On Dec 30, China’s party mouthpiece People’s Daily Online reported that the 50,000 Tibetan herders who had “left” the Sanjiangyuan area in Qinghai Province were encountering many problems such as how to remove the language barrier and find jobs after they were settled in urban areas.
The nomads were forced to settle in numerous new urban clusters. One such cluster was the Kunlun Ethnic Culture Village, built in Golmud, and used to settle 1,700 Tibetan herders in 2006.

The report cited Tudeng Cairang, a 44-year-old herder, as saying that when he was leading a nomadic life, he could earn 30,000 yuan per year while the cows and sheep his family owned met all his family’s needs for meat, milk and heating. But now “we have to buy all the living items by ourselves."
The report said that since most of the immigrated Tibetan herdsmen could neither speak the Chinese language nor had any skill, it was hard for them to find a job.

Only few have managed to adapt and do well in their new urban life