Family workshop for leather product. Photo by Tian Xiaotian

Driving westwards along the highway from Lhasa Gonggar Airport, you will arrive at a water-circled pure land beside Lhasa Hete Bridge which is one of the “key two bridges and one tunnel renovation projects in Lhasa”. Sitting in the pure land in Qushui County is a small village – Junba Village, where settlers have relied on fishing for living for generations.

Junba, originally pronounced as “Zengba”, means catcher or fisher in Tibetan language. In Tibet, fish is revered as creature from the heaven and thus forbidden for eating. Then, why have been Junba villagers allowed to act differently? Maybe, the legend widely spread here about “to kill the flying fish sheltering the sky is the verdict of celestial deity” explains the exception. However, according to Wang Dui, Deputy Director of Junba Village Committee, there are more people and less land. To make ends meet, people settling in the village which is located at the intersection of Lhasa River and the Yaruzampbo River, has to make a living by fishing.

From fisher with severe inferior complex to confident fortune creator

In reminiscence of his fishing life starting from 15 years old, Zha Sang, an old man of 75 years old now, recalled in tears with strong emotion: “in old Tibet, fisher like me and blacksmith are inferior to others. To live on fishing was very tough then, in addition to trudge hundred miles of road with bull boat carried on shoulder, you had to bear heavy tax burden imposed by the temple and had to suffer the robbery of feudal lords quite often.”

Villagers in Junba, the sole fishing village in Tibet, are no longer “Chaiba” – the bullied penal servitudes - anymore. Today, they have become fishing bosses with lucrative business on hands. Cha Si is the forerunner to lead his peers to make fortunes and build fishponds in his village. This fisherman with modern thoughts, who has traveled a lot to extend his business, was already leader among his peers back in the early years of China’s reforming and open-up when he managed to rent several trucks to deliver the fishing products of himself and more than 30 local fishermen under his leadership to market in Lhasa. Later, the first fishpond was set up in the village under his direction to guarantee the stable fish output all the year around. The resourceful man also quickly assessed good fortune he truly deserved.

Da Wa, a lady in her sixties now, also depended on fishing for life in her early years. She once set up the record of harvesting more than 25 kilograms of fish on her own. Today, she has bid a farewell to her fishing life. Instead, she works as spokeswoman for fishers now – to make proposal to government for the scientific development of fishing sector as Deputy to the People’s Congress in Lhasa.