Tibet celebrates emancipation of serfs

Resident Champa Tashi, 43, addressed the symposium, noting that he was the child of serfs and that he had heard his parents talk many times about their miserable experience in the earlier dark system.

"Thousands of poor people were forced into heavy labor and exploited," he said.

Champa Tashi said he now lives in the city's Luguk Community, which was a slum of beggars before 1959 — a place where the poorest people suffered from hunger, disease and death.

"Before 1959, street dogs, rubbish and flies were everywhere," Champa Tashi said, recounting his parents' story.

"Now we live in a big and bright house. We can get good treatment in a hospital when we're sick. And our children have a chance to receive a good education."