Special Report: Serfs Emancipation Day

Tibetan pilgrims turn the pray wheels near the Potala Palace during the Grand Summons Ceremony in Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on March 10, 2009. (Xinhua/Gaesang Dawa) Photo Gallery>>>

     by Xinhua writers Zhou Yan and Cao Kai

    LHASA/ABA/KANGDING/Shangri-La, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The holy city of Lhasa was quiet and peaceful Tuesday, 50 years after Tibet's democratic reform and the 14th Dalai Lama's flee from his homeland.

    Pilgrims holding prayer wheels appeared on Lhasa's streets early on Tuesday, the 15th day of the Tibetan New Year and an important occasion for pilgrimages.

    The life of the average Tibetans seems unaffected even under close watch by foreign press on this special date. Office workers hurriedly got off to work, some taking a school age child and carrying his satchel in order to drop him off at school on the way.

    There are as many taxies, pedicabs and buses on the roads as usual. Taxi and pedicab drivers, mostly migrants from the neighboring Sichuan Province and central Henan Province, would slam the horn when they saw a potential passenger at roadside.

    The famous market street, Pogor near the Jokhang Temple in central Lhasa, remained busy, with vendors selling souvenirs at "suicidal prices", or so they acclaimed. Pilgrims and tourists occasionally stopped to have a look, but few deals were reached. "It's still a month before the tourist rush," said Jigme, who owns a souvenir shop on the Pogor Street. Most Tibetans have just one name.

    Red posters are seen along downtown streets, reading "Warmly applaud the establishment of the Serfs Emancipation Day."

    On her return trip from the Ramogia Monastery, 62-year-old Bencog stopped at a roadside medical service stand to have her blood pressure measured.

    "Still pretty high. Have you got any medicine?" a doctor with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said. His logbook was full of names and symptoms of the patients he received over the past weeks.

Tibetan pilgrims add butter into Buddha lamps at the Sera Monastery during the Grand Summons Ceremony in the suburb of Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on March 10, 2009. (Xinhua/Soinam Norbu) Photo Gallery>>>

    Free medical services were also offered to monks at the Champa Ling Monastery in Qamdo Prefecture, by 23 medical workers from a PLA hospital. Hundreds of monks lined up at the service station after the morning sutra session.

    Arthritis and nephritis are the most common diseases among the monks, as result of their prolonged sitting, lack of exercise and inadequate clothing -- their robes did little to fend off the bitter cold in winter.

    Tuesday is the last day of the weeklong Buddhist service of Moinlam Quenmo, or "summons ceremony," at Lhasa's major monasteries. The Drepung, Sera and Ganden received a daily average of 2,000 to 4,000 pilgrims each over the past week, said Losang Jigme, Tibet's top official in charge of religious affairs.

    The pilgrims, some of whom traveled from Tibet communities in the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, crawled in front of the monasteries, kowtowed and prayed -- mostly for health and luck.

    A group of monks sat in an open space outside the Sera Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa at 11 a.m., waiting to question the examinees -- two middle-aged monks -- in a Sutra debate, a ceremony similar to academic dissertation.

    Four young monks, all 20-something, were so anxious to raise a question that everyone tried to elbow the others out of the way. One of them fell to the ground and caused all the other monks and onlookers to laugh.

    Loga laughed, too, as he sat on a stone in a quiet corner to take a break. At 85, he is blind in one eye but is generally in good shape, and walks without a stick. "I've been to Sera every day since I was 13," he said in Tibetan dialect. He wore a cotton-padded traditional costume, with a bright yellow shirt and a hand knitted blue woolen vest underneath.

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