By Lin Tian

Prior to 1959, a serf system akin to slavery remained unchanged in Tibet although the region was peacefully liberated in 7957. The Chinese Communist Party and the Tibetan people, including patriotic personages in the upper　strata, spent eight years attempting to persuade the Tibetan upper crust to change this inhuman and feudalistic system. A handful of reactionary serf-owners staged an armed rebellion in 1959. The results, however, were far from what they expected. The rebellion was promptly put down and the pace of abolishing serfdom greatly accelerated. After several months of democratic reform, millions of serfs saw the end of the bitter and humiliating social system and began new lives in which they were able to enjoy basic human rights for the first time. In 1959, Lin Tian, a reporter for the Xinhua News Agency, was personally involved in the democratic reform movement. His diary contains detailed accounts of Tibetans' reactions to the reform--ED

May 28, 1959

Today I visited an elderly cattle herder who had been a nangzan (household slave) of Soikang Wangqen Geleg, a grand noble and the first executor of the former local Tibetan government.

The 61-year-old woman was originally a serf in a county home of the Soikang family. At the age of 15, she became a nangzan for Soikang in his Lhasa residence. Nine years ago, she was sent to the south of Yaowang Mountain and put to work building a Lhasa River embankment. After she injured one of her legs, she was tied to a horse's back and carried back to her village like a sack of grain. During the two months she was bedridden she was fed only beans and zanba (roasted qingke barley). But after two months even these provisions stopped and she was forced to beg on her way back to Lhasa. When she arrived, the master refused to accept her. She had to find a spot for herself in a dirty lavatory, and she used a broken cart to protect her from strong winds. There were times when a sympathetic cook would steal some food for her, but most of the time the crippled woman had to beg her meals in the street.

The old woman said that although she had worked for the Soikang family for over 30 years, the only thing the matron had ever given her was a worn-out dress. She lived, she said, no better than a dog. "It's different now. After the serf-owners fled, the government gave me wheat flour, zanba, cooking oil and chilies-enough to eat for half a year. The government also gave me a house to live in," she told me.

Because all the elderly woman's teeth had fallen out, she looked like a baby when she laughed. She led us to a house and said jocularly, "This is my new flat." Then she took us to see her former "residence," one corner of a pit toilet. Pointing at the stinking corner she said, "This is my former flat." When I was leaving she said again and again that her new life made her very happy.

June 6

This afternoon the local government work group for democratic reform called a meeting of the former village serfs to elect members of a preparatory committee for a peasants' association.

All the villagers, men and women, old and young, came out of small sheds surrounding the compound of the serf-owners' house, barns and cattle sheds and sat down on the ground. Anyone seeing these people would have a basic idea about the nature of serfdom. Among the 200-odd people gathered here, not one was fully clothed. They wore coarse woollen clothing that resembled gunny sacks and was covered in patches and oil stains. The women and children were all barefoot. What was even more startling was their dishevelled hair and dirty faces. One white-haired woman named Ngoizhub Como had been a nangzan from the age of eight until she was 60. After being expelled from the household three years ago because she was too old to work, she had to turn to begging for a living. Grandma Gyiimei Como, her daughter and even her granddaughter had all been nangzans. The grandmother's face looks like a shrivelled orange. Her daughter's face is dry and dark and topped by unkempt hair. A small-boned child was holding her hand. If no one had told me, I would never have imagined that she is already four years old. Since she has never had a full meal, she is no taller than her mother's knees. She too was already a nangzan. Only the young boys and girls have a little air of vitality, laughing and talking. These people will now decide their own fate for the first time in their lives.

When the meeting began, the audience gave their attention to a cadre giving a speech. With the help of a Tibetan interpreter, they tried to understand words which they had never heard before. "Today, we, the oppressed and suffering, are attending our first meeting. Why a meeting? As you know, Soikang, your former master, has joined the rebellion and fled. The xidun (steward) has run away too. The oppressors have met their downfall, so we are going to choose our own people to lead us into a new life.... Who will be the leaders? How about an illiterate? A woman? Anyone who is good-hearted, upright and trustworthy will do." People laughed. "We'll set up an organization of the oppressed, a peasants' association. Today we'll organize a preparatory committee for it," continued the speaker.

Candidates had already been nominated, and for the last two days the villagers had been discussing the selections. Now, the list of candidates was formally announced. "Chairman, Nyima Cering." When they heard the name, the audience turned to a young man standing in the crowd. He had a dark complexion and a protruding forehead. The young man had become an indentured servant at the age of nine and had been working off his father's corvee for 15 years.Someone whispered, "He has suffered a lot during his youth. He won't lead us astray." The girls began to giggle. The second name was read, "Vice-chairman,Gyii Gya." The eyes of the audience fell on a tall, broad faced girl who bowed her head in shyness. She had also been a nangzan and has led a hard life as she described, "I grew up not with zanba, but with beatings and humiliations." Her master gave her only three-fourths the normal rations for a nangzan and forced her to do two and a half times the work. People could certainly trust her. Another candidate for vicechairman was Aogyan, a tralpa (ashare-cropper who inherits the status). Ngawang and Doijie were also nominated as committee members. Among the nine members of the committee, four are nangzans or indentured servants, three are dunquns (irregular slaves), and two are tralpas.

