Housing for Herdsmen

The Chinese Government, not content to learn from Saudi Arabia's experiment with the Beduins, decides that the herdsmen in Tibet need homes.

The living conditions of residents in Tibet Autonomous Region can be called “well-off” at present, and Tibet's senior officials have made another 3 promises on the improvement of the people's livelihood.

According to the Regional Economic Development Meeting held on December 16, the major goal of the regional government will be to improve the living conditions of Tibetan herdspeople.

“Before 2010, 80% of herdspeople will have decent houses of their own, and there will be basic necessities like electricity, tap water, highway, TV and postal service available in their villages, and every village will have a multi-purpose activity room each,” said Zhang Qingli, the secretary of the Regional Party Committee.

The housing project for the herdspeople will be the largest of its kind ever in Tibet. It will take the joint effort of the regional government, village governments and the residents themselves to fulfill it. Kicked off 3 years ago, it had benefitted 56,000 families every year since.

The herdsmen live the way they do by choice. Next to government officials, they are probably the wealthiest "Chinese" minorities on the mainland. They typically have around 100 yaks and each yak retails for around US$3000 a piece. They live in black tents along creeks during the summer and the women wear some of the most expensive silver and turquoise belts I've ever seen.

Of course, the Chinese government may be more persuasive than the Saudi government. And it is embarrassed by the Tibetan people. We'll see.

A friend of mine was involved with the construction of the Beduin housing projects and the stories are fabulous. Immediately after they moved in, people were cooking goats in the hallways. The experiment didn't work well.