According to experts, classical Chinese scholars were a major contributor to the advancement of Islamic civilization in China.
    Recently, the renowned Sinologist and Harvard University lecturer Du Weiming pointed out in the Seminar of Civilization and International Research, held in Ningxia, China, that, "classical Chinese scholars were a major contributor to the advancement of Islamic civilization" in China.  They did so by translating original Islamic works in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Urdu into classical Chinese, and by writing scholarly  works comparing Islam and Confucianism. This stand has gained the recognition of many international academics. 
    Renowned works written in Arabic and Persian by Islamic scholars have been translated into many languages. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a series of translated works that promoted Islamic doctrine appeared in Chinese Islamic circles. The most important were Wang Daiyu's Zhengjiao Zhenquan (The Message of Islam), Qingzhen Daxue (The Great Learning of Islam), Xizhen Zhengda (Correct Answers to Questions About Islam), Li Zhi's Tianfang Xingli (Nature and the Ways of Islam), Tianfang Dianli (Customs and Rituals of Islam), Tianfang Zhisheng Shili (A Biography of the Great Prophet), etc... Most of the authors were also scholars of the Confucian classics, and their works were mainly comparisons between Islam and Confucianism,  Some of them also specialized in "the four religions:"  Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. In order to spread the doctrine of Islam, they translated the concepts of Islamic religion into classical Chinese, with explanatory notes, comparing Islam to Confucianist  philosophy. Wang Daiyu used Confucianism to explain Islamism. Liu Zhi sought to find common ground in cultural aspects, consciously creating a means of communication between both cultures, analyzing and seeking the similarities and differences and establishing a basis for advancing the doctrine of Islam in China.      
    Du Weiming points out that the contributions of classical Chinese to Islam civilization are very well embodied in Wang Daiyu's and Liu Zhi's works. In the West, translated works on Islam civilization into English and French appeared only in the 20th century. Du Weiming did some research on Wang Daiyu's and Liu Zhi's works in the 1990's, discovering their value, and believes that what he has discovered is of tremendous importance for the research of Islamic civilization. At the same time he thinks that it would be interesting to try and find out why a thinker as great as Liu Zhi did not receive as much recognition at the time as Wang Fuzhi, Gu Yanwu and other philosophers, though he believes that one day Liu Zhi will also be recognized for his significant work.    
   The Confucius family tree and Nushu enter the Guinness Book of World Records
    In December 2005, the Guinness Book of World Records announced in Frankfurt that the Confucius family tree in China had been confirmed as the longest family tree recorded in the world, and Nushu as the world's most representative gender conscious language.
    The Chairman of the Guinness Book of World Records, Alistair Richards, on the same day separately awarded the Guinness Book of World Records diplomas to the representatives of the Cultural Relics Administration Committee in Qufu, in Shandong Province, for the Confucius Family tree and to the representatives of the County of Jiangyong, in Hunan Province, for the Nushu language.
    The Confucius clan lineage has to this point, 82 generations. Confucius's old and well-known family tree has been revised every thirty years since the Ming dynasty(1368 AD), and in 1999, the descendants of Confucius carried up a thorough revision of the genealogical table.
    Nushu is the only language in the world created by women and used by women. It is a precious and ancient cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. The shapes of the characters are unusual, and there are 2,000 symbols, which have four kinds of strokes; dots, vertical strokes, slanted strokes and an arched stroke. The writing appears in the shapes of rhombuses, and it has been used for over a 1,000 years especially for the affective communication between womenfolk. This unique "cultural fossil" is also called Jianyong's Nushu. The style of the characters is graceful and delicate, and has aroused extensive interest in China and abroad.  
   Great Successes in the Rescue of Chinese Folk Cultural Heritage
    In 2003 the Chinese Folk Artists Association started large-scale projects for rescuing and protecting Chinese Folk culture heritage. After two years, the results of this salvaging effort are being published, with great success.
    The China Publishing House, with 94 years of publishing history, has released the first sample installment in the work for salvaging China's folk cultural heritage, called China's Printing Blocks for New Year Paintings-Yang Jiabu. In September it won America's 2005 excellence in printing award. According to reports, China Publishing House undertook the task of publishing all 20 installments of China's Printing Blocks for New Year Paintings at a cost of 20 million RMB.
    The Intellectual Property Publishing House together with the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association have compiled and published Compilation of Chinese Folk Stories, releasing the first batch on the 12 counties of the Bai ethnic minority autonomous prefecture of Dali in Yunnan, with a total of 4 million words.
    The Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association together with the Heilonjiang People's Publishing House have published the book Chinese Folk Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage Introduction Series, and the first series of China's Nushu, Exorcism in China, Songs of the Dong People, China's Shamanist Culture, and other publications, receiving a warm welcome from folk cultural enthusiasts.  
    The Vice-President of the administration of China Press Publications, Liu Binjie has said that China's publishing world will do its utmost to participate in China's folk culture heritage rescue work. It is reported that at present this undertaking has over 40 publishing houses taking part, achieving great results.
     Southwest Ethnic University establishes a Center for Yi Ethnic Studies
    In December 2005, the Southwest Ethnic University publicly announced in Chengdu its establishment of a Center for Yi Ethnic Studies. This center has over 3,000 volumes of literature of the Ethnic Yi . It has the largest collection of material of the Yi Group in Mainland China, and is the largest Center for Yi literature. The center has at present 3,100 volumes of folk literature, 348 volumes of electronic books on Yi literature, 150 samples of electronic audio material and 3,000 volumes of published Yi literary works. Among these are collections of many rare editions and unique copies.
    Many editions of Yi ancient literature are hand-written on homemade paper, silk, leather, bamboo-slips, wooden-slips and bone-slips, and there are also block-printed editions. Many of these ancient editions are kept by the Yi priests, or the bimo, and possess special academic value.
   
