Zhaxi Wangdui followed Dalai abroad in 1959 and returned to Tibet in 1985.

"I am old now, and I want to spend the rest of my life at home," said Zhaxi, one of the more than 1,500 returned Tibetans who have settled down in Tibet since 1978, when China started reforms and opening up.

During the past two decades or more, more than 55,000 overseas Tibetans from over 30 countries and regions came to Tibet for sightseeing or to visit relatives.

Zhaxi was a lama at the Sera Monastery in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, 42 years ago.

He built roads in the first three years after he escaped abroad. "I didn't have enough food, I couldn't drink butter tea, let alone chant scriptures and pray to Buddha," he said. Later, Zhaxi was conscripted into the Indian military and served in the Himalayas for 15 years. He was discharged from the army in 1978. He lived a lonely life, relying on the small sum of money he got for serving in the army.

Dalai always said that people in Tibet do not have freedom and do not enjoy human rights. "I'm a little bit worried about that," Zhaxi said.

Zhaxi went home to visit his relatives in Tibet in 1983 and stayed in Lhasa for three months.

He saw that the original earth roads of Lhasa have been replaced by wide, clean roads; jewellery in the Norbuglinkha, the Jewel Park, remained intact, "palace" that used to be enjoyed by Dalai alone has become a park where all Lhasa residents can visit.

Zhaxi was also impressed with the fact that the children of serfs are studying at school, long queues of pilgrims stood in front of the Potala Palace and the Sera Monastery, where he once lived, is crowded with people burning joss sticks and worshipping Buddha.

"I began to doubt what Dalai had said, and I made up my mind to come back and settle down in Tibet," Zhaxi said.

Zhaxi, who is now a member of the Lhasa Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, receives the living allowance given by the government monthly.

Danjie, who came back in 1985, said that: "Dalai Lama has been cheating us over the past 40 years."

He said that Dalai has never stopped his work for Tibet's independence, adding his recent visit to Taiwan and his collusion with Taiwan independence forces, which breach the religious canon of separating religion from politics, have disappointed Tibetan Buddhist believers.

(Xinhua 04/26/2001)