China hosts First World Chinese Conference
    Chinese language fever is spreading around the world, with an estimated 30 million people outside China believed to be learning Chinese.
    But there is a shortage of Chinese teachers for overseas students, and many Chinese textbooks used at universities leave a lot to be desired. The First World Chinese Conference, held from July 20 to July 22, offered an opportunity to gear up the nationÕs efforts in all of these respects.
    With the development of Chinese in a multicultural world as its theme, the conference attracted over 600 representatives from more than 60 countries and regions, including education ministers, officials, university presidents, teachers and experts.
    During the event, the participants exchanged their experiences in learning Chinese, held in-depth discussion on a wide range of topics and finally reached a general consensus with regard to many issues.
    Delegates stated that the development of international language education is vital to preserving cultural heritage and plays a major role in developing a multicultural world. Cultural diversity is a strong driving force in global development.
    The conference also agreed that the development of international language education will make a major contribution to world peace. People can better understand and respect different cultures if they can overcome language barriers.
   Furthermore, the gathering also reached the conclusion that every country bears the responsibility to spread its native language in other countries. Every nation hopes its native culture can be understood by others. Promoting native languages is an important step towards achieving this.
    “Interest in learning Chinese is growing much faster than we expected,” Chinese Minister of Education Zhou Ji told the conferenceÕs closing ceremony. But Zhou also admitted that China should accelerate the development of teaching Chinese as a foreign language to meet overseas demand.
    More Chinese teachers and new textbooks should be available in the coming years, and China will establish more Confucius Institutes overseas to promote the Chinese language and culture.

Master calligrapher and painter Qi Gong passes away
    Qi Gong, a professor at Beijing Normal University, renowned for his calligraphy, painting and study of Chinese culture, died in Beijing on June 30 at the age of 93.
    A descendant of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Qi Gong, left the royal residence at an early age with his mother. Both his father and grandfather died when he was still in his teens, leaving him to support the family as one of the few surviving males.
    His talents in ancient poetry had drawn increasing attention when he graduated from high school in 1933. With the guidance of Chen Yuan, a famous historian and educator, Qi Gong entered into the world of academia and finally became a great scholar.
    Qi Gong, who had no children, lived with his beloved wife who once sold her only jewelry to buy him books.
    He was originally surnamed Aisin Giorro, an imperial clan name of the Qing Dynasty. But he never used the surname in his calligraphy, writings or letters. Qi Gong once called himself a “completely abandoned descendant of the royal family. I have had to carve out a career on my own,” Qi Gong said.
    Qi Gong belonged to the Manchu minority, but his contribution to the research of Han culture made him a “living cultural treasure” of China. Apart from his scholarly and artistic achievements, Qi Gong won respect from people who knew him for his wit, ingenuity, integrity, generosity and kindness.

Tibetan antelope leads mascot race
    The Tibetan antelope is leading the race to become the mascot of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, competing with the giant panda, Chinese tiger and golden monkey.
    The Tibetan antelope is a kind of rare animal found only on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Poachers hunt the antelope for its soft and wool-like fur which is woven and called ÒShahtoosh.Ó The Tibetan antelopes are skinned and the raw shahtoosh is collected and smuggled to neighboring countries where it is made into shawls. Shahtoosh products are then illegally shipped to fashion hotspots around the world.
    The profitable overseas trade in shahtoosh has led to rampant poaching in the area. Poachers have turned these desolate and uninhabited wilds into a bloody slaughterhouse. They discover the animalÕs calving grounds and kill the females as they give birth.
    China has launched a series of campaign to raise public awareness of the Tibetan antelopes’ plight, and to help protect this endangered species
    Those who support the Tibetan antelope as the Olympic mascot believe that the success will help the general public better understand the dangerous situation of the animal and improve its protection.

First group of Tibetan pilots take to skies
    Five Tibetan graduates from the China Civil Aviation University joined Southwest China Airlines on March 19. They became China’s first Tibetan pilots with university degrees.
    The airline company selected six Tibetan graduates among over 300 candidates Ñ Dkar-san, Bsod-nams Dwan-phyug, Tshe-rin Rdr-rje and Shi Qu from Tibetan Agricultural College and Zhou Yingkui and Huang Lancheng from Northwest Nationalities College. So far, five of them have passed the English exam, obtained the diploma and been recruited by Southwest China Airlines.
    Now the five pilots have to complete a large number of training missions before they can get their pilots license. A spokesman for the airline says that the company will spare no efforts or expense in helping the Tibetans to become excellent pilots.

Vital irrigation system threatened in Xinjiang
    Karez, the underground irrigation system in Turfan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is disappearing as a result of declining groundwater levels. To rescue or abandon this ancient irrigation system has become an issue of major concern in this region of northwestern China.
    Turfan is the hottest place in the country, with its highest ground temperature being 82.3 C and an annual precipitation of just 16 mm, with evaporation of over 3,000 mm. Ancient people invented a unique but effective irrigation system - karez - to cope with this hot and dry climate. As one of the great projects in ancient China, the irrigation system consists of complicated structures: wells, underground channels, ground canals and small reservoirs. In the spring and summer, a massive amount of melting snow and rainfall flows down from the mountains into Turpan. Taking advantage of this, ancient people created the karez to use the underground water to irrigate their farmland. They enjoyed many advantages such as little evaporation from season to season and only slight percolation.
    But this area has suffered from droughts in the past few years, and many of the karezs have dried up. As a result, the number of the irrigation wells has fallen from 1,273 to 725.
    Experts differ with regard to the protection of the endangered karez. Some believe that the system should be replaced by modern equipment or technology. But others argue that karez is not only an example of cultural heritage but remains useful to this day. The decline of the karezs is attracting growing attention in Xinjiang. The local government in Turpan is drafting regulations in a bid to protect this important irrigation system.

