New Days on the Roof of the World: Four Elders on 75 Years of Change in Xizang

RIKAZE, China, Oct. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from People's Daily.

Only those who have borne the bitter cold can savour spring's gentle warmth.

Puciren was born in 1944 in Rikaze, Xizang, and spent his boyhood under a serf owner's roof. After the peaceful liberation of Xizang in 1951, he went to school for the first time, with a satchel on his back, and learned his first Chinese character: ren, meaning "person." His teacher told him that its two strokes support each other—only then can a person stand upright. Now 82, he volunteers as a guide at the Memorial Hall of the Emancipation of One Million Serfs in Xizang, and serves as an off-campus moral education tutor at the primary school attached to Lasa Normal University. He shares what he lived through with children to help them better know the road that brought them here.

Qiongjie County in Shannan is home to the Jiuhe Zhuo dance. In his younger years, Nima Wangjiu was a serf, and he danced only to pay taxes. After democratic reform of Xizang in 1959, he earned his first-ever income through this dance. It dawned on him that dancing could be a dignified and joyful pursuit. Now a national-level intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Jiuhe Zhuo Dance, the octogenarian has trained more than 80 young successors, bringing the millennia-old dance out of the remote mountains and onto stages across China.

In Sangba Village, Bailang County, Rikaze, the weaving craft in Baima's family has been passed down for three generations. In the old days, she labored from dawn to dusk alongside her mother, only receiving a small bowl of thin tsampa in return. After the peaceful liberation of Xizang, every inch the family wove belonged to them. Pulu weaving has since grown into a thriving local industry. The craft is now carried forward by Baiyang, the family's third‑generation inheritor, who is determined to take it out of Rikaze, out of the plateau, and into the global stage.

In a nursing home in Sangri County, Shannan, 82-year-old Cideji ran her fingers over her resident ID card and hummed a folk song. Orphaned at a young age, she once had nowhere to go and huddled in a cattle pen to get through the cold nights. Now she has a home, enjoying a secure old age with guaranteed care and medical treatment. "This ID card is my certificate of happiness." she said.

From education to food security, from employment to medical services, livelihood benefits are finding their way into the daily lives of plateau families. This warmth of spring unfurls slowly, stretching across the high plateau. 

SOURCE People's Daily