True story of Tibet's transition

BEIJING, Oct. 9 -- Life has changed beyond recognition in Tibet since 1959, when the system of monastic feudalism presided over by the Dalai Lama was overthrown and over a million serfs were set free. Inside what used to be the dungeons of the Potala Palace, once the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa and now a religious and tourist site, is an unusual museum. The Zhol jail, a place where disobedient or rebellious serfs and laborers were subjected to horrific forms of torture, was once located here. Today, photographs, paintings, models, and sound effects are used to recreate the brutality of the ancient regime against those classes whose labor created and sustained the splendid monument that soars above. The squalor, poverty and social hierarchies of Lhasa, captured vividly in black and white photographs of the 1940s... [read full story]