Tibetan tea and Nur (China)

I was back at my favorite Tibetan restaurant in Bangkok, and this time they had Tibetan tea on the menu. I always order it when I see it, but I never finish it. The tea, made with yak butter and salt, is an acquired taste. As I took a sip, I went back in time.

The first memory was from the 1980s when I first read about Tibetan tea in my school textbook. I used to make my own version by dropping a dollop of breakfast butter in black tea. While watching the butter slowly melt, I pretended I was in high Tibet. I remember trying this a few times with coffee too. Maybe I am the original inventor of bulletproof coffee.

The second memory was from the early 2000s in Chengdu. I lived near the Tibetan street. Nur, a friend from a nearby university, used to visit. Our hangout was a Tibetan café. The place was cosy and welcoming. The only bug was that our clothes smelled of yak butter the rest of the day.

Nur was a Kazakh from Xinjiang. That made her a double minority—a Kazakh in a mostly Uyghur province and a Xinjiang person within the Chinese nation. Nur once shared how the local police had summoned her to translate for some Uyghur kids caught for petty theft. In the police station, she faced hostile glares from the kids who saw her as a traitor, and condescending remarks from the police who labeled “her people” as troublemakers. Nur humorously remarked “no one loves me.”

Nur was probably the first person with whom I had deep conversations about empathy and understanding different perspectives. She impressed on me how the accumulation of small indignities—being singled out for checks on the street, or officials demanding subservience from a minority male in the presence of their kids or partner—adds to the resentment that results in violence against someone weaker at home or sometimes, self-harm.

When I first met Nur, she showed me a photo of herself in Kazakh attire, mounted on a horse. Someday, I will go to the northern borderlands and look for her. There is much more to discuss.