Located in the northern part of Tibet and 4,500 meters above sea level, Nagqu, once a small residential compound five decades ago, has now grown into a prosperous town with a population of 70,000.
"There were only a handful of houses in Nagqu 50 years ago, when most of its residents were living in tents," said Jieba, deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) committee of Nagqu Prefecture, who has worked there for three decades.
"At that time, there were no more than 200 households here," he added. "It couldn't have been smaller."
In the 1960s and 1970s, all the buildings in Nagqu were roofed with thin tinplate due to a lack of construction materials, Jieba said.
"Seen from higher places, the whole town looked dazzling under the sun."
"When Winter arrived, the tinplate-roofed rooms felt like ice cellars, while in Summer, people would feel like they were being steamed in a pot when staying indoors," he said.
"The roofs could also play music," he joked.
"When it hailed, the hailstones rattled on the tin roofs, and a spell of percussion music would permeate the whole town."
"When a gale blew, a piece of symphony would be heard," he said, adding "people could enjoy folk tunes when it drizzled." With financial aid from the provinces of Zhejiang and Liaoning, Nagqu's economy has been dramatically boosted in recent years.
Since the 1990s, high-rise buildings have mushroomed, replacing the tinplate-roofed houses, most of which have now been transformed or torn down.
The office buildings of the Chinese Agricultural Bank and China Telecom, as well as the luxurious Xinyuan Hotel, have become the symbols of this new town, dwarfing the wind power plant and prefecture hospital, which used to be the most eye-catching places only 10 years ago.
The fast-growing economy of Nagqu has attracted many newcomers from neighboring areas to seek job opportunities or run their own business there. One after another restaurants, hotels and shops have opened along the broad streets that almost extend into every part of the town.
Purbu, a truck driver who visited Nagqu three years ago, felt extremely excited when he witnessed the uniformed traffic policemen patrolling the streets, saying Nagqu has changed so much that he even doesn't even recognize it.
When the Qinghai-Tibet railway is completed, running across the northern part of Tibet, Nagqu will be closely connected with the
interior areas of China and become more modernized, said Jieba.
(People's Daily 06/14/2001)
