The Potala Palace was showered by bright sunshine early yesterday morning, as more than 5,000 Tibetans and people from other ethnic groups gathered in front of it to attend a national flag-raising ceremony.
Also attending the event were representatives of experts and officials sent from the rest of China to aid Tibet and those engaged in scores of aid projects in Lhasa and elsewhere.
Some of the Tibetans in attendance were over 60 years old, and had experienced the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, a precursor of the 1959 democratic reform that liberated thousands of serfs and slaves from the feudal serfdom system.
The old system, as Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region Legqog put it, was "darker and more cruel than the European serfdom of the Middle Ages."
May 23 is an unforgettable date for Tibetans, because the signing of the historic 17-article agreement between the local Tibetan government and the central government took place on that day 50 years ago, bringing Tibet onto the path of unity, progress and prosperity, noted Legqog, himself a Tibetan.
On the most important anniversaries and holidays is the national flag-hoisting ceremony held at the square, and the event is always a big draw for local folks, local Tibetans say.
Lhasa resident Tundrub Yangzom, 64, said that more than 50 years ago she and her brother and sister were slaves of a landlord in Lhasa. His dogs mauled her sister to death as she toiled in the landlord's manor in Lhungrub County, Yangzom said, adding that the life of a slave was worthless in the eyes of a landlord at the time.
Asked to compare today with the years prior to democratic reform in 1959, Yangzom said the changes are "beyond measurement." Before liberation, the slaves survived on tsamba, or roasted barley - a traditional Tibetan staple, and they seldom ate their fill. Today, Yangzom and her peers have a regular supply of rice, wheat flour and fresh vegetables available to them at reasonable prices.
A pious Buddhism follower, Yangzom said she had always preached to her sons and daughters the value of their happy lives today, lives which owe much to their own efforts, the concerns of the central government and support from the rest of the country.
An Li, a Beijing-based official who was dispatched to Lhasa to help reinforce the cultural relics protection work in 1998, yesterday said Lhasa is changing each passing day.
When he first came to Lhasa in 1994, there was no cultural relics protection bureau in Tibet's capital city. Today, relics, especially those in the Potala Palace, and the "ancient quarters of Lhasa are well preserved," he said.
(China Daily 05/24/2001)
