When Sonam Dorje took his microphone to the windswept grasslands of eastern Qinghai province in September, he just wanted to record local folk tales. It had been many years since the Tibetan elders of Xunhua county had had an audience for their stories, but when they saw Dorje's recording equipment, they clammed up.
'They thought we were making a television programme, so I had to quickly explain we were just recording their voices, and then they felt more comfortable,' Dorje says. They were finally won over when he explained that he was trying to save the region's oral folklore - stories that are dying out because young Tibetans are now more interested in television, films and the internet.
'Grandparents used to tell these stories to the children before bedtime. But young kids now just want to watch movies rather than listen to folk tales. The oral tradition is in danger,' explains Dorje, 26, who recalls his own childhood in Xunhua not so many years ago, falling asleep while his grandparents told him similar tales.
That's why he wants to record these tales. Altogether, he and an assistant recorded 50 stories that month from four women and six men, all former farmers except for one retired teacher. In the past two months, all except one of the tales, which had too many gaps, have been transcribed into written Tibetan, translated into Chinese and English, and are about to be published and distributed free of charge as trilingual language-learning storybooks to 25 primary and middle schools in Xunhua.
The storybook idea first occurred to Dorje last year as he was trying to think of a way to make language-learning school books for Tibetan students more interesting and relevant to their own culture.
'When I visited primary schools, I found that most of the Chinese and English textbooks contain material just related to [Han] Chinese or Western culture,' he says. 'So I think if we can provide teaching about Tibetan culture in English or Chinese, then students can learn the language and our culture at the same time.'