Winter Pasture: One Woman's Journey with China's Kazakh Herders

we follow juan, a han chinese writer, as she journeys with a kazakh herder family to the remotest parts of the winter desert where she stays with them in an underground one-room burrow built with solidified manure. she spends her days herding camels, sheep, and cattle, in the extreme weather conditions, building pens for the animals, and gathering snow to be melted for water. their lifestyle is nomadic and hard, often times exhausting, and lonely, with the next settlement miles away.⁣

we get to know cuma, the husband, his wife and teenaged daughter, as li juan learns how to survive with them in the snowy wastes for five months. li juan is a very insightful and respectful woman. she rarely bemoans her decision to live with the family. she keeps detailed notes and has a wonderfully self-deprecating tone. her patience and ability to tolerate harsh circumstances are remarkable. and although she might make jokes about her kazakh family, she never looks down on them or is a cultural snob.

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there aren't really any words to describe how absorbing and good this book is, her writing is humorous, upfront, and interspersed with genuinely pithy comments on the reality in which she finds herself. she captures the natural beauty that exists all around her as she hikes the sand dunes and rides horses. the little known lifestyle of the kazakh herders is slowly dying out, but juan gives tribute to the people and their way of life in this unique and captivating memoir.⁣

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being chinese, i don’t know too much about the various ethnic groups that we share the land with, so if you are interested in books about china, and want to learn more about the kazakh herders, i would definitely recommend this book. it doesn't have a plot, since it’s non-fiction, but i found it worth the pickup!