From Slave to Master of the Country
China Today (English)|June 2020
CERINGPE was born in 1942 in Damxung County, Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region. Both of her parents were serfs of the local magistrate, and her first employment, at the age of eight, was also for the magistrate.
WANG YUANYUAN
From Slave to Master of the Country

“Fetching water, making tea…I did everything, and the slightest lapse [in duties] might bring severe punishment – getting eyes gouged, tongue cut, beaten with a club, and so on. The memory still brings me to tears today,” Ceringpe recalled. There are volumes of records about the atrocities against serfs before the democratic reform in Tibet, but no one understands it more than those who lived through it.

Ceringpe lived at the mercy of the magistrate for nine years before the central government launched the democratic reform in Tibet in 1959. Since that time, the working people who had been exploited and oppressed for centuries became masters of their own fate, their region, and their country. Ceringpe and her family now have a completely new life.

New Tibet, New Life

This story is from the June 2020 edition of China Today (English).

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This story is from the June 2020 edition of China Today (English).

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