"The 382 legislators attending the session unanimously voted for the proposal," said Legqog, director of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress, Jan. 19, 2009. Tibetan legislators endorsed a bill Monday to designate March 28 as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day, to mark the date on which about 1 million serfs in the region were freed 50 years ago. 　　

 　　NPC delegate, former serf Gaisang votes with other delegates to endorse a bill Monday to designate Mar. 28 as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day, to mark the date on which about 1 million serfs in the region were freed 50 years ago.　　

 　　NPC delaget Gesang Zhuoga, offspring of a former serf, attends the meeting to vote for a bill Monday to designate Mar. 28 as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day, to mark the date on which about 1 million serfs in the region were freed 50 years ago. 　　

 　　Lhakang Losangdoje (L Front), delegate to Tibetan Autonomous Region People’s Congress (legislature), raises his hand to vote for the approval of setting the Serfs Emancipation Day during the second session of the Ninth People’s Congress of the region, in Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, Jan. 19, 2009.(Xinhua/Gesang Dawa) 　　

 　　Ninth People’s Congress (legislature) of Tibet Autonomous Region holds its annual, second session in Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, Jan. 19, 2009.
　　LHASA, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Tibetan legislators endorsed a bill Monday to designate March 28 as an annual Serfs Emancipation Day, to mark the date on which about 1 million serfs in the region were freed 50 years ago.
　　The bill was submitted last week to the second annual session of the ninth regional People’s Congress (legislature) for review.
　　"The 382 legislators attending the session unanimously voted for the proposal," said Legqog, director of the Standing Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Regional People’s Congress.
　　"Serfs Emancipation Day" will take place every year on March 28.
　　On March 28, 1959, the central government announced it would dissolve the aristocratic local government of Tibet and replace it with a preparatory committee for establishing the Tibet Autonomous Region.
　　The move came after the central government foiled an armed rebellion staged by the Dalai Lama and his supporters, most of whom were slave owners attempting to maintain serfdom.
　　That meant the end of serfdom and the abolition of the hierarchic social system characterized by theocracy, with the Dalai Lama as the core of the leadership. About 1 million serfs and slaves, accounting for 90 percent of Tibetan population in the1950s, were thus freed.
　　Among the lawmakers who reviewed the bill was Gaisang, 62, chief executive officer of the Yamei Ethnic Handicraft Ltd. Corp.
　　"The day should have been established earlier," he said, beaming. "It is necessary to have the day remembered to comfort the old, who were once serfs, and teach the young who have little idea of that part of history."
　　"My parents, who were both serfs, didn’t live to see the day. They died several years ago." he said.
　　The entrepreneur was born to the family of Tralpa (a kind of Tibetan serf) in Bailang County, Xigaze. His childhood memories were bare feet, patched clothes and a leather whip as thick as a finger.
　　"If you dared to offend the lord, what was in store for you was at least 50 lashes," he said.
　　The low point for him came in 1954, when the nearby Nianchu River flooded, inundating crops.
　　"Thousands of kilograms of grain rotted in the warehouses of the aristocrats, while serfs died from starvation," he recalled.
　　According to Gaisang, serfs then were bought and sold like animals.
　　His aunt, Canggyoi, was sold from Xigaze to Lhasa in her teens, and his parents didn’t even know.
　　Gaisang’s parents found his aunt, whose name had been changed by her new owner, after a week-long search in Lhasa and they cried for joy.
　　Now Canggyoi has a daughter and two grandchildren. Like other people above 80, she gets a pension of 300 yuan (about 44 U.S. dollars) a year. Her family’s annual net income is about 5,000 yuan.
　　DARK ERA
　　Gaisang’s story is hardly exceptional.
　　According to Gaisang Yeshes, former head of the Tibetan Press of Ancient Books and a sociologist with the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences, serfdom developed before the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368).
　　Serfdom was formalized after the hierarchic social system characterized by theocracy was established in the 13th century, when the Yuan Dynasty delegated Tibetan religious leaders to administer the region. The system was further developed after the Dalai Lama became the paramount leader of Tibet.
　　Serfs, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the population of old Tibet, were treated as private property by their owners, including the family of the Dalai Lama. The latter owned some 80 percent of production materials -- farm land, pastures and livestock.
　　Serfs were classified into three categories in accordance with their possessions -- Tralpa, Duchung and Nangsan, with the third one being the most miserable who could be sold by his owner as cattle.
　　Landowners included aristocrats, monasteries and government officials. An exhibition by the Museum of Tibet showed that they owned 24 percent, 36.8 percent and 28.9 percent, respectively, of the arable land in the plateau region before 1959.
　　Landowners were entitled to legally insult, punish, buy and sell, give away, whip and even kill their serfs.
　　In 1733, the 7th Dalai Lama controlled 3,150 monasteries and 121,440 households, and serfs had to work for the monasteries despite lack of enough food and proper clothing.
　　Saixim Village, Doilungdeqen County, 50 km northwest of Lhasa, was a manor of the 14th Dalai Lama’s family before 1959. Older villagers can still recall that five people were beaten to death and 11 injured in the service of the Dalai Lama’s family during a 10-year period.
　　In the museum there are about a score of black-and-white photos to show the brutality of landowners: slaves’ eyes gouged out, fingers chopped off, noses cut and the tendons of their feet removed.
　　In the late 1940s, when the Dalai Lama was to celebrate his birthday, the Tibetan local government issued an order that people should prepare human skulls, blood, skin and guts for the religious ceremony.
　　Celebration for establishment of the Serfs’ Emancipation Day was held in Gyangze, Xigaze, where the aristocratic Parlha Manor has been preserved. There, Migmar Dondrup, now 75, served for 11 years as a Nangsan, the lowest of all serfs.
　　Squeezed into a dark, 7 sq m adobe house with his wife and daughter, Migmar was once so starved that he stole some 10 kg of barley.
　　"The landlord got angry after hearing that and had two men whip me in turn," recalled the old man. His legs were tied together and he was struck more than 100 times on the hips.
　　"I couldn’t sit. While in bed, I could only lie on my side," he said. It took more than 20 days for the wounds to heal.
　　He was lucky compared with one of his relatives, a groom, who was beaten to death because the landlord believed he wasted fodder when feeding the horses.
　　But the 14th Dalai Lama seemed to have been "ignorant" of these kinds of events.
　　On March 10, 1983, he said in India: "In the past, we Tibetans lived in peace and contentment under the Buddhist light shinning over our snow land." He also said: "Our serf system is different from any other serf system, because Tibet is sparsely populated, and Buddhism, which is for the happiness and benefit of the people, advises people to love each other."