Litang Horse Racing Festival

The festival in Litang is known as one of the largest and most spectacular in Tibet. Every five years they put on an especially huge extravaganza-- the year 2000 will be one of those special years . The Litang festival is actually three events in one. First, it's a classic Khampa horse festival with a race, demonstration of stunts from horseback, and a dance competition among troupes arrayed in regional finery. Second, it's an arts and crafts festival; and third, it's a trade fair, with items of every description offered in temporary shops within the sprawling tent city.

The place is one of the highest permanent settlements on earth. Litang residents are quick to boast that their town lies at 4019 meters above sea level; one of their two finest guest houses is even called Gaocheng Binguan, or "High City Hotel." Set at the edge of a vast pastureland, Litang's summers are overflowing with wildflowers.There is one large, active Geluk sect monastery in the town, and hotspring baths lie a short distance outside.

Local kids and their boarding school
The kids are Tibetans living in scattered farms and encampments throughout Litang county. They have successfully completed six years of primary school, and passed the entrance exam to attend middle school in the county seat. But their families cannot afford boarding costs and book fees of US$325 a year for three years.

The school serves 340 students ages 12-15, nearly all of whom are in the three-year junior middle school program. (Some 20 kids are in senior middle school, but most who continue their education to this level go outside the county to do so). Litang's middle school has fifty-seven teachers, of whom roughly half are ethnic Tibetan; and Tibetans make up 90% of the student body. In the past, Tibetan students studied Tibetan and Chinese, however as of the 1999-2000 academic year Tibetan children are learning English in addition to the other two languages and standard subjects such as math. Tuition is free, and the government pays a portion of the living ex- penses of the fifty or so children who must board at the school because their homes are too far away and they have no relatives in the town. Last year the teachers got together and raised a bit of money to cover the expenses of a few poor children. But there are many more who are qualified to enter but unable to because of poverty.