The people at the meeting were then divided into three discussion groups. In the dunqun group, a heavy bearded old man named Lhashud stood up and said, "Fellow villagers, today, for the first time, we begin to live as free human beings and, for the first time, have the right to choose our leaders. What we've elected are not people who have suppressed us, who have beaten and scolded us, but people who will lead us .... Although Nyima Cering is young and Gyii Gya is a woman, they are our people. We have seen them suffer when they were children. They will not take the wrong road or forget to take care of us. If we want to stand up for our freedom and lead better lives we need to elect such people as our leaders. We have just awakened from a nightmare and need the Communist Party and our selected leaders to show us the way."

The members of the nangzan group snickered but no one spoke. They had been slaves for too many years and were not used to expressing their own opinions. After a long silence, an old woman said in a low voice, "What the official said today, we feel in our hearts. I pray for the people we have elected. But I don't know what else to say." With these words, she put her palms together, a gesture to express her thanks. Her voice was trembling, "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

The tralpas were more talkative. They had been less rigidly controlled by the serf-owners than were the nangzans, who had been deprived of all freedoms. This group discussed the candidates heatedly.

At last, everyone gathered together and sat in a circle on the grass. Nyima Cering, Gyii Gya, Aogyan, Doijie and Ngawang were standing in front of the central table. Sweat stood on their foreheads and noses; their eyes were bright with excitement. People around them lifted their hands high, hands which are busy all year round, but which for so many years had not belonged to their owners. Today, for the first time, they could raise their hands freely in their first democratic experience.

Chairman Nyima Cering began to address the public, "Fellow villagers..." he began, but the children began to laugh. It seemed so strange to them that this nangzan who used to sleep under the eaves of the master's house and who dared not raise his head before his master was so different now. The parents quieted their children and Nyima Cering continued.

"Fellow villagers, Chairman Mao and the Communist Party are leading us into a new life. As your elected leader, I will do my best to serve you. I hope that we can be united as one family, as one body, and wipe out the rebels. Only in this way can we live a good life." The audience burst into loud applause.

June 7

At noon, I came across Gyiimei Como by the pond outside the main gates. Her family members had been nangzans for four generations. I interviewed her last night. Her white hair was dishevelled and her face wrinkled. She wore a coarse knitted dress, the only garments she owned, clothes which also served as a quilt at night. Her bare feet were covered with a thick layer of calluses. Her head kept shaking as she recalled her past.

Both her parents had been nangzans for a tralpa. Her father came to the village to do ula (akind of corvee) for his master. One snowy winter day he was sent on an ula mission to Langezeg, a trip from which he never returned. The family was later told that he had died there. Soon afterwards, her mother lost her eyesight. The nimba (steward) casually gave her something to eat. Soon after, she also died, leaving Gyiimei orphaned at the age of eight. Although there were plenty of empty houses in the village, the nangzans were not allowed to live in them. They could only sleep in cattle sheds or under the. eaves of houses. In her earliest memories, Gyiimei lived in a broken-down shed where qingke barley silage was roasted. She later moved to a stable. At the age of eight she took her mother's place as a manual labourer. First, she looked after her master's baby. As she grew older she began to spin wool, tend cattle and cut fodder. Every morning the steward gave her a little zanba, a bowl of tea and some butter to eat. Her sup- per, after each long day of work, consisted of only zanba gruel. This was her life for 60 years.

In winter, the strong wind carried snow into the stable and she had to curl herself into a ball to keep warm. In summer, rain ran into the shed, and she often woke to find herself lying in a pool of water and horse urine. There was no dry place to lie down. When she tended cattle she was not allowed to return until the day's end. If it rained and she returned earlier than usual, the steward would scold and beat her. Although she was unmarried, she bore two children by an indentured servant. Her first child, a boy, starved to death early in life. The second, a daughter, survived. While Gyiimei was giving birth in the shabby shed, other nangzans had to beg for zanba to feed her. In her 40s, she cut off one of her fingers while chopping fodder. The blood ran out like water from a pipe and she fainted. Zhuma, her 15-year-old daughter, cried to the steward, "My mother's finger has been cut off." He did nothing, however, and as time passed the finger became infected and endangered Gyiimei's life. A nangzan came up with a treatment which consisted of thrusting the wound into boiling butter. Although a severe treatment, Gyiimei's life was saved. But the steward had not cared whether she lived or died. In all her 66 years she had never lived in a walled room or tried on a pair of shoes or socks. She had never had a place which she could call home. At the age of 60, when she was unable to continue herding cattle, she begged the dunba to allow her daughter, then on a ula service, to replace her.

(This article appears o page 9, No. 34, 1992)