Eric's Beijing Diary

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Anne Marie pointed out that the beast in this picture is probably a dzo. I had never heard of such beast, but apparently there are quite a few variations of hybrid between yak and cow. Perhaps this is why the Chinese word for "yak" is "niu," which is the word for cow. In discussing yaks specifically, they will often say, "mao niu," though not always. The kids I asked just said, "niu." So in China, a yak is a type of cow. And a dzo, which looks like a cow, as you can see from the picture, but has a tail like a yak, is one of the most common hybrids. It kinda reminds me of the "beefalo" we used to see in North Dakota and Minnesota. The beefalo started as an accidental cross. That may be true of the yak and cow hybrids, too. The main thing is that when you see a yak in the Tibetan highlands, it could very well be a mixture. I noticed it because it did not have the classic yak appearance, even though it had some yak features.