Choe Gyamtso, a monk from Henan, a Mongolian area of Qinghai, at 40 he was the oldest and the first of Kristel’s students. In fact, he was the one who really gave Kristel the idea of a school. Since after he joined, the students just kept coming. With his stable, no-nonsense personality and talent, it was really he who set the tone and level of quality for students who followed. He graduated in 2015, but didn’t actually leave until the summer of 2017, saying he still had more to learn. He now studies thangka with a private teacher in Kubum, near Xining, Qinghai.