BUDDHA'S SOLDIERS

The first impression of these PLA soldiers among Tibetans were that they looked kind, disciplined and treated poor people well.

"We bought horse fodder from locals and paid cash. At first, they dared not accept our money. In their previous experience, soldiers never paid, they only took," Wang said.

Then, these soldiers from outside set up free medical camps and schools that accepted everyone, from whatever background. They built roads and granted interest-free loans to serfs.

"Many poor people called us 'Buddha's soldiers'," Wang said.

The Lhasa River flows west to east across the city of Lhasa in the south. For many years, residents from the southern suburb crossed the river by boat on their way to the city.

The boats and port were owned by Shasur Gyumey Dorje, one of the Galoins (cabinet ministers) of the Tibetan local government. Passengers had to pay him if they wanted to board.

In 1954, funded by the central government, a steel bridge was built above the river, as part of the Sichuan-Tibet highway project.

"Numerous white kha-btag ribbons were tied on the railings when the bridge was put into operation," Wang said.

He still remembered a folk song popular among locals who no longer needed to pay for crossing the river: "Tibet liberated peacefully, bridge built above the Lhasa River, Shasur, the old fat 'granny', cattle muzzle harnessed upon him."

The bridge, compared by locals to a muzzle that stopped the noble to profit from common people, kept the nickname "Muzzle Bridge" till now.

But Shasur was not happy about losing a profitable business. He was one of the nobles who masterminded the rebellion in 1959.

In 1953, Wang was transferred to the office of the committee in charge of building the western section of the Sichuan-Tibet highway. About 8,000 Tibetans were mobilized for the project.

"The PLA soldiers worked side by side with Tibetan workers. They were paid by the PLA's Tibet Military Command. When they were sick, they received free treatment," Wang said. "All of them were sent by order of their lords. None of them thought they would be paid because it was their 'labor duty'. Some nobles confiscated their salary, so later we gave them tea and butter instead of cash."

He recalled that another Galoin, Surkhang Wangchen Gelek, then the committee's deputy director, visited the construction site several times.

"Seeing the Tibetan laborers getting on quite well with us, Surkhang told his men, 'It is bad. Tibet will have an earthquake!'"

Being a long-term supporter of "Tibet independence", Surkhang was one of the forces behind the 1959 rebellion and he fled to India with the 14th Dalai Lama.

"We did not force reform in Tibet. But, honestly, our behavior was really a contrast to that of the nobles. People could see," Wang said.