Inside the living room of a two-story Tibetan style house, the seventy-two-year-old Garma Tsering greeted his guests from far away with yak butter tea.

Demqog Village is located in Zhaxigang township, Gar county, southwest Ngari Prefecture, Tibet, with an average altitude of over 4000 meters. Garma Tsering, who has lived here for 34 years, has experienced the village’s changes from backwardness to prosperity.

“In the 1980s and 1990s, there were only a few families living here. You could say we were shut off from the outside world.” Garma reminisced. “There were no roads, not even tents. We built half a wall with rocks to block out the wind. We also had to make our own clothes.”

Around the year 2012, Demqog Village got power, running water, roads. With support and overall planning of the government, every family had a new house and received related subsidy income .

Garma and his spouse, Tashi Wangmu, no longer do any physical labor due to their age now. But their twilight are thriving thanks to beneficial government policies.

“All the subsidies add up to more than 20 thousand yuan (3,136 US dollars) a year, we didn't even make this much when we worked.” Said Tashi, who is 69-years-old. “We could go to the county medical clinic for little aches and pains and for any major issues we have the regional hospital, and it's 100 percent free, who would have thought it possible in the past?”