding; the used-to-be open pastures where camels could roam freely and rotate their feeding grounds were separated into individual properties that eventually led to degradation. When people equate nomadic with backward and “underdeveloped”, they are letting go of thousands of years of wisdom. What is behind a cellphone is advanced technology, and what is behind how to live in the desert is advanced technology, too, one herder said to me.

I never imagined I would like the desert so much, without even mentioning its aesthetic attraction. It is a book I feel like I’ve just opened page one.