Almost all the prisons around the world are facing a problem, how to help the inmates fit for their after jail lives, so do Chinese prisons.

　　Qungdag found the outside world entirely different when he walked out of the Prison of Tibet Autonomous Region after serving his 8-year term there.

　　The former simple street was flanked by skyscrapers, billboards and shop windows with a dazzling array of goods.

　　"I was greeted by a new environment, in which there was fierce competition, but no discrimination," said Qungdag, who is well-known in his community for getting rich through honest work.

　　Qungdag, 40, is a native of Dapchi County in Lhasa. He was sentenced to an eight-year sentence in 1987 according to the law and was discharged in 1995 after serving his term in prison.

　　"Soon after I was released, I felt at a loss. I had no job and stayed idle for a while," he recalled.

　　Later, he found that the local government encourages individualssintosprivate enterprise. The commercial, public security and taxation departments provide favorable conditions for those who start a legal business.

　　Persuaded by his relatives, Qungdag opened a teahouse in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. Business soon boomed.

　　"I built up experience in business management when I served as a member of the prison catering management committee. And it worked in running the teahouse," he said.

　　The prison catering management committee is an organization composed of prisoners. The job helped make Qungdag familiar with price fluctuation laws in buying grains and vegetables and taught him accounting and food budgeting.

　　Finding that shopping was inconvenient in Dapchi County, Qungdag opened his first shop in his hometown, selling tea, butter, alcohol, and cigarettes etc. When mechanized farm tools became popular, he started selling farm machinery.

　　The government of Deqen County,swheresanother of Qungdag's shops is located, asked him to set up a jointly-owned shop and invited him to be general manager.

　　So far Qungdag has opened three shops which have combined assets of 240,000 (US,915) yuan. Their daily sales range in value from 6,000 (US) to 7,000 (US) yuan.

　　The rise in sales depends on improvements in the living standards of local residents. At first, he had only a few customers and they used to buy cheap goods, he said. Now, customers look out for the brand and quality of products.

　　"I benefited a lot from the skills and managerial experience I learned in prison. More importantly, I realized it was stupid to commit the offences for which I was jailed," he said.

　　Twenty-two women prisoners at a Beijing-based prison were recently given a special gift: a tailoring training course which will help them earn their living when they complete their prison terms.

　　The course was funded by the People's Procuratorate of the Shijingshan District in western Beijing and was designed to help prisoners turn over a new leaf when they leave prison.

　　Chinese prisons provide the inmates training lessons according to the demands of the society. They try their best to help these people to have a skill to make a living after they are released from the prison. Besides, they try to provide them a better social environment without discrimination and also psychological help to make them have a health psychology .

　　In the past, the prisoners can get cash for their labor as a payment, and a lecture urging them to mend their ways and move backsintosnormal society as soon as possible.

　　"What the prisoners need most is not money or lectures, but a way to make a living," said Wang Weifu, an official from the Beijing Municipal Prison Administration.

　　In this sense, several prisons in Beijing have put training the top of their agenda. Prisoners are trained to repair household electric appliances and motor vehicles, operate computers and landscape parks or gardens.

　　"Vocational training is an effective way to help prisoners acquire specific skills to help them find work after their release," said Wang.

　　Last year, 6,770 prisoners in Beijing completed vocational training courses of various kinds.

　　The prisons have received donations from all walks of life to facilitate their training program. Local government departments have donated computers, printers, cameras, and color TV sets over the last two years.

　　With the help of local education authorities, Beijing's prisons have also provided primary and secondary education to poorly educated prisoners, and encouraged secondary school graduates to pursue higher learning through self-education.

　　Statistics show that 11,637 prisoners in Beijing have taken part in the city's biannual self-taught examination for higher learning since 1986, 4,345 have passed at least one test and 51 have graduated after completing all the required courses.

　　Zhao Gang, who had received death penalty with a two-year reprieve on a charge of voluntary manslaughter, was the first in China to get a bachelor's degree in jail.

　　In addition to training programs, the prisons also work with local government departments to help released prisoners solve the problems they face, such as unemployment, lack of housing, high medical bills, and the discrimination and lack of understanding from their families.

　　Li Xin was homeless after years in jail and was at a loose end in his hometown in Fangshan District, southwestern Beijing, when local officials began helping him to boost his confidence.

　　With the skills he had acquired in prison, Li soon found a job at a village-run company.

　　The prisons also help prisoners to continue their work they did before they entered jails.

　　Tang Jianyuan, a prisoner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has recently completed his 15th novel, "The Pain Travel".

　　Among his 15 works, seven are novels, and eight others are -novelettes, plus four books of poetry.

　　Tang, who is serving a 10-year jail term in the Detention House of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said the latest novel is based on his own experiences and it advises people to live by the law.

　　Tang was a published poet before his conviction of fraud three years ago.

　　He came down with a serious illness upon hearing the verdict but soon recovered thanks to careful treatment from a prison doctor.

　　Tang said he is grateful to the prison officers, who have shown him great consideration and gave him great encouragement.

　　When the prison officers came to know that Tang was a poet, they encouraged him to go on with his writing. And they arranged a single cell for him, offered him ink and paper and all easy access to TV, radio and newspapers.

　　Tang has written more than 5 million Chinese characters. "Writing has become part of my life," he said.

　　Tang's works have not yet been published, though an editor with the Yuanfang Publishing House in Huhhot gave them fairly high appraisals and he believes that they are good enough for publication.