Caterpillar fungus trade in Golok has many faces. In the high-altitude pastoral townships people trade under the open sky. The traders and sellers sit on the road, bringing foldable stools and tables or squat on the ground weighing caterpillar fungus, sorting it, cleaning, and haggling. Drivers honk their horns to push their way through the crowd, while traders slowly move their baskets and pastoralists their motorbikes. The traders gather in the afternoon when the first pastoralists return from the mountains and they disperse after dusk to return the next day. Outside the digging season, it is hard to tell where these markets take place: the suddenly appearing trading crowd resembles a flash mob and leaves no trace when it is gone.

In smaller county towns the trade conquers the pavements and public squares. In each town there is an enclosed area allocated for a marketplace, but caterpillar fungus is seldom traded there. Instead, the traders occupy the stairs leading to shops and restaurants, sit on the street or on the lawns. Customers and onlookers gather around them. Someone is cleaning the fungus. Another person offers scales for rent. Pastoralists walk among the shops, spending what they have just earned. Someone ties a frozen sheep carcass to a motorbike. Another person carries a sack of rice. More significant traders stand out in the crowd: their posture, clothes, and a circle of people around them reveal who the biggest trader is. Even though some of them own shops where they could meet their suppliers, they prefer to trade on the street.

Finally, there is Dawu, the prefectural capital (Figure 6). Of all Golok towns, it has the most urban texture. The prefectural administration is located here. The Communist Party buildings shine with their glass walls. There is a television station and a football stadium. Dawu is the main commerce centre of Golok and many threads of the caterpillar fungus trade network meet here. The town attracts both pastoralists from the highlands and traders from faraway cities. When a weather-bitten pastoral family finishes their lunch in a dusty eatery, a group of neatly dressed men walks into a hotpot restaurant whose opening was announced with firecrackers. Tibetans whisper: ‘These’re bosses from Shenzhen.