Though I had been to Tibet before£¬this was the first time I had ever been into a Tibetan family home£¬and so 1 was totally unprepared for their warm hospitality£®Almost everyone smiled at us and I saw the glittering gold teeth of the old people£®They received us with buttered tea and climbed the fruit trees in the courtyard to pick apples and pears and stuffed our backpacks with them£®Only then did we realize the important decorative role of the red apples and yellow pears on the fruit trees across the mountains£¬just like festival lanterns£®

Our host said that they had too much fruit for their own consumption£¬but that since the cost of transport would be more than the price it would fetch£¬so nobody wanted to send the fruit to market and it was left to rot on the ground£®Lying there on the ground£¬there seemed to be a tie between the fallen fruit and the cattle dung---a relationship£®In other words£¬everything in the mountains belongs to the same big clan£®

A typical Tibetan house usually has a courtyard and four stories£®The first level is for keeping domestic animals£®The kitchen and storage rooms are located on the second floor£®The third floor is reserved for bedrooms and a prayer room while the fourth floor is a watchtower£®The area of the third and fourth floors successively reduces£¬giving space on the roofs of the second and third floors for L¡ªshaped platforms where grain is dried and family members can rest£®The structure of the lower part of the house is mud and stone£¬and the outside walls are painted white£¬or with stripes of white and primary rock colors£®The upper part is a red¡ªpainted timber structure and the eaves are painted red on the upper part and black on the lower part£®All the Tibetan houses looked more or less the same and so we often walked into the wrong house£¬but whichever house we entered£¬we were greeted with the same hospitality£®This seems to be a cardinal role in the village£®

Every day when I sat down to write£¬I faced Mount Murdo£¬a huge snow¡ªcapped mountain£¬one of the most sacred mountains in the Gyarong region£®On the far side of this mountain£¬¡°a journey of three days and nights£¬¡±lies a mysterious lake£¬more beautiful than the famous Jiuzhaigou£®But few people know this place as the road to it is very hard£®

The watchtowers are military structures left behind by previous generations£®They are generally between 20 and 30 meters high£¬and are a building form unique to Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups£»as a result they are widely distributed in areas inhabited by these minorities£®But it is in Rongchag that the greatest concentration and variety of watchtowers can be found£¬providing examples of every architectural style£®A careful visitor will not fail to detect history from the watchtowers£®

The Shannan area in Tibet is said to be the birthplace of the watchtowers£®Their construction went hand in hand with warfare£¬making Gyarong Tibetan area a key place for watchtowers£®Most of the watchtowers in present day Rongchag are relics of campaigns fought along the greater and lesser Jinchuan rivers during the Qing Dynasty£®

Watchtowers out in the wilds are usually village watchtowers£¬but the majority belong to individual households£®As an integral part of the house£¬they witnessed the relationship between routine daily lire and the life of heroes£®In the history of Rongchag£¬life and warfare were one and the same£®Between each individual household watchtower£¬a system of complex and responsive military defense works was formed£»and when fighting broke out£¬the watchtowers gave the village settlements a new significance£¬turning them into imposing and impregnable strongholds£®

There is a kind of harmony between the watchtowers and villages£®They do not clash£»the earth and stone watchtowers in tune with the fields combine perfectly£¬bringing into clearer relief the shifting relationship between War and peace£®