Decades of development brings changes to Tibet
Construction of a second highway that connects the county of Metog to the rest of the Tibet autonomous region was completed on May 16. It shortened the travel distance from Metog to the neighboring city of Nyingchi from 215 miles to 112 miles and cut the travel time by about eight hours.
In the southwest of the Tibet autonomous region, Metog was China’s last county to have highway access. The first highway to connect Metog with the rest of Tibet was completed in October 2013.
Locked in by the high mountains and deep valleys of the Himalayas, road connectivity used to be one of the biggest problems hindering Metog’s development.
Before the first highway, travel to Metog was possible only by foot or on horseback. During the snowy season, the county could be isolated for several months.
But today, the new roads have brought in more tourists and generated more trade activities, contributing to a substantial increase in residents’ incomes.
Tenzin Gyatso is a resident in the county’s Metog village. He began to make a living as a teenager by carrying cargo on his shoulders.
“Life was tough a decade ago. Carrying cargo on mountainous paths at altitudes of more than 14,000 feet is something almost beyond the limit of your might,” Tenzin Gyatso said. “But now everything has changed. Vehicles are the major means of transportation.”
After 2013, Tenzin Gyatso began his transportation business, running vehicles from Metog to neighboring Bomi county.
Tenzin Gyatso said the improved traffic conditions have greatly changed people’s mindset and lifestyles.
“People used to rely on farming in a primitive way and they didn’t know what was going on in the outside world,” Tenzin Gyatso said. “And now they are more open-minded, willing to find more business opportunities to enrich their lives.”
Like Tenzin Gyatso, an increasing number of locals in Metog county are getting rich by engaging in various business activities, including tourism, goods trade, transportation and modern farming.
Metog is just one example of how lives in Tibet have changed through socioeconomic development over the decades.
Wu Yingjie, Party secretary of the Tibet autonomous region, said that the transportation industry is one of the sectors in Tibet that have witnessed dramatic growth over the past seven decades.
“Before 1951, many places did not have proper roads,” Wu said. “People often had to carry goods either on their backs or on the backs of horses or yaks, and they often had to walk on steep terrain.”
The senior local official said: “Now, proper roads provide access to the region’s villages, townships and counties, and railways bring travelers to Lhasa, the region’s capital, as well as the city of Shigatse.
“The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has been operational since 2006 and a second major railway, the Sichuan-Tibet Railway project, is underway.”
Statistics from the autonomous region’s government show that Tibet’s total length of highways reached 73,819 miles by the end of 2020. And local airports are linking Tibet with the rest of the world via more than 130 air routes.
Wu also mentioned the growth in population as a result of improving livelihoods and medical services.
The official cited the figures of China’s latest national census, saying that the region’s population grew from 1.15 million in the early 1950s to 3.65 million last year, while average life expectancy doubled from 35.5 years in 1951 to 71.1 last year. He expects the average life expectancy will grow to 72.3 years by 2025.
Wu said it is worth noting that Tibet is now the only provincial region in China that is not challenged by an aging population. Only 8.52% of its people are above 60 years old. Young adults make up a relatively high percentage of the population.
In addition to the quantitative growth of population, Wu also talked about the improvement in the “quality of the population”. This is mainly reflected in the increase of educated people.
In 2020, there were 920 primary and middle schools and seven higher-learning institutions in Tibet. The schooling rate of school-aged children reached 99.93%.
“Education might be the last thing Tibetan people need to spend their money on, as the region offers 15 years of government-supported education from kindergarten to high school, compared with the nine-year compulsory education in other parts of the country,” Wu said.
Jamyang Wangchuk, 80, the most senior member of a fourgeneration family in Gyarong community in Lhasa, said he is witness to the life expectancy increase and educational improvements in Tibet over the past seven decades.
The senior said he has a lot of friends of a similar age and he noticed there are more fourgeneration families in Tibet.
“When we meet with each other, we always talk about the increasing life expectancy in Tibet,” Jamyang Wangchuk said. “We notice this is not only an increase in quantity, but also an increase in quality.”
He meant that people today have a better education than his contemporaries.
Jamyang Wangchuk was educated when he served as a monk in a temple more than 60 years ago. “It was impossible for ordinary families to send their children to school at that time,” he said.
He said his five sons and daughters all went to school. There are four university graduates in the third generation of his family.
Even with basic education readily accessible in Tibet, locals are willing to invest in vocational training programs.
They have realized education is a lifelong course to boost their career development and improve their livelihoods.
That willingness is even stronger in rural Tibet. Residents expect skills training to help them master modern agricultural technologies and find opportunities other than farming and herding.
Chogyal is a rural resident of Gyalze county in Shigatse. Before 2016, he was a member of an impoverished family.
He learned from fellow villagers that there were various training courses being organized by the government of Shigatse to help rural residents master skills for new jobs.
Chogyal recognized this was an opportunity to change his life and improve his livelihood. He joined a training class in Shigatse in 2017 and got a welder’s qualification a few months later.
He founded a small company in 2018, offering welding services for local construction sites. The annual net profit from his business has grown to about 250,000 yuan ($39,000) in recent years.
Seeing revenue increase steadily for his company, he encouraged fellow villagers to learn welding and join him.
“Now that I have lifted myself out of poverty, I’m planning to create more jobs for locals to help them improve their incomes,” Chogyal said.
As city and county residents have been offered more job and business opportunities, there has been a substantial increase in incomes over the decades, according to Wu.
“The latest official statistics show that last year, the average annual per capita urban and rural dispensable income in the region reached 41,156 yuan and 14,598 yuan, respectively — 89 times and 134 times as much as in 1965,” Wu said.
He said increasing incomes have offered residents more options in consumption. It has made it possible for them to pursue more modern and healthier lifestyles like people in the rest of the country.
Wu said one example is that, compared with five years ago, local residents are now consuming more vegetables.
“The old saying in Tibet was, ‘only rich people eat vegetables’,” Wu said.
He noted that this notion has changed. In the past five years, per capita consumption of vegetables has increased by 50.6 pounds.
Shigatse, the city known as the granary of Tibet as it produces one-fourth of the autonomous region’s grain, now has another industry to be proud of: modern vegetable farming.
This industry has not only contributed to driving Shigatse’s rural revitalization, but helped to change the lifestyles and improve the health of locals.
The county of Panam is the pioneer of Shigatse’s vegetable farming. It began developing the industry nearly two decades ago.
In 2002, local agricultural officials found that Panam is a suitable place for growing vegetables in greenhouses, after researching the sunshine, soil and irrigation conditions.
The officials started trials in the village of Paltsa that year but did not get much support from the villagers.
The villagers had their own concerns. They said they had been highland barley growers all their lives and doubted their ability to master vegetable farming skills.
But a group of middleschool students believed in the potential of vegetable farming. They tried to persuade their parents and relatives to start the trade.
Pasang Dundrub was among those students. He saw some villagers try vegetable farming, but he left for university a year later.
When he returned in 2007, there was a fundamental change: the village was full of greenhouses and vegetables were popular in local markets.
“People said vegetables taste delicious and they are healthy thanks to their rich content of vitamins,” Pasang Dundrub said.
Seeing the potential of the industry, he later founded a company focusing on modernized vegetable farming.
“Our company can produce more than 30 kinds of vegetables and our products have been sold to many regions in Tibet,” Pasang Dundrub said.
According to the agricultural bureau of Panam, the county’s farmers now grow more than 140 varieties of vegetables and fruits. About one-third of the county’s households are engaged in the industry.