The deeper the snowdrifts get around Labrang—Tibetan Buddhism's largest monastery outside of Lhasa— the farther Luosang B. is from his element. A thoughtful monk, tall and lean like a Giacometti figure, Luosang B. (whose name has been shortened to avoid recognition) can't shrug off the frigid weather with a cup of pungent yak-butter tea as his Tibetan-born colleagues can. He is a Han, a member of the majority ethnic group in China, and he was raised in temperate Zhejiang province on the east coast. Many of Luosang B.'s former schoolmates run thriving businesses back home. They can't understand why their chum is living in freezing, faraway Gansu province in western China with no stock ticker in sight. Luosang B. can't understand their lives, either. "Yes, we Chinese now have material success," he says, "but that's not enough, which is why we're searching for spiritual fulfillment."

Fulfillment is where you find it, even in places Han Chinese have been taught to think of as dirty, feudal and poor. The ethnically Tibetan swath of Gansu province is just such a place. In order to legitimize its rule—and cultural imperialism—Beijing has long insisted that the Tibetan people are backward and in need of a strong guiding hand. So it is all the more startling that so many Han, steeped in anti-Tibetan propaganda, are flocking to the region's monasteries. Today, almost every Tibetan master in Labrang has a coterie of Han Chinese students. So numerous have they become that Luosang Jiamucuo, one of Labrang's holiest monks, was compelled in 1999 to start learning Mandarin. At first it was hard for the 58-year-old master to learn his oppressors' language. But he did it for his faith. "My responsibility is to pass on knowledge to whomever asks for it," he says, "whether they're Chinese or Tibetan."

Increasingly they are the former. Fujian native Fa D.'s soul searching took her through all the holy books, from Marx's Manifesto to Qi Gong manuals to the Bible. In the end, Tibetan Buddhist texts were the only ones that moved her, so at 19 she left home for distant Xiahe, home to Labrang. Adjusting to life here hasn't been easy. There are the reminders of modern living that occasionally intrude. Once, Fa D. was sitting in the first row of a lecture when suddenly her cell phone rang, disturbing the whole class and earning her a stern glance from the usually placid teacher.

There's also the matter of Tibet's unenlightened views toward women. Fa D. has become accustomed to the men's rice bowls being filled faster and more generously than hers. But she can't fathom why Tibetan men seem to abuse women so often, especially because the religion preaches nonviolence. "There are still many things I don't understand," she says, gathering her prayer beads in her hands. "I have no choice but to continue looking for answers." Like so many Chinese, she remains restless, yearning and searching for that elusive still point in this turning world.