Dark memories

One time, when she needed to return the yaks to the shed, she counted them and found she had lost one. She dared not go back, so she slept on the mountain. It was a cold winter, and she said she felt so desperate that there was a moment when she thought she would just lie there and freeze to death. The next day, she set out to look for the missing yak. Luckily for her, she found it.

"The old Tibet was dark," Samten said. Those dark memories cast such a deep shadow on his heart that even after the democratic reform, when serfs were given equal status with their erstwhile masters, he deliberately avoided meeting any of his former overlords.

"At the start of the reform, I worried all the time that the feudal system would rise again," he said.

The dark time didn't last too long, though. In 1951, the PLA liberated Tibet peacefully, and in 1959, the central government carried out a profound reform, overthrowing the feudal system and freeing the serfs and slaves in the region.

Samten was given 0.67 hectares of land in 1959, and in 1965, he was elected head of his village's production cooperative. Gaga was given a job on a farm in 1964, the year she was registered as a citizen.

"I felt I had come back to life when I had my own land," Samten said. "The older generation of the Communist Party of China had to endure so much hardship to create a better life for us. I am really grateful to them, especially those who sacrificed their lives."

However, the PLA wasn't welcomed by the local people initially because the aristocrats and serf owners regarded the soldiers as a threat to their own interests.

Gaga said her masters told her family that when they entered Tibet, the soldiers would eat their children. Her mother, who gave birth to 11 children, believed their claims and became excessively worried and miserable.

To avoid the PLA, Gaga's family, who lived in Chamdo city, fled south toward the border with India. By the time they arrived in Metog county, the army had reached Chamdo. Her relatives who had stayed in the city sent a message saying that the soldiers were extremely polite and had offered the local people food and jobs.