Owing 37 manor houses, 12 farms and more than 3,000 serfs, the Tibetan noble family who lived in the Phalha Manor 60 years ago led an extravagant life, drinking French wine and smoking Indian cigarettes.
However, things have changed since the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951. The serfs who once accounted for more than 80 percent of the Tibetan population were emancipated in that year.
Located in Paljor Lhunpo Village, Gyangze County in Xigaze Prefecture, the Phalha Manor is the best-preserved Qing Dynasty manor in Tibet.
It was originally owned by the Phalha family, many of whom were senior officials in the Kashag governing council of Tibet during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China.
Now the manor has been developed into a tourist attraction.
The 82-room manor has 5,000 square meters of grounds.
A guide named Drolma said the manor had a prison where serfs were kept. Bloodstains could still be seen on abandoned torture instruments.
"Tibetan nobles were drunk everyday and whipped their serfs for fun," sighed Zhang Xuefeng, a tourist visiting the manor, "It is sad to imagine the hardships those serfs had to suffer."
Migmar Dondrup, an old man in his seventies, was once a serf. "I had to work without food and suffer from the lashes," he recalled with tears in his eyes.
Sixty years ago, Migmar Dondrup with his parents and wife were all kept as serfs in the Phalha Manor living in a shelter measuring merely 6.5 square meters. The only possession they owned was some broken bowls.
In contrast, Migmar and his family lived in a two-story Tibetan style building with an area of more than 400 square meters. They now have a farmland of 2 hectares yielding about 10,000 kilograms of grain per year.
They also raise many cattle from which they can make 50,000 yuan (7738 U.S. dollars) each year.
"Those unbearable memories have gone with the time," Migmar Dondrup said with a smile and made a cup of buttered tea for himself.
Only the colorful prayer flags are still waving on the roof of the Phalha Manor like before.
