Tibetan farmers and herdsmen enjoy "digital TV"

Aunt Basang wiped water off her hands and then changed the TV channel skillfully with the remote control panel in hand: CCTV-1, CCTV-2, BTV-1, JSTV-1... finally, the XZTV-1 channel was chosen with a TV play in Tibetan on air, reports the overseas edition of People's Daily on August 11.

In the afternoon of August 9, the reporter went to Basang's home and Basang switched on the TV. "In the past I could only have five channels watched, and my favorable XZTV-1 was a woolly television reception, which made me dizzy. Now, there are 13 channels available with excellent pictures since the set-top box was installed," she said cheerfully.

Basang is one of the villagers living in Xiangcijiao Village in the suburbs of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It is a beautiful village: houses sit in a green forest with a lawn nearby. The Lhasa River flows in front of the village and the city of Lhasa lies across the river.

On July 24 this year, laugher came into the village: as the first trial area in Tibet, all the 217 households in the village could have digital TV installed, which was admired by Lhasa residents across the river.

There are two TV sets in Basang's home: one 21-inch TV set is in the inner room and the other 14-inch one in the outhouse. She has been in front of TV screen after a day's work since digital TV was installed, often watching TV until the small hours of the following day. Despite difficulties understanding Mandarin, she watches the "Evening News'' and "Animal World'' from CCTV attentively and is more obsessed with TV series in Tibetan.

A 23-meter high TV transmitting tower erects at the village's entrance. There are two front-end TV transceivers installed in the village committee.

According to Keni, section chief with business section of the Lhasa Bureau of Radio and Television, the Bureau of Radio and Television of the autonomous region spent 400,000 yuan on installing the equipment for the village with cables connecting all the houses in June this year. Each household was installed with a 400-yuan set-top box, half of which was paid by the government.

Mainly engaging in agriculture, the net income of the farmers and herdsmen living in the village was 800 yuan last year. Ex-soldier Basang family is a destitute household of the village, however, there stands a 14-inch color TV set in Basang's home. A close look shows that there is a red line of Chinese characters on the TV: "Gifts for 10,000 households by Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC), Civilization Administrative Office of CCCPC and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. Bianbaciren, director of the village, told the reporter that last November, the government presented 40 such color TV sets to the village so that each poor family could get one of them.

What benefits have the "Digital TV'' brought to the farmers and herdsmen? The director counted them one by one: TV news lets farmers and herdsmen know important events happened both at home and abroad timely; CCTV-7 teaches them how to get rich; CCTV children channel brings joy to kids, and colorful TV plays and feature films bring repeated laughter to each household.

By People's Daily Online