On Serfs Emancipation Day, celebration, recollection, and wishes from across China

Source: Xinhua | 03-29-2009 08:24

LHASA/BEIJING, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The first Serfs Emancipation Day was celebrated across Tibet Autonomous Region on Saturday, while people from elsewhere in China expressed their wishes to the Tibetans.

Tibetan people in traditional dress celebrate the first  Serfs Emancipation Day at home in Qamdo, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, March 28, 2009.(Xinhua/He Junchang)

CELEBRATION ACROSS TIBET

In Lhasa, readers of the broadsheet Tibet Daily and Tibet Economic Daily found that Saturday's edition of both newspapers became thicker--special issues were published to introduce the changes since democratic reform in 1959.

In the Ngaqen village, fully attired Tibetans gathered in the village club to watch the televised grand celebration held on the square in front of the Potala Palace about 30 kilometers away in the seat of Lhasa.

Tsamjo, 66, who lived in a two-story building, said her life was better than "the landlord in the past".

A Tibetan man in traditional dress plugs the national flag on the roof of his house during the celebration of the first Serfs Emancipation Day at home in Qamdo, southwest China's  Tibet Autonomous Region, March 28, 2009.(Xinhua/He Junchang)

She had worked as a serf for seven years before the democratic reform. "At that time, our plot of land was smaller than a palm, and our room was as big as the nose of a cow," she said.