   Record-breaking Tibetan calligraphy
    A 131-metre scroll of Tibetan calligraphy has been recently included in Guinness World Records for displaying the largest number of Tibetan font styles. The scroll was completed by Ka-ma Hphrrin-, an associate professor from Tibet University.
    The scroll is 48 centimeters wide and 131 meters long and is the longest calligraphic work of its kind in the world, with the professor taking three years to complete it. He copied two Tibetan literary works Ò30 Letters of the Tibetan AlphabetÓ and ÒSakya Mottoes,Ó using eight fonts including a kind of script furnished with a headline at the top, Sug-thun (bold running script), Sug-rin (thin running script), Hbru-tsha (running script), Dpe-sug (regular script), Dwa-can Gsar-pa and cursive script.
    The 52-year-old teaches at the Tibetology Department of Tibet Unversity. He said one of the fonts Ñ Dwa-can Gsar-pa - was created by himself. It is a reformed type that can fit the irregular Tibetan characters into squares like a Chinese typeface.
    The calligrapher says he his goal is to let the world know more about the beauty of ancient Tibetan handwriting.

Miao(Hmong) minority history nears completion
    The Miao(Hmong) minority has a population of 8.94 million, ranking sixth among ChinaÕs 56 ethnic groups. Among the large amount of the country’s historical works, few of them are about the history of Miao minority. Therefore, the compilation of general history of the Miao people was included in the country’s Eighth Five-Year Plan, with the first “General History of the Miao Minority” to be published soon.
    Wu Rongzhen, its editor-in-chief, spent three years investigating areas inhibited by Miao people. This took him to over 600 counties and prefectures, traveling over 30,000 kilometers and collecting and sorting a massive number of files and documents. Coming in at around 2.5 million words long, the work will appear in 12 volumes.

Minority vocal classics struggle to be heard
    Experts are calling for urgent efforts to preserve the vocal classics of China’s ethnic minorities.
    Most of the music, in the form of talking and singing, originated from the folk music of ethnic groups. The surviving pieces including the Tibetan epic “Gesar,” the Mongolian’s “Jangar” and “Manas” of the Kirgiz ethnic minority. There is also rare cultural heritage among the musical works of the Manchu, Ewenki, Daur, Kazak, Uygur, Bai, Shui and Dong minorities.
    According to a survey conducted in 1982, there are 341 varieties of vocal folk art forms in China. Many of them cannot withstand the test of China’s rapid modernization, with some on the brink of extinction. The Chinese Government has launched a campaign to preserve the music heritage.

Zhuang ancestor commemorated
    The Zhuang minority has held its first memorial ceremony for their ancestor Buluotuo (Pauloktao) ever since his relics were discovered. In addition to making offerings, the ceremony also featured singing and chanting.
    The relics of Buluotuo were found in Ganzhuang Mountain, in Tianyang County of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
     February 19 on the Chinese lunar calendar is the birthday of Buluotuo, and the Zhuang people gathered at Ganzhuang Mountain on this date to offer sacrifices and hold grand singing contests.
    Now the site has become a sacred mountain and the spiritual homeland of the Zhuang people.

Database of ethnic minority languages
    Yunnan University of Nationalities and Nankai University have jointly launched a project for the research of ethnic languages in Yunnan, which will establish a database of ethnic languages at Yunnan University of Nationalities.
    The project aims to study, preserve, and research ethnic languages. The database has has already collected dozens of extinct languages and laid a good foundation for the language research in the Internet era. Based on the database, the university will set up phonetic laboratory for teaching and research.
    Experts from the two universities have so far made great progress in this academic research, which has filled the major gap in terms of extinct languages and been helpful in the teaching of ethnic languages.

Ancient scripts discovered in Ningxia
    Experts announced that China’s oldest scripts were found in the ancient cliff carvings of Damaidi in northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
    Tusked away in the depths of Beishan Mountain, Damaidi is one of the country’s enduring mysteries. Thousands of years ago, people carved hundreds of symbols into rocks. The rock art site covers an area of 15 kilometers and experts have found 3,172 cliff carvings, featuring over 8,400 individual figures. The largest once is nine meters wide and 1.2 meters high, featuring over 100 animals and symbolic designs.
    The study showed that the earliest cliff carvings in Damaidi are around 10,000 to 18,000 years old, and many of the symbolic designs may be primitive Chinese characters. Experts argued that these designs looked similar to the pictographic symbols on pottery dating back to same period and to Jiaguwen (oracle bone scripts) of the Shang Dynasty.
    Each of the characters is generally composed of two or more symbols. More importantly, the symbols in the rock art are not isolated but systematic. Experts conclude that many abstract symbols in Damaidi rock art are primitive forms of Chinese characters. Unfortunately, experts are still trying to work out the real meaning of the 1,500 symbols in Damaidi.

A look at the “cradle of the Mongolians”
    The recently published book “Cradle of Mongolians: Argun” gives a comprehensive introduction to Argun, a river running along the Sino-Russian border. Richly illustrated, the book offers a peek into the natural environment and lifestyle of seven ethnic groups living along the river.