The phenomenon of the caterpillar fungus boom has taken place in one of those regions of the world that is considered marginal from the point of view of the global economy. Somewhere out there, in the thin air and bleak landscape of the Tibetan plateau, dwell the pastoralists with their yaks and sheep, living in tents and changing camp with the seasons. This image is partly true: there are yaks, some sheep and horses, and even some tents, and people move widely over their land, but not in so spontaneous and uncontrolled a way as many would think. Now, suddenly, these pastoralists have been thrown into the whirlpool of a much bigger economy. It is not true that prior to this they lived in isolation, enclosed in their small economic pond. After Golok became part of the PRC, the region was indeed subjected to a series of political and economic reforms and began to function within the command economy. Yet, pastoralists were not isolated from their neighbours, markets and trade networks before this development. They had long exported and imported goods, even if the scale of these operations was so small that from today's perspective, which is accustomed to seeing things on a large, ‘global’ scale, it was almost invisible. Nor is it true that the pastoralists used to rely only on pastoral production. On the contrary, they lived from a combination of activities that generated a more or less regular income. Although the trade they practised before 1958 was largely based on barter and that done in the people's communes was carried out in conditions of cash shortage, it was not the case that the pastoralists were unfamiliar with money. They had it in their hands more seldom than they do today, but money was by no means an unknown concept.

Keeping all this in mind, one can properly consider the situation in Golok during the years of the caterpillar fungus boom. The pastoralists, who had largely relied on pastoral production, had limited but nonetheless some trade contacts, and produced certain goods sold to other regions both close by and farther away, suddenly turned out to be in possession of something very lucrative and sought after.