BROADER HORIZONS

He then went to Lanzhou, where he spent three years working with an older man in a general merchandise business, dealing in items like shoes and cloth. The experience broadened his horizons, as he often had to go to Guangdong Province in the south to deliver goods.

The southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen "were so modern, with good facilities and a good climate for business. I never thought that cities could be so comfortable."

Dawa began to consider establishing his own company, believing that it was the only way to really get ahead.

He founded the Dashi Industry and Trade Co. in 1996. It started out as a construction company and won a bid to lay a section of roadbed for the Sichuan-Tibet Highway. Still, he wasn't satisfied: he wanted products of his own. The regional government encouraged him to seek expert advice from business consultants, who gave him three suggestions: Tibetan medicine, tourism, and agricultural products. Two, he rejected immediately.

"The market share of Tibetan medicine in the inland was limited, while tourism was influenced by too many factors that we couldn't control. If there were no tourists, there wouldn't be any profit." So, agricultural products it was.

The Dashi company became The Tibetan Indigenous Industry Co., Ltd. on July 1, 2003, which is Dawa's birthday. Today, its fixed assets stand at 50 million yuan. It produces edible oil: rapeseed, garlic, capsicum and walnut. These oils are sold to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai and exported to Japan.

With annual revenue of more than 100 million yuan, Dawa said much of his success owed to government policies. "In Tibet, the agricultural industry is exempt from income taxes and the value-added tax is partly refunded," he said.

Dawa said one of his goals now was to help more Tibetans get rich. In his company, more than 80 percent of the staff are Tibetans from farming and herding families, and half of those families are impoverished. Each week, the company offers computer training for the staff.

BENEFITING TIBETANS

Dawa is perhaps richer than many individual Tibetans, but many others are following in his entrepreneurial footsteps.

For example, in Doilungdeqen County, there's a farming-herding association, which its chairman Phurjung said was the first such association in Tibet.

Founded on May 13, 2004, the association aims to help local farmers to grow vegetables and flowers. During the first two years of the group's existence, native Tibetans could get free greenhouses, each covering one-fifteenth of a hectare of land, or 1 mu, a traditional Chinese unit of measurement. Before that, many greenhouses were run by Hans from elsewhere in China.

In the first year of the program, just 12 of the 550 Tibetan households joined. They earned 8,000 yuan after a year's efforts, about 10 times the annual income derived from growing highland barley.

They were taught how to grow many kinds of vegetables and flowers. Some later became technicians, like 31-year-old Losang Tsering, who once worked in railway construction. He became vice chairman of the association.

Losang said that 25 kinds of plants were grown in the greenhouses, with just two technicians from the Han ethnic group. "In 2004, the number was between 30 and 40 Hans."

Now, the greenhouse gardeners are cultivating roses and strawberries. "Agriculture in inland areas is more developed and they are our teachers," Losang said. "Tibetan people should develop their skills, to live a better life."

Losang, who attended agricultural and animal husbandry school in 1998, expressed his wish to bring the greenhouse concept back to his hometown, Boma Village. "My fellow villagers said they liked the idea and kept asking me when could they have their own organization."

Meanwhile, the original greenhouse program grew. By 2005, the number of households joining the program had risen to 50. Although they had to pay 3,000 yuan for each greenhouse starting in 2006, the results of the first few households inspired more to join.

By 2008, the number of participating households had surged to 235, each getting an annual income of 12,500 yuan. A total of 535 greenhouses had been built, funded by the regional government, with households paying rent for the facilities.