Every city has roads that run through it, such as Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, Jiangdong Road in Dalian, and the road that runs through Lhasa is called Beijing Road. Beijing Road is divided into three sections: the section next to Barkhor Street and Chokhor Gyatso is called Beijing East Road, the section that goes west to Potala Palace Square is called Beijing Middle Road, and the section further west past the Yak City sculpture is called Beijing West Road.

In my memory, the section of Beijing East Road is the place with the strongest sense of life. Besides being next to Barkhor Street, which has different shopping attractions for tourists, it is also a place where locals and Tibetan people from other regions come to live in Lhasa.

Chokhor Gyatso has always been a distribution center for butter, as well as a market for agricultural products and small goods. The agricultural market related to Beijing East Road, including the agricultural market in Barkhor Street, is usually not frequented by tourists, but it is different from any other agricultural market. The difference is that we know that any agricultural market in any city, as long as conditions permit, does not oppose selling live poultry, fish, seafood, etc., and slaughtering is done on behalf of customers. Here, due to Tibetan cultural habits, the sale of live animals is not allowed, nor is public slaughtering permitted. Although the living habits of Lhasa people have changed significantly over the years, this aspect has not changed. Even now, in Barkhor Street and Chokhor Gyatso, the practice of not killing living beings is still maintained.

Legend has it that Tibetans originally did not eat fish, and there are various explanations for this.

One explanation is that Tibetans do not eat dishes made from freshly slaughtered live fish because they only eat animals that have been spiritually liberated;

another explanation is that Tibetans do not eat fish in spring because spring fish carry eggs, and eating one would harm many lives.

There are many beautiful stories about spring and kindness to living beings in Tibetan legends. On the Gannan grassland, there is a nearly lost flute made from the collarbone of a golden eagle. The sound of that flute is very pure, and when Tibetans describe its sound, they say: the sound of the eagle flute is too beautiful, and it cannot be played in spring because that beautiful sound would attract hibernating snakes to come out early, leading to their freezing to death;

the most common explanation regarding Tibetans and eating fish is directly related to Tibetan funeral customs. The highest form of Tibetan burial is sky burial, like that of the Panchen Lama; cremation is also reserved for accomplished monks, and it is said that cremated monks leave behind relics; ordinary people undergo sky burial; those who commit crimes or die by suicide are considered beneath ordinary people and are given water burials, as fish in the water would consume their bodies, thus leading to the custom of not eating fish; it is said that the worst form of burial is earth burial.

However, regardless of what Lhasa people used to avoid eating, now this mark has become increasingly faint. In Sichuan-style restaurants, fish are sold as explosively as in any other city, and they are freshly slaughtered fish. Among the people eating fish, there are not only tourists and Han people but also a considerable number of young Tibetans.

Since the mid-1990s, live seafood has become very common in Lhasa. I grew up by the sea, and seeing those things naturally makes me happy. Crabs, shrimp, and shellfish are all my favorites, and compared to my hometown, the prices are even a bit lower.

From a nutritional perspective, in the past, it was common to see people suffering from iodine deficiency (commonly known as goiter) on the streets, but now such people are very rare. The disappearance of this condition is related not only to the consumption of iodized salt but also to the increase of fish and other seafood in the diet. Oh, and there’s a secret: Lhasa River fish are indeed delicious because the river water stays around zero degrees year-round, causing the fish to grow very slowly, and the flesh of cold-water fish is tender and incredibly fresh. Revealing this secret makes me uneasy; I try to control myself from eating the rare Lhasa River fish because living in cold water is very challenging, and they need protection.

Once, there was a kind mistake that made people unable to laugh.

Every year, during the season of releasing life, many Lhasa people go to the market to buy fish fry and release them into the Lhasa River. However, this kind act often results in the effect of killing living beings because the temperature of the Lhasa River is vastly different from the ponds where the fish fry can survive. After being released into the water, only a few can survive, while most freeze to death.

Sometimes, when I think of Barkhor Street and Beijing East Road, I can't help but feel a sense of loss. Nowadays, the sanitation conditions in that area are getting better and better, and with the increase of Western restaurants from Nepal and India in that area, memories have become increasingly urbanized, and Tibetan clothing has become fashionable.