Sonam Drolma, a female Tibetan born in 1966, is the owner of the Himalaya Drolma Tibetan Restaurant and is more known as "Amala" (a polite Tibetan salutation for 'mother') for many Tibetan college students in Beijing. [Photo/China Tibet Online]

She is the owner of a famous Tibetan restaurant and she is also a kindhearted "mother" for Tibetan students in Beijing. However, 20 years ago, she just started her business by selling ornaments on the Barkor Street in Lhasa.

Sonam Drolma, a female Tibetan born in 1966, is the owner of the Himalaya Drolma Tibetan Restaurant and is more known as "Amala" (a polite Tibetan salutation for 'mother') to many Tibetan college students in Beijing.

She started her own business in 1993 selling Tibetan ornaments on the Barkor Street in Lhasa and went to Beijing for the first time in 1996 to try a grand market for better profits.

Obviously, she has succeeded, having had two artwork shops and two Tibetan restaurants in Tibet and Beijing.

On an autumn morning when Drolma was taking the interview with reporters from China Tibet Online on Oct. 22, a Tibetan girl student showed up at the restaurant, speaking in Tibetan with Drolma. She wanted to put her yak butter in Drolma's fridge.

"Yak butter is indispensible for us Tibetan people. Many Tibetan students would bring lot of yak butter when they come to Beijing for study. Since it has a strong smell, they would come to store their yak butter at my place and keep and fetch a small amount of the butter each time," said Drolma.

"Many of them come to Beijing or come out of Tibet for the first time. And Beijing is far away from Tibet and they have no relatives here. So I'd like to take care of them and do whatever I can to help. Thus, they just call me Amala."

The road from Lhasa to Beijing

In 1996 with seven months' pregnancy, Sonam Drolma took a three-day coach on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from Lhasa to Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province, and then spent a daytime and one night on the train to Beijing.

"It's my first trip to Beijing. I was young and strong. I just didn't seem to have the sense of fear. It's years later when I recalled the memories, I thought myself as 'what a stupid woman' and felt lots of fear of a possible miscarriage of my baby," Drolma narrated, laughing at herself like telling the story of somebody else.

She said Tibet was backward compared with inland China in the 1990s, which was also on the starting line of economic reform and developing the socialist market economy led by the east coastal cities and provinces. At that time, Tibet was short of livelihood supplies such as fruit and vegetables. And the infrastructure including roads and traffic vehicles was also backward.

Drolma said, "My parents were workers in a state-run company and they had five children. I'm the third child and my elder brother and sister all got a job then. I also started my own business store on the Barkor Street. We were not poor in terms of family income, but the severe natural environment and plateau climate indeed set a natural barrier for our livelihood."

There were very few tourists. "Yet, when the tourists came, they all seemed to favor Tibetan ornaments. Some Beijing vendors often wholesaled all my jewels and artwares bought from craftsmen in Tibet, Nepal or India," Drolma said. "So I thought why not going to Beijing and selling my stuff directly to the people there at higher price for larger profits?"

So she discussed with her husband. Apparently, he agreed and supported her choice. Then she stepped on the journey to Beijing with a batch of Tibetan jewels and ornaments worthy 20,000 yuan (around 2,415 US dollars according to the exchange rate in 1996).

"The net profit at that time was 40,000 yuan," calimed Drolma. "You may imagine how thrilled I was. So I took the plane back and planned my future business in Beijing already on my way back to Lhasa."

To be continued...