Trying to dialogue with a Yack

Around a lake, on a Tibetan plateau

We take the car and can you guess what I do? Yep, I sleep. Suddenly, Liu Jia wakes me up and tells me there is Yak butter tea. I end up under a tent with a young girl wearing a red dress. Entering the tent, I see a baby sleeping and two wrinkly women. The man who receives us serves us very good Yak butter tea and tells us a bit about his life. At 40, he’s the grandfather of the 2-year-old baby. A young grandfather! I want to take the child in my arms but he doesn’t want to. He plays with my cell phone that makes music and has as a background feature a picture of the French soccer player Thierry Henry. Coming out of the tent I encounter a Yak. I move closer to it but he almost skewers me. So I decide not to try anymore. I wander around the lake when dad joins me to talk. I like these moments of calm and intimacy. Going towards the tent, they propose that I ride the Yak. But like the first time, it pushes me away. I talk to Liu Jia about the name Ouigour of Xinjiang that is, “Oriental Turkestan” because it is the Eastern most Turkophone country. Then, provoking as I am, I ask Liu Jia how to say “Free Tibet” in Chinese. She doesn’t understand what I mean and that’s lucky because a policeman is watching us about ten meters away. We thank the family for their hospitality. Dad adds 20 Yuan to the cost of the tea so that they can buy a gift for the baby.