LHASA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- While accompanying her children reading in a modern, fully digital library, Tsering Yangqen, 39, often closes her eyes and recalls her own childhood, a time when reading was a luxury.
Tsering Yangqen, of the Monba ethnic group, hails from Medog County in China's southwestern Xizang Autonomous Region. Besieged by high hills and primitive forests in a deep valley in the Himalayas, Medog was the only Chinese county that was not accessible through highway until 2013.
Monday marks International Children's Day. With transport infrastructure having improved and ended the county's isolation, children can now go to school by vehicle and read at a smart library on their doorstep, bidding farewell to the bookless, roadless past.
Born into a farmer's family in 1987, Tsering Yangqen remembers endless chores: carrying firewood, hauling grass, tending cattle and pounding rice. What she loved most was going to school, not just to learn, but also to escape the farm work.
She recalled that in primary school, there was often only one textbook for the whole class, which belonged to the teacher. The teacher wrote the texts on the blackboard, allowing the students to copy everything into their notebooks.
When she grew older, students like her had to climb over the mountains through rain and mud to bring textbooks back to their school. The journey to the nearest town took three to four days.
"Our rubber boots would get soaked through and our feet would be left rotten and sore. But we didn't dare to stop, because stopping would hurt even more, let alone the risks of mudslides," she recalled, adding that they had to spend the night in simple roadside shelters along the way.
When the books finally arrived, the students felt happy. "At least we finally had books," she said.
Despite the childhood hardships, Tsering Yangqen considers herself fortunate because her family supported her education.
The situation changed significantly following the opening of the Medog Highway in October 2013, with vehicles and machines flowing in. Children can now go to schools equipped with better hardware and teaching resources, and have more books and much better reading conditions.
Tsering Yangqen has witnessed such changes. After graduating from college and working as a tour guide in the city of Nyingchi, she returned to her hometown as a public servant.
In 2023, she helped with the planning and development of the Lotus Book House, a modern public library that opened with support from the paired assistance program between the city of Foshan, in south China's Guangdong Province, and Medog.
The 400-square-meter library now houses more than 10,000 books, including children's literature, science books and those related to Xizang and Medog. It has quickly become a popular cultural space for both local residents and tourists.
The library is equipped with digital services and self-service technology. Readers can enter, borrow, return, renew and search for books via a smartphone, and access digital resources from Foshan's library network thousands of kilometers away.
The Lotus Book House is a living example of Xizang's progress in public cultural services.
According to a white paper issued last year, the central government has since 2012 invested a total of 4.89 billion yuan (about 717 million U.S. dollars) in developing public cultural services across the region. By the end of 2024, Xizang was home to 82 libraries, 43 museums and 43 memorial halls, among other cultural facilities. Mobile libraries currently serve all 74 county-level areas, with smart libraries and digital public culture platforms having been rolled out.
Now, Tsering Yangqen is a mother of two. Her elder daughter is in middle school and her younger one is in primary school. She has bought many books for them, and often brings them to the library on weekends.
"I hope the children can develop a life-long habit of reading and receive a better education than we had," she said. ■
