Qiongbo, a 52-year-old ethnic Tibetan herder, speaks to reporters during a media junket organized by Chinese propaganda officials. Chun Han Wong/The Wall Street Journal
Qiongbo, an erstwhile Tibetan nomad who has for decades herded yaks across China’s southwestern grasslands, heaped nothing but praise on a government program that settled his family into a permanent home.
Greeting reporters in his state-subsidized bungalow, the 52-year-old recounted how the plan to urbanize nomadic herders in Aba prefecture helped him boosted his income and tide over bitter winters that sweep across the Tibetan Plateau.
“Without this house, my whole family—including my mother, who is in her eighties—would have to continue staying in tents on the mountains,” said Mr. Qiongbo, who like many Tibetans goes by one name. “During winter, the tents can’t keep out the winds and the snow.”
Later, prompted by reporters, the father of two said he was more than a beneficiary: Mr. Qiongbo is also a member of the local Communist Party organization that helped implement the resettlement program in Aba, a mountainous tract of Sichuan province called Ngawa in Tibetan and dominated by nomadic Tibetan herders.[Source]