To answer the question ¨C about who we are ¨C then I can explain that we¡¯re an English Chinese couple, who have a great passion for visiting the Tibetan areas that lie so close to our Chinese home-city of Chengdu.
To make ends meet we dabble in a great number of things ¨C but one of our projects, which we thought would be rather straightforward because of location, was to deal in Tibetan jewelry. However this task proved more difficult in practice than theory ¨C since its so difficult to find authentic stuff (its seems 99% of stuff on sale ¨C that has the Tibetan label¨C has more to do with Nepal(India)/China ¨C and so much of the so-called antique ¨C is very modern) ¨C and that which is genuine often sits with a price that¡¯s horribly inflated by the tourist industry.
With this in mind we¡¯ve traveled a lot through Tibet trying to find genuine Tibetan products ¨C traditional products that were in production today. In the jewelry line ¨C there are silver smiths working in Tibet ¨Chowever these are not Tibetan but minority folk from Yunnan province who make ¡°silver¡± products in Tibetan style (the silver percentages are said to be pretty low). I suspect these folk have been plying their skills in Tibet for centuries. Another industrious group with regard to jewelry are the Ethnic Chinese muslims who have traditionally traded in Tibet ¨C these guys have shops in nearly every town/village and many deal in beads and must have had a major hand in the import of beads. Tibetans themselves have been mainly involved in a nomadic trading life ¨C trading their livestock for various commodities and not so involved in complicated specialized production processes. Therefore our quest for modern made Tibetan made jewelry ¨C so far has drawn a blank ¨C at least with regard to finding anything that combines traditional character and crafted quality.

By the way ¨C many craft traditions suffered in those terrible years in Tibet when ¡°outside¡± pressure threatened the old ways of life. But today things are a lot better ¨C and there seems to be signs of a renaissance in certain crafts (almost certainly fuelled by the new tourist industry ¨C and a huge interest shown by the Chinese for anything Tibetan) ¨C so we still look forward to finding some form of modern traditional Tibetan jewelry production (we¡¯ve already been given the word that real Tibetan silver smiths are working in at least one locality ¨C but what we also hope to find is bone carving).

Nowadays our quest for real Tibetan products has taken a new turn ¨C fabrics. Only last weekend we were in Tagong/Yala mountain (the village/mountain in the picture - as you can see during a cold weekend) to look at a Yak wool project that is being sponsored by the US aid group Winrock. What the Tibetans lack in this kind of project are the marketing skills to sell their product (fabrics ¨C bags ¨C carpets ¨C clothing) ¨C skills that give the local community a sustainable income (a far better way of making money than selling off the family jewelry). So if anybody is interested in giving practical support to this project ¨C such as providing contacts with folk who have craft shops in west ¨C or dress-makers/tailors who might like to include woven yak wool fabric in their creations ¨C then please contact me and I can send you more info and pictures of what¡¯s going on in this neck of the woods.