Tsering Yuzhen: We could be together only after liberation

82-year-old Tsering Yuzhen said, "My mother passed away when I was very little. There was no one to raise me, so I was sent here. I was very young. Just ten years old." An old proverb goes, "Life is given by one's parents, but a person's body belongs to the overlords." In the old society, while serfs were allowed to live, freedom was out of reach. Nobles and serf-owners exercised complete control over their female serfs, often exploiting them and arbitrarily deciding whom they could marry. "My husband and I worked together in the same estate. I was so young, and he was also a serf, so it was impossible for us to be together. We all had to obey our owners. People weren't free to marry whoever they wanted to. We couldn't be together. We got together after liberation. The old society didn't allow it. But we could be together after liberation."