I am clapping in and out of time to a Tibetan song. It has been playing on repeat for the last hour on television.
The Tibetan woman opposite me is trying to learn the words to the song.
She sings along: sometimes a few words, sometimes a whole verse, and occasionally nothing at all.
I clap my hands above the stove; the process of hitting my frozen palms together, an attempt to disrupt something on a molecular level to allow the heat from the fire to thaw them. I forgot to mention that whether she sings a few words, a whole verse, or nothing at all, she is understatedly, remarkably beautiful. I don’t know if my claps help or hinder her. They definitely confuse her.
The Tibetan woman and I are in Langmusi; a village that straddles the Gansu and Sichuan provinces of China. It is bitterly cold. There is no water as the pipes are frozen. The few shops and restaurants are closed; they shut when the sun went down. There is nothing to do other than huddle around a stove and clap in and out of time to the same Tibetan song on repeat until tiredness or a serene kind of boredom win out.
At this point, I will make the dark journey out into the yard and up the wooden ladder to my room. I will lie in bed and watch my breath spiral in front of my tired eyes and pray that I do not have to go outside to the toilet. I will pray that in the morning the same song will be playing and that she will still be singing.
Like this, try this… Sleeping in a Cave in Lijiashan