Across China: Baking love and dreams in Lhasa

He has been a teacher and served in the army. He is now a choreographer and, above all, a baker.

"I don't want my life to be dull and uneventful," said 37-year-old Basang Cering.

The Accordion, Basang Cering's bakery by the Lhasa River, houses objects displaying his eclectic taste: a sculpture of a yak, stickers from the Japanese cartoon "Knights of the Zodiac," and portraits of John Lennon.

"This bakery gives travelers a glimpse of what a modern Tibetan's life can be like," he said.

His life is different from that of his parents, who "typically walk the dogs and chant prayers each day, before their lives end on the celestial burial ground," he said.

He was born to a doctor's family. Seeking a change, he went to Shanghai to study choreography at the age of 12, and later joined the armed police.

In 2006, Basang Cering met accordionist Man Xinwei while they were preparing for performances to celebrate the Tibetan New Year. The pair fell in love. Man carried all her belongings in 23 bags from Beijing to Lhasa, and they got married.

"Then we decided to do something 'sweet,'" said the husband, with a smile.

He went to Chengdu, capital of nearby Sichuan Province, to learn baking. With the 300,000 yuan (about 47,040 U.S. dollars) he received from the army after his service ended, Basang Cering started his bakery in 2009.

"I met my wife because of her accordion, so we named our bakery after that musical instrument," he said.

Business at the bakery was not so good at the beginning, earning only about 30 yuan a day. To keep it running, Man began singing in pubs while Basang Cering found a job as a dance teacher at Tibet University.

Meanwhile, he tried to come up with a unique product.

"Traditionally Tibetans didn't have bread," he said. "We eat tsamba, which is made of barley flour." He had eight mu (about 0.53 hectares) of land in his hometown, where they could harvest some 3,000 kilograms of highland barley.

He then tried to make bread in the shape of yak dung with barley flour.

The Tibetan explained the importance of yak dung. "It is at the center of Tibetan people's lives," he said. "The herdsmen raise yaks, collect their dung, and paste it onto the exterior walls to save as fuel. The ashes can be used as fertilizer."

"But people from the outside misunderstood," he added. While he was at school, once he prepared a dance named "Airing Yak Dung." His tutor told him, "Dung is not artistic enough to be put on stage."

"Hopefully, the dung-shaped barley bread can let people know the importance of yak dung for Tibetans," he said.

The bakery's interior resembles that of a Tibetan house. Basang Cering now owns four Accordion bakeries in Lhasa.

Accordion has become so successful that he is often contacted by people asking to open franchises, which he politely refuses.

"It is like my second daughter. Who would like to have his daughter raised by someone else?" he said.

His actual daughter was born the morning of August 7, 2009, the day the first Accordion bakery opened. He named her Ayang Lhamo, which he said means "fairy of the accordion melody."

He is not sure what will become of Accordion. In his own words, he likes uncertainty.

"It is better for a person to have more stories," he said. "Accordion is a very important story for me -- a story about love and dreams." Endi