The Phalha family owned 37 manor houses across Tibet, along with more than 3,000 serfs and house slaves. The room in which Phurbu Tsering was born belonged to the housekeeper of Phalha Manor, the best-preserved manor house in Tibet.

"I always have mixed feelings when I enter the room," said the 37-year-old from the village in Shigatse city. "It's where my mother gave birth to me, but also where she had been punished by the housekeeper in the past."

The residents of about half the 104 households in the village are descended from the serfs and slaves of Phalha Manor.

After the manor's last master, Tashi Wangdu, fled to India in 1959, Phurbu Tsering's parents moved into the manor from the house slaves' dwellings located diagonally opposite.