An 80-year-old man named Qunsang Raodain made a phone call to his far-off friend from his own homeinGongzongVillage,BayiTown,NyingchiPrefecture. Examining the phone set in his wrinkled hand, he could not explain how he could communicate with his absent friend. “Good! It’s really good!” he exclaimed.
Cering Norbu’s house is as luxurious as those in cities and towns. During our visit to the farmer, he revealed the keys to riches: “With a phone installed at home, I am in a position to develop a transport business.”
According to village chief Nyima, the village has some 60 households, and 30 0f them have installed telephones. Income from motorized transport business adds up t0 3 million yuan a year.
TV was strange to ordinary Tibetans in the late 1970s. When the first TV set made way into a Tibetan family later, his neighbors swarmed into his courtyard to watch the programs. Statistics show that every 100 households in cities and towns and farmer and herder’; households in the rural areas own 88 color TV setsi and six black-white TV sets. All townships have TV, relay stations. People inLhasa, Xigaze, Zetang, Bayi, Shiquanhe, Nagqu and other major cities and towns have access to 30 TV programs, many of them dubbed in the Tibetan language.
TV programs are not only entertaining but also educational, providing the audience also with information. Purbo Zholma living by Bark or Street places a TV set in front of the Buddhist shrine. “I love The Panchen Erdeni s Eastward Trip,” she said. “My son loves News and Across the World.”
Farmers inDonggarTown, Doilungdeqen, used to complain about too many advertisements in the programs. But, nowadays, they yearn for advertisements, which they think contain information that meets their daily needs. Based on information acquired from TV advertisements, the town has set up cement works, furniture factories and vacation villages with investors fromChina’s hinterland. This prompts many farmers in the town to purchase TV.
if the airplane and telephone have shortenedTibet’s distance with the outside world, TV brings the “world” intoTibet. A survey shows that more than 80 percent of the residents of the Bark or Neighborhood Commit-tee inLhasawatch TV news every day.