Qujie's husky voice exudes quiet confidence as she teaches her first yoga class at a resort in Beijing's countryside. She left home at 13 and since moving to Beijing only a year ago, the independent and adventurous 19-year-old Tibetan has sought to live with a modern outlook, while finding life's purpose in the ancient meditation exercise.
Why did you leave home so young and where did you go?
I grew up in a village in the Sichuan Aba autonomous prefecture. Most people never leave the prefecture. My family has five children - four girls and a boy - and I am number four. When I was 13, one of my elder sisters started a small bar in Lhasa and I decided to join her. I thought it would be better for the family if I started working. The journey was not easy but I wasn't very scared. Over seven days, I changed more than 10 buses and finally arrived in Lhasa. I stayed there until I was 17. My parents were not worried. Tibetans believe in 'going with the flow'. Their attitude was 'let her go if she wishes to go'.
What brought you to Beijing?
After my sister got married, I worked as a waitress in Lhasa. I met the boss who owns this resort and he told me I could contact him if I ever wanted to work in Beijing. And I did, a year after I returned to Aba from Lhasa. I wanted to see what it was like out here. It was a very big decision for me. I was worried that I might get looked down on here because of my poor educational background. But I believed in my boss.
How did you come in contact with yoga?
I'd heard of yoga when I was in Lhasa and became very interested in it. Do you know yoga actually originated in Tibet? I came to work in Beijing last summer for two weeks, at another branch of the hotel, and I discovered a yoga studio not far from us. So I walked in one day and had my first yoga lesson. I had serious back pain those days, but after the yoga, it was like a heavy weight had been lifted off me. And I felt particularly confident. Then later, my boss said he wanted one of us, several Tibetan girls working at the resort, to learn yoga and teach the hotel guests. And by chance, I was picked to take the yoga course.