The holy city of Lhasa was quiet and peaceful Tuesday, the day marking 50 years since Tibet's democratic reform and the 14th Dalai Lama's flee from his homeland.
"I was told in a phone talk with Lhasa in the noon that the whole city is stable and troops are in normal state as usual," said Qiangba Puncog, chairman of the Tibet regional government, who's in Beijing to attend the National People's Congress.
He told that he absolutely agrees with President Hu Jintao's remarks on Monday when Hu called for a "Great Wall of stability in Tibet."
"It (Hu's call) is a good and long-term consideration," said Qiangba Puncog.
Pilgrims holding prayer wheels appeared on Lhasa's streets early on Tuesday, the 15th day of the Tibetan New Year and an important occasion for pilgrimages.
Office workers hurriedly got off to work, some taking a school age child and carrying his satchel in order to drop him off at school on the way.
The life of the average Tibetans seems unaffected even under close watch by foreign press on this special date. There are as many taxies, pedicabs and buses on the roads as usual. Taxi and pedicab drivers, mostly migrants from the neighboring Sichuan Province and central Henan Province, would slam the horn when they saw a potential passenger at roadside.
The famous market street, Pogor near the Jokhang Temple in central Lhasa, remained busy, with vendors selling souvenirs at "suicidal prices", or so they acclaimed. Pilgrims and tourists occasionally stopped to have a look, but few deals were reached. "It's still a month before the tourist rush," said Jigme, who owns a souvenir shop on the Pogor Street. Most Tibetans have just one name.
Tuesday is the last day of the week-long Buddhist service of Moinlam Quenmo, or "summons ceremony," at Lhasa's major monasteries. The Drepung, Sera and Ganden received a daily average of 2,000 pilgrims each over the past week, said Losang Jigme, Tibet's top official in charge of religious affairs.
The pilgrims, some of whom traveled from Tibet communities in the neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, crawled in front of the monasteries, kowtowed and prayed -- mostly for health and luck.
A group of monks sat in an open space outside the Sera Monastery on the outskirts of Lhasa at 11 a.m., waiting to question the examinees -- two middle-aged monks -- in a Sutra debate, a ceremony similar to academic dissertation.