Courtesy of Xinhua News Agency and China Pictorial

The two informally-married wives of Dagdong Gyalpo, from the Sakya Monastery, are hereby exchanged with the formally-married wife and daughter of Gonub Dawa, from Lhaze County.” This is a statement of indentured servitude applicable to the exchange of serfs as agreed to by and between their “masters.” Documents such as this reflect the genuine status of Tibetan serfs during the serfdom period – being transacted like a commodity, with no human freedom. Back then, serfs accounted for 95 percent of the total population of Tibet.

This remained unchanged until the peaceful liberation of Tibet in the early 1950s, and the emancipation of the serfs took place after democratic reform in 1959.
On May 23, 1951, the Agreement Between the Central People's Government and the Local Government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was signed, marking the peaceful liberation of Tibet and a turning point of the social progress of Tibet.
In the following several years, the first well-equipped clinic was established in the city of Lhasa; the Gampa-Tibet Highway (now known as Sichuan-Tibet Highway) and Qinghai-Tibet Highway were completed and opened to traffic; and the test flight along the Beijing-Lhasa route was a success. Thanks to the great support of the Central Government, Tibet entered a stage of economic construction.
However, a high-level reactionary group in Tibet was against, and even hostile to, these changes. On March 10, 1959, they launched armed rebellion, and afterwards, the Dalai Lama, along with some local government officers, fled to foreign countries.
On the other hand, it was that hasty, failed rebellion that accelerated the acquirement of “a new life” for all the Tibetan serfs and slaves. The democratic reform, which was originally scheduled to wait until the common awareness of the Tibetan public and leading personages, was advanced to agenda.
From June 28 to July 17, 1959, the Second Plenary Session of the Preparatory Committee for the Founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region deliberated and passed the Resolution on Democratic Reform, heralding the democratic reform throughout the Tibetan plateau. The reform abolished the feudal serfdom system, and the lands occupied by the estate-holders involved in the rebellion were distributed to serfs and slaves. Meanwhile, the democratic reform also enabled millions of serfs to be emancipated from the rigid control and oppression of serf owners and obtain their freedom as human beings, as well as political rights.

	Welcoming a commissioner accredited by Chairman Mao. China Pictorial

Prior to the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, traditional education was underdeveloped. Limited schooling primarily took the form of monastic education, officially-run education, and private schools. The dominant form of schooling was of the monastery variety – teachers were the lamas and the curriculum was primarily religious. In 1952, Tibet’s first institution of modern education, Lhasa Primary School, was established, at the time causing a sensation in the world.
Beginning in 1985, the Central Government implemented the “free food, free boarding, and free tuition” policy upon the children of Tibetan farmers and herdsmen aged in the period of compulsory education. By the end of 2006, on average, each of the children of farmers and herdsmen enjoyed food, boarding, and tuition provided by the state, equivalent to an annual fee of 1,100 yuan.
Achung, then nine years old, was one of the numerous beneficiaries of the “three free” policy. Departing her parents, she entered a primary school in Ngaqu Town, 100 kilometers from her home on the Northern Tibet Grassland, with all the education and accommodation fees provided by the government. In the school, the textbooks were in the Tibetan language, and teachers taught in Tibetan, while Mandarin served as a complementary language.
Concurrent with the development of elementary and higher education, the historical heritages and traditional culture of Tibet enjoyed a good preservation and inheritance. In 1979, based on the previous 20 years of conservation and study, China specially established an academic institution for the conservation of Tibetan indigenous epic King Gesar. Praised as the “the longest epic in the world,” King Gesar is even longer than the total length of the historical Homer’s epic poems and the Mahabharata. Presently, around China there are still more than 100 balladeers singing and spreading the tale, now con-sidered a “living epic.”
Samdrup, 90, is the oldest among the King Gesar balladeers. Beginning in 1984, the Minorities Research Institute of the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences tape-recorded the senior artist’s singing for 2,000 hours, and compiled 30 books on the epic.

Co-workers of the Han and Tibetan ethnic groups at the Nyingchi Woolen Mill. China Pictorial

After China introduced the reform and opening-up policies in 1978, the Central Government implemented a series of special policies for Tibet, such as the “long-term household land use and independent management,” “long-term private ownership of livestock and independent management,” and “tax exemption for collective and individual producers within a long period.”
In the 1980s, a wide array of specialty shops sprang up on the streets of Lhasa, attracting not just local residents, but also visitors from Chinese inland cities and from foreign countries.
In the rural areas of Shannan Prefe-cture, farmers expanded their houses to two stories, and the newly-erected TV antennas on the roofs of those traditional Tibetan-style buildings presented an intriguing view. In the farmers’ courtyards, apart from the farming tools and domestically raised cattle, tractors were commonplace.
Back then, China Pictorial once published: “Doje, member of the Jiuba Commune in Nyingchi County, Tibet Autonomous Region, bought a Jiefang truck for his engagement in cargo transportation. Within only eight months, his turnover reached 16,915 yuan … Since last year, 22 of the county’s commune members have bought trucks and begun to operate a transportation business.”
It was also in the 1980s that tourism rose in Tibet. Changpa Tsondre, the “King of Shoes” in the eyes of tourist shop owners in Lhasa, was one of the many who benefited from tourism.
Changpa’s career in Tibetan boot making can be traced back to February 1980, when he entered a local footwear workshop. In 1985, he became director of a Lhasa-based shoe factory. Like other shoe factories in the same district, the business of Changpa’s factory was in a slump. How to lead the factory out of the depressed situation? Suddenly, discovering a fact that tourists on Lhasa streets increased day after day, Changpa decided to develop tourist souvenirs, a business with a potential market in his anticipation.
So, Changpa invited senior Tibetan boot makers and employed young people to learn the skills. Particularly targeting the tourist market, he researched and developed a kind of patterned mini-boots, which enjoy great popularity among tourists.