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Returnees hope more will follow them home to a better Tibet
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Before Yeshe Palden returned to Tibet in 1994 after 35 years away, he had tried to imagine what had changed and was it for the worse or better?
The devout Buddhist, now 76, left for India in 1959 fearful that the Communist Party would deprive Tibetans of their religious freedom.
In 1967 he moved to Switzerland and began a secular life.
Language barriers meant he could only make a living through manual work or caring for the sick and elderly.
But in the late 1970s, China’s reform and opening up became the talk of the world and aroused feelings of nostalgia.
From the moment he and his wife got off the plane, change was obvious.
Before he left Tibet, he was regarded as superior. People had bowed down before him when he was the Lama of Drepung Monastery.
Meeting him at the airport, followers, friends and family shook his hands and hugged him.
“No individual should be considered superior to another,” he said. Life abroad taught him that all people are created equal. That the idea of equality was now ingrained in the hearts of the people of his homeland came as both a shock and a joy.
Tibetan women and men sat together in the tea houses of Lhasa. In his day, only men had the right to visit tea houses.
In 1994 it seemed, women even owned tea houses, let alone frequented them.
“It was then that I knew I made the right decision,” he said.
Lhasa’s railway station has become his favorite place after the Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened in 2006, linking Tibet with the rest of the country for the first time.
Zigme Cedain, 32, returned to Tibet from India with his parents in 1984. He owns a clothing shop in Lhasa and knows how the easy land connections to the “roof of the world” benefit Tibetans.
A railway connecting Lhasa with Xigaze went into operation last year. “It halved my transport time to the Nepal and India borders,” he said.
These are but a few of the changes in Tibet after 50 years of autonomy. Last year, per capital disposable income for rural residents in Tibet hit 7,359 yuan (US$1,200), with double-digit growth for 12 consecutive years. Average life expectancy has jumped from 35.5 years to 68 over the past 50 years, while the infant mortality rate has dropped from a staggering 430 deaths per 1,000 live births to a mere 12.
There are around 200,000 overseas Tibetans in more than 40 countries and regions including India, Nepal, the US and Switzerland. More and more of them are applying to come home.
Yeshe Palden takes his daily prayer walk around the Potala Palace or Jokhang Monastery for four or five hours each morning, turning his prayer wheel, counting his beads and chanting. If he is tired, he rests on roadside benches and shares his home-made pancakes with the pigeons.
Nowadays, he cares more about issues like the environment and protecting his culture.
As in other parts of China, changes and modernization bring benefits as well as new problems. Tibet is no exception.
“I hope more returnees will visit the real Tibet. If changes are positive, there is no need to worry,” he said.
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