Modern technology and appliances have fundamentally altered the lifestyle of residents in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

For several thousand years, dry cow dung was used by Tibetans as their major fuel. As recently as the 1970s, in fact, dung vendors sold their wares on streets in Lhasa, capital city of the region.

But today electric and gas furnaces are commonplace, and solar and wind energy are becoming more widely used. Most rural households use solar-powered furnaces.

Cows, once an indispensable tool for Tibetan farmers to sow and harvest, have now been replaced by tractors, croppers and other machines.

In the 1960s, the replacement of wood ploughs by iron ones in Tibet captured the headlines, but today individual households often buy their own tractors or trucks.

In fact, there are about nine trucks, six tractors and three threshing machines per every 100 Tibetan rural households.

High-quality seeds and pesticides are also popular in Tibet, dramatically improving the grain yield.

Another sign of modernization is the newly developed highway network through pastoral areas of northern Tibet. Riding motorcycles to watch cattle to graze on grassland has become fashionable for youngsters.

Birthing methods have improved, too. Tibetan women once bore their children in cold, dirty animal sheds, heightening the prospect of disease among newborns.

Today, Tibetan women and their children visit doctors regularly and can go to the hospital if necessary for treatment.

Tibet has 46 maternity and child health centres and 11 infant hospitals.

More than 2,000 doctors specializing in the health of women and children work in the vast farming and stock breeding areas of the region.

Televisions and telephones have now been installed in many Tibetan homes, narrowing the distance between the so-called "roof of the world" and the rest of it.

The Tibetan religious life has also been influenced by the wide application of modern technology.

At one time, a sick Tibetan would rush first to a temple to let the Lamas chant Buddhist scriptures for their illness. Today, they go to the hospital first.

Even more interesting is that many wizards that used to pray for rain have now become good at launching meteorological rockets into the sky to help produce artificial rain.

(China Daily 05/31/2001)