Building a More Prosperous Yamda

CLAD in a white fleece coat and pink woolen hat, Purbu sits on the thick carpet of her new two-storey house and sips from a bottle of juice. The small table beside her is piled up with candies and snacks, glossy Tibetan-style furniture fills the room and the windows, whose thick glass keeps out the harsh winter wind, offer a view of her spacious yard from which a yak peeps curiously into the room. Enjoying an hour of leisure, our hostess confesses that sometimes she is not sure if she is in a dream, and has to pinch herself to make sure she is awake.

Purbu was born 51 years ago in the village of Yamda, 15 kilometers west of Lhasa, which at the time was just a rough settlement of tent homes and adobe shelters. The entire local income came from the plots of land that the villagers tended in the same manner their ancestors had for centuries past, and the size of harvest depended completely on the mercy of Mother Nature. This was a scene that represented the bigger picture on the plateau. In 1950, Lhasa, which was designated regional capital when Tibet Autonomous Region was founded in 1965, was a comparatively insignificant city of less than three square kilometers with a population of just 30,000. There was no sewage system, the roads were unpaved, and beggars were everywhere.

When she recalls her early memories, Purbu is always amazed at how much the region and her village have changed. Lhasa is now 18 times the size it was in 1950, and boasts all modern infrastructures and amenities. Yamda itself has recently seen massive changes thanks to a government-funded housing project, building bigger, safer houses for all local families. Eighty percent of local residents, including Purbu and her family, have already made the move.

Purbu's new home is three times the size of her former residence, but both the exterior and interior of the house remain distinctively Tibetan, as the project is dedicated to rebuilding old neighborhoods without damaging their local identity and aesthetics. She paid for it with her savings, along with a government subsidy of RMB 24,000 and an interest-free bank loan of RMB 20,000.

The new village not only provides larger, more comfortable homes, but also brings with it improved utilities, including roads, water, electricity, postal service and telecommunications. Now Purbu no longer has to venture out in a chilly winter day to draw water from the well, carry it home, and then wash clothes in icy water. Running water and a washing machine have freed her from the labor that once gave her sore muscles and frostbitten fingers.

With modern infrastructure, appliances and technology like this having significantly relieved the burden of housekeeping and farming, Purbu and her family have more time for entertainment and other undertakings. One of Purbu's two daughters worked in Lhasa before returning to give birth to her son, while the other is attending school in the southern province of Hunan.

Paving the Way for New Opportunities

Winter is the slack season in Yamda. Purbu has plenty of time to spend at home, making butter tea and playing with her chubby grandson. In March the village holds a traditional ceremony to mark the start of spring plowing, after which Purbu sows her hectare of land with barley, potato and other crops. A bumper harvest is still hoped for, but unlike in her parents' time, if the harvest is poor the family won't be ruined, as their income is supplemented by her husband's successful transportation business.

Purbu's family and other local families have benefited hugely from the jump start the housing project has given the transportation industry due to the huge amounts of building materials it has needed. Transportation has overtaken farming as the main source of income in Yamda.

More and better roads have also contributed to the expansion of this industry as well as significantly improving the mobility of local residents, allowing them to seek jobs in Lhasa. Few can believe that 60 years ago there were only two motor vehicles and one paved road in whole Tibet. Even 20 years later only one hard surfaced road had been built in regional capital Lhasa.

In those years a bicycle was such a luxury that each local factory or government division had only one, and their employees would queue up for their turn to ride it. By 1976 public transport in Lhasa consisted of just two or three buses cruising through the city from its eastern to western suburb, and only three times a day – once in the morning, once at noon, and once in the afternoon. The situation improved little in the next decade. Purbu remembered how in the early 1990s she had to walk a long way from her home just to get to the nearest bus station, where only two buses stopped every day.