Youth breathing new life into Tibetan spirit

Rural pioneer

Also in Shigatse, 28-year-old Deng Jiaqiang from Beijing has taken root as the first Party secretary of Zhaxixiong village.

Inspired by a university trip and the villagers' hopes for a better life, she joined the "Go West" program in 2019 and became a civil servant in 2021, dedicating her youth to rural revitalization in Xizang.

Winning the villagers' trust was not easy. Many doubted that Deng, a city girl from the Han ethnic group, would stay for long. The first obstacle was language. Meetings with locals often felt like "international conferences", she said, with every sentence requiring translation.

"I once spent half a day helping a villager with paperwork because we simply couldn't understand each other," Deng recalled.

She began teaching village cadres Mandarin by day and studied Tibetan by night. "Three months later, I could hold a conversation in Tibetan, and our meetings no longer needed a translator," she said proudly.

With the language barrier gone, action spoke louder than words. Deng's philosophy was simple: "Say less, do more." She joined the autumn harvest, organized cultural events, and conducted monthly household visits to identify villagers' most urgent needs.

"When people saw me bending over in the fields with them, they realized I was one of them," she said.

Deng also mobilized resources, securing donations worth over 100,000 yuan ($13,942.26), including solar lamps, warm clothing, and food supplies.

"For the children, I helped connect 22 underprivileged students with sponsors from across the country," she said. "The joy in their eyes when they received scholarships is something I'll never forget."

Deng's proudest achievement is a new road to the kindergarten. The old dirt path caused constant problems — mud on rainy days, dust on sunny ones. "I kept telling myself: this road must be fixed," she said.

Over nearly two months, she coordinated with city, county, and township departments, tracking progress and securing support. Villagers pitched in, and soon a smooth cement road was complete.

Life on the plateau, however, is far from easy. "The wind here likes to test newcomers," Deng laughed.

Her first winter in Zhaxixiong was spent in a damp dormitory with frozen pipes and patchy phone signal. "Sometimes, to make a call, I had to climb onto the roof and shout into the wind," she said.

Yet she and her team carried on, working late nights under dim bulbs, sharing two old computers among four people. "Hardship is real, but so is the sense of purpose," Deng said.

Over time, conditions in the village steadily improved. A new signal tower brought reliable communication, running water and a public shower were installed, and the office received a much-needed renovation.

"It's like flowers blooming on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau," Deng said. "No matter how harsh the soil, as long as you are willing to take root, something green will grow."

The villagers began to embrace her as one of their own, even giving her a Tibetan name: Kelsang Drolma, meaning "happy fairy".

Once, when Deng fell ill, several mothers came to her with butter tea and Tibetan eggs, nursing her back to health.

"In that moment, I realized I wasn't just a cadre here — I was their daughter, their sister," Deng said.

"Xizang's six decades of change have given us young people fertile ground to grow," she added. "I planted my youth on this plateau, and in that youth live the fragrance of barley, the sweetness of butter tea, and the radiant smiles of the villagers."