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West China

Across China: Better houses, better lives for Tibetans in southwest China

2021-03-08 09:34:58

CHENGDU, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Tsering Raga, 76, has a new hobby -- eating hotpot.

"When I eat hotpot with my family, I feel so warm at heart," she said.

Last week, she prepared a whole table of dishes for a family hotpot party on the second floor of her new, Tibetan-style house in celebration of the Tibetan New Year.

"I love the seafood meatballs best," said Tsering Raga, a resident of Yuthok New Village in Derge County of the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. "You can easily get them in the county."

But her current situation was beyond imagination before 2017.

She used to live in an old village tucked away in the mountains at an altitude of roughly 3,700 meters above sea level. It took a whole day to travel on horseback along the mountain edges to reach the nearest town.

"Our family of four used to make ends meet by growing barley in the mountain village," she recalled. "We tried to grow potatoes, but they were destroyed by wild boars."

Winter was the worst time because they had no electricity. On windy days, cold gusts blew right through the house. Drinking water was also a problem, and locals had to dig ice in the valleys so they could melt it.

All was set to change.

In 2015, a young Communist Party of China (CPC) official, Pema Rigzin, traveled to the village to help locals cast off poverty. Pema Rigzin was only in his 20s at the time and was scared of heights.

"I heard a rumor that when the kid had just come, a villager went to pick him up on a motorcycle," Tsering Raga recalled. "When they hopped on and raced along the mountain cliffs, he held the villager's waist tightly and did not dare open his eyes!"

Tsering Raga began to wonder how the young man could ever help them out of poverty.

As the old village had no telephone service and villagers had low levels of education, Pema Rigzin and other CPC officials went door to door to visit people living in mud shacks. Despite his fear of heights, he journeyed up and down the mountains to help villagers with healthcare and subsistence allowances.

"He helped establish a night school for us to learn agricultural skills, and led us in cleaning the houses that reeked of yak dung," said Tsering Raga. "The kid also took me to the county hospital to treat my illness. He may have been young, but he was a great leader!"

As their days changed for the better, Pema Rigzin in 2017 brought the villagers a map showing new houses at the bottom of the mountains. He talked to locals about relocating from the mountains, but people like Tsering Raga were hesitant.

"We had been living in mountains for generations, how was it possible for us to start from scratch?" she said.

But Pema Rigzin was patient. He had heart-to-heart talks with locals time and again, and took them to look at the new houses, which were surrounded by road lamps and wide village roads.

"The new houses were close to the Jinsha River and the land was fertile," said Tsering Raga. "I realized that we could grow potatoes, walnuts and peaches there."

Despite their attachment to their old houses, Tsering Raga and other villagers eventually decided to listen to Pema Rigzin's advice and move on to a new chapter in their lives.

After moving, Tsering Raga's son found a job in the county and brought back many "novel items," including two copper pots for hotpot and an electric cooker.

"I really enjoy eating hotpot with my family," said Tsering Raga. "I look forward to more happiness in the future." Enditem

Editor:Jiang Yiwei