My home is located in a valley in the southeastern mountains of Qinghai Province. It is a Tibetan village in an area where many ethnic groups converge including Tibetan, Han, Tu, Mongolian, Sala and others. It is known as the “Tibetan opera village” and the “hometown of Tibetan boots” due to a profound cultural background stemming from generations of Tibetan opera performances and Tibetan boot-making craft.

This is not only the center for boot production for surrounding pastoral areas, but boot production is also an important means of livelihood for the local people. From my memory, the annual harvest has already passed and almost every household has started making Tibetan boots. On average, the handwork required to make the boots takes about ten days, starting from buying the leather to polishing, to formally making the finished product. When winter arrives village elders gather from surrounding areas to begin selling the boots in exchange for beef, lamb or cash. This creates a two-way exchange of goods between pastoral areas and a stable means of economic production to be passed down through the generations. 

Penetration and development of market economics in a rural Tibetan society, along with promotion of local economic and social transformation, has had an impact on local consumer attitudes and patterns of production and lifestyle. Introduction of modern fashionable culture has reduced demand for traditional handmade products. The boot-making industry is starting to struggle and many villages relying on Tibetan boot production for their livelihoods are gradually dropping this craft in search of new income sources. The Tibetan boot-making boom of the past is now a distant memory in our village. 

The party and country have introduced major strategic initiatives to accelerate and develop cultural industries, which has brought about an unprecedented opportunity for the protection and inheritance of traditional Tibetan culture. It has also provided great impetus to the endogenous power and development potential of Tibetan grassroots society. Increasing numbers of Tibetan youth are finding employment and applying for government entrepreneurship grants; they are taking on all types of cultural projects by combining local characteristics with cultural traditions, giving rise to a “start up boom”. In our village, from 2012 to 2015, more than a dozen new economic cooperatives were established including a forest cultivation base. With an annual income of 4,420 yuan, this has become a new source of income for the people and a new stage in their lives. 

There is a fellow villager of mine called Padma, who is full of creativity and energy. He is obsessed with the dream of entrepreneurial success and cultural heritage. After graduating from university in 2005, he came to Beijing in search of employment. Having been attracted by the burgeoning cultural industries back home, he returned to set up a small Tibetan restaurant. Padma’s restaurant grew bigger and bigger and a few years later became a pioneer in the region for development of the Tibetan food industry. In August 2015, with cultural heritage protection and poverty alleviation in mind, Padma teamed up with Namgyal, a boot-making inheritor in the village, to open the first Tibetan boot factory in the region. In the process, they had to draw on all their past experience and integrate the unique local Tibetan boot-making craft; they also used self-financing and had to rely on pro-poor policies in the county. 

The Tibetan boot factory combines local consumer demand with aesthetic quality. The manufacturing process has improved by organizing 50 craftsmen to procure materials and sew together. In less than three months the first batch of boots was finished. They use modern information technology and an “Internet+” marketing model to vigorously promote and sell products. On receiving a large order from inside or outside the region, the first batch can be sold as soon as it is produced, resulting in considerable economic and cultural benefits. 

The company’s next step is to build a small museum of Tibetan boots and use Tibetan tourism development opportunities to promote Tibetan boot-making craft, as well as establish a Tibetan boot culture class. The Tibetan boot factory is currently operating in full swing with everyone in the village joining in production, learning the traditional craft and taking part in research and development of new products. Tibetan boots have already become part of the standard dress during festivals and demand far outstrips supply. Measures to develop unique local industries not only solve the problem of an unused labor force, but also help pave the way to prosperity for the farmers. Furthermore, it helps protect and pass on ethnic culture, adding new vigor to this traditional craft of great cultural value for the entire world to see. 

The Sixth Central Tibet Work Forum clearly defined current and future guiding ideologies for work in Tibet, as well objective requirements and major initiatives. A strategic plan was laid out to further promote economic and social development in Tibet and maintain long-term stability in the workplace. Currently, many careers in Tibet are already seeing steady development from a new historical starting point. However, when improving people’s livelihoods and alleviating poverty you are still faced with a number of difficult problems, such as a single industry structure, an incomplete industry chain, uneven regional development and backwards business sense. The crux of the matter is bringing farmers out of poverty. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed at the central work conference on poverty alleviation: “Developing production and alleviating poverty comes first. We must alleviate poverty by using local resources to guide and support those capable to rely on themselves and create a better tomorrow.”

(Author: Ragya Tamdrin, assistant researcher at China Tibetology Research Center and Peking University political science PhD)