19 Aug 2021

Wangchen retired in 1997 after working as a road maintenance worker at the Nagqu section of the Qinghai-Tibet highway that links Tibet with the rest of China.

Nine years later, the Qinghai-Tibet railway traversing through Nagqu and Golmud went into operation.

“Who could have imagined decades ago that one day we would have highways, railways and our own apartment in Tibet? Life has changed a lot,” said Wangchen.

Born in 1945 in Nagqu, Wangchen used to be a serf, sleeping in a sheepfold. His feudal lord often flogged him for trivial things and made him starve.

“In winter, my pants soaked with blood and snow water in the sheepfold would freeze as hard as a wooden board,” Wangchen told his grandson, adding that he had to hunt to fill his stomach.

Following Tibet’s peaceful liberation in 1951, Wangchen for the first time met the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The soldiers gave him clothes as well as biscuits, a luxury that he had never had before.

Wangchen’s life as a serf finally ended in 1959, when the democratic reform was launched in Tibet and feudal serfdom was abolished. Wangchen was later allocated ranch and yaks, and started learning Chinese by himself.

In 1962, eight years after the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet highway, Wangchen was hired as a road maintenance worker and he worked in that position until retirement.

Now, he earns a monthly pension of 9,000 yuan, and volunteers to clean streets and pick up garbage every day.

“I’m grateful that I’m given such a high pension for doing nothing. The cleaning work is the least that I can do to repay the society,” Wangchen said.

By the end of 2019, all 628,000 registered poor residents and 74 poor counties in Tibet shook off destitution, marking the end of absolute poverty in Tibet for the first time in history, according to a white paper released in May.

The average per capita disposable income of rural residents was 14,598 yuan in 2020, up 12.7 percent over the previous year and representing double-digit annual growth for the past 18 years, the white paper noted.

Optimistic about the prospects of his restaurant business, Changchub Wangdu has decided to open another outlet, which is currently being decorated.

“I want to create a restaurant chain brand in Nagqu,” he said. ENDS