Both 54, they'd lost family members among the more than a million Tibetans killed since 1950; they'd never been to school; Huadon had been frustrated in his boyhood dream of becoming a monk. After the agricultural commune where they lived during the Maoist era of the 1950s and '60s was disbanded, they began growing barley, the staple of the Tibetan diet. They scrimped and searched for business opportunities. Now Huadon owned a small cement plant and a general store, which his wife ran, and a blue pickup truck. Despite his lasting anger over the past,Huadon didn't hesitate to tell me that "there's no comparison between the way we live and the way our parents did."

Huadon and his family certainly seemed comfortably off. As is the custom each summer throughout rural Tibet, they and about 20 other families were spending three weeks relaxing, camped in a grassy field riotously spread with yellow and lavender wildflowers against a stunning backdrop of snow-streaked mountains. A hacking gas-powered generator, a sure indicator of rural prosperity, provided electric light and pumped Tibetan and Chinese pop tunes over the fancifully embroidered large white tents.

At the open front of their tent, Huadon's wife was cooking on a portable gas stove. She'd loaded a long table with dried yak meat, huge mutton ribs—which we ate with a hunting knife passed from hand to hand—bowls of steaming rice and curry, salted nuts and seeds, cookies, candies, watermelons, bottles of tepid Chinese beer, soda, juice, and water. "This is our time for forgetting everything and to eat and drink and have fun," said Huadon, as we raised unending toasts.

I asked about their three children. The couple had sent their elder son through college, and he was now working as a teacher. Their daughter was a Buddhist nun. And, to Huadon's great joy and satisfaction, their younger son, at 16, was becoming the monk Huadon hadn't been allowed to be. The Chinese government bans monastic education before the age of 18, but devout parents like Huadon quietly ignore the law. "I believe that my son and his generation will save Buddhism and Tibetan culture," he said.

People like Huadon and Norbu, who use their participation in the new economy to help preserve the old ways, represent the leading edge of change in Tibet. I spent my most comfortable night of the trip in a shiny new hotel in the burgeoning town of Jyekundo, a few hours drive from Huadon's camp. Proud of his success, Gama Sera, the owner, was pleased to let me use his real name. "I was working for a state-owned bank and came to realize that because of this town's location at the juncture of six counties, a decent hotel could do well here. So I proposed that the local government lease me the state guesthouse for 20 years. Very quickly, they agreed."