Week 4: in so many ways...

I think I was too used to Google's intelligent search. When I search on jstor.org I forgot to add some wildcards, thus last week I only got a few articles having the exact search terms I used. This week when I add `*' to the search terms, the search engine on JSTOR throws hundreds of results at me. It then become my burden to browse through all these and try to find some useful anecdotes or comments made by the travellers some 70 years ago. However, most articles focused on recent 50 years, which I also paid most attention to in my latest review, therefore I did not obtain much useful information here. But by searching for more information it is possible that I can figure out how historical events and policy changes influence changes took place in later years. On the other hand, my supervisor suggested that I pay some attention to the climatic and environmental factors in Tibet. These aspects may be the underlying reason for current (and past) pastoral system in Tibet, and can help assess whether a change to the system may fail (though the other outcome is very difficult to predict). I have borrowed some books on Tibetan pastoralism in the 20th Century. Hopefully they will also provide me with some clues. I will need to produce more writings next week.