Quotes from Colin Thubron

From time to time we see hearthrugs moving over the slopes. With quaintly hunched shoulders and bushy culottes, these are yaks. In their darkly dripping coats they stand out like rocks against the bleached grass where they graze.

Trekkers at high altitudes sometimes sense a person walking a few paces behind them, just out of sight. Often this person is dead. I never feel this, but once or twice I imagine someone walking a little ahead of me.

The trouble is we have no education,' he says. 'Only that would save us. It's too late for my father and mother–you see them–and it's too late for me. I'm thirty-five. My wife too, she is quite uneducated.' She smiles faintly. 'But my children go to school now. We have hope for them, and for the boy. But five children is too many. We had them again and again.

Tinha sido autorizada qualquer coisa a que eles chamavam Ocidente. Eu contemplava-a, pasmado, como um estrangeiro. No entanto, tinha a sensação de que o surto de individualismo não era exatamente aquilo. Ser ocidental equivalia a uma espécie de conformismo. Mesmo quando o Ocidente os conquistava, eles tornavam-no chinês.