Traditional wooden bowls help lift Tibetan village out of poverty

"The government granted us great help," said Pema Tobgye. "They offered us subsidies, and assisted us to extend our bowl-processing workshop. We villagers in Tangbumba appreciate what they did for us from bottom of our hearts."

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020, sales suffered greatly. That was when Pema Tobgye started to actively explore new business models for selling the wooden bowls.

He saw several young people in the village perform traditional Tibetan dance on the livestreaming platform Douyin, and they had many fans, so he thought of making use of those popular platforms. He invited two women who are "stars" on Douyin, letting them sell wooden bowls via livestreaming, and gave them a salary of 150 yuan for every two hours they worked.