HIGH on the Tibetan plateau, a few dozen red-robed monks of the Lhagang Monastery sat facing one another, rocking back and forth as they chanted with faces turned upward, to the heavens.

In the flickering candlelight of the monastery’s dim main chamber, they then built small pyramids of incense to place throughout the building, adorned with golden Buddhas, and at the center of Tagong.

Outside, under the harsh noon sun, the monks mingled with the mainly Buddhist and ethnically Tibetan residents of the frontierlike town, population 8,000, which despite its makeup is in Sichuan Province, China.

“We are all Tibetan,” said Ba Ding, a local shopkeeper. “We do get a few Han Chinese tourists passing through, and we are friendly enough with them,” he added unconvincingly.