He came to Tibet in the late 1940s to seek his long-aspired "paradise," or a fairyland on earth where he thought there was no war, no exploitation and no oppression, and where people enjoy peace, happiness and harmony.
Yexe Dainba, now 84, said that today's
Lhasa is the very "paradise" that he dreamed and longed for as a young man.
Dainba arrived in this capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1947, after traveling for two years from his hometown in Fuxin City, in northeast China's Liaoning Province, to escape the misery and devastation of war.
Unfortunately, "I fled one 'hell', but stepped into another one," recalled Dainba with bitterness.
The first thing he encountered upon his arrival in
Lhasa was a shackled prisoner being whipped by local Tibetan soldiers on Bargor Street, in the center of Lhasa. Local residents in shabby and tattered clothes who gathered to watch the scene were apathetic and indifferent, since they were helpless and could do nothing to help him.
"I could hardly believe my eyes, but true as it was," Dainba said.
Dainba recalled that Tibet was then under the merciless rule of the Gaxia serfdom regime, and there were beggars everywhere in the city of
Lhasa then. Ordinary locals were often seized by rulers arbitrarily and tortured at will, Dainba added.
"Later, I became inured to such scenes, which occurred frequently near the Johkang Monastery," Dainba said.
Only a few days after his arrival, Dainba went begging on the streets and roamed around as a beggar month after month.
Unexpectedly, he came across Rinqen Gyaco, a young man also of the Mongolian ethnic group, who was then a lama at the Johkang Monastery. With his help, Dainba became a lama at the monastery, since he had no other way to make a living.
"I was ready to spend the rest of my life in the monastery, although life there was hard and monotonous," Dainba said. And as a newcomer, Dainba had to do heavy work assigned by senior lamas.
The peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951 was a turning point in Dainba's personal life.
Upon learning that Dainba could speak both Chinese and Tibetan languages, a working group of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) invited him to serve as an interpreter and explain the Communist Party's policies toward local Tibetans. One month later, Dainba received his due payment for his interpretation work.
Speaking of the payment he got, Dainba, moved with tears in his eyes, said, "For the first time in my life, I treated as a human being and felt honored like a man."
In the subsequent years, Dainba delved into collecting, sorting out and translating the archives of Tibet. In 1966, Dainba was given a job at a coal mine in Amdo County in Nagqu Prefecture, Tibet. And he retired in 1983 at the age of over 60.
The healthy and energetic Dainba now lives in a residential area near Bargor Street, with a pension of 843 yuan (Over 100 U.S.Dollars) a month. He has one daughter and two sons.
Dainba's relatives in far-away Liaoning Province want him to return, but Dainba declined, saying he feels that today's
Lhasa is the very paradise he had looked for so long ago.
Dainba said joyously with beaming smiles, "I lived through the happiest and most meaningful years after the peaceful liberation of Tibet."
