Lack of choice

"We didn't have a choice. If you were born a serf, you stayed a serf for your entire life. We were resigned to our fate," he said.

He continued working for his masters. He toiled 10 hours a day, plowing the fields and herding yaks. But if his masters were unhappy, they would beat him with whatever was within reach, he said.

His food allowance every day was six teaspoons of tsampa, a staple Tibetan food made from roasted barley flour. Today, tsampa is often mixed with yak butter and milk, but at that time Samten only had water.

Gaga, an elderly woman in Nyingchi city, has even worse memories. When she was 7, the local serf masters wanted more laborers, so they tied her onto the back of a horse and carried her to the pastures to tend yaks.

The 81-year-old said that in addition to being beaten, female serfs in feudal Tibet endured terrible treatment. They were not allowed to enter a house, and they were prohibited from raising their heads when they met men. At night when she slept on the grassland, Gaga used her shoes as a pillow and counted stars, wishing the days and years would go by faster.

"We were treated worse than animals. Yaks could eat grass and enjoy the sun's warmth. Dogs could go inside. We just had to work, day and night," she said.