    The Xinjiang Encyclopedia available in the Uygur and Kazak languages
    The first encyclopedia to be printed in ethnic minority languages, The Xinjiang Encyclopedia, was published in November 2005 in the Uygur and Kazak languages.
    Preparation of the encyclopedia was competed in October 2002, having undergone two years of translation by 70 expert translators of the Uygur and Kazak languages. The publisher is the Xinjiang People's Publishing House. The encyclopedia not only recounts Xinjiang's long history, it also includes basic  information on Xinjiang's natural environment and social sciences.  It highlights  Xinjiang's superiority in resources, but religion and the culture of the people are at the heart of the work. In addition, the encyclopedia covers technological advances and developmental results. It is a comprehensive bibliography that fully reveals Xinjiang's developmental history and its modern economy, science and technology.  
   
    The world's first 'Almanac of Mongolian Studies' is published
    At the end of 2005, the world's first Almanac of Mongolian Studies was published, filling a gap in this academic field.
    The Almanac of Mongolian Studies is based on the publication, Mongolian Studies Information, which has information on activities of the nation's technical experts, essays written by academics and information on the situation with respect to  Mongolian studies abroad. This new publication collects academic essays, data, and lexicographical material all in one, reflecting the developing situation of Mongolian studies.
    Gansu province has salvaged and organized 17 volumes of ancient Tibetan scriptures totaling 80 million words.
    In Wuwei city, Gansu province, tens of thousands of scripts have been salvaged from the local museum in a project to safeguard Tibetan scriptures. Four hundred nine works, with a total of 5,317 parts and over 10 thousand pages that total up to 80 million of characters, have been arranged in a systematic order. Experts say that these Tibetan scriptures are exceedingly precious, and are a very important resource for tibetologists.
    The 409 Tibetan scripture texts that have been put in order mainly comprise the Tripitaka. There are also Tibetan inscribed wooden tablets and canons, 98% of which are handwritten and mounted exquisitely on the highest quality Tibetan paper from Linyao. Although these scriptures have survived over hundreds or even a thousand years, the writing is still surprisingly clear.
    After making an on-the-spot inspection, the tibetologist Cheng Qingying believes that the inscribed wooden tablets date from the period of the Tubo Kingdom, and the hand-written scriptures are from an earlier period, most likely from the same period as the scriptures in Dunhuang Museum. They are very ancient and precious. There is a large number are scriptures written on ciqing paper with gold, silver and pearl powder, with over a hundred drawings influenced by Han Chinese painting styles. These are  also very precious.

   The Chinese Folk Collection of Four is launched
    The Chinese Folk Collection of Four was launched in 2005. It is considered the world's biggest compilation project. It includes four compilations, namely The Full Collection of Chinese Folk Tales, The Full Collection of Chinese Ballads, The Full Collection of Popular Proverbs and The Full Collection of Chinese Folk Epics. The Chinese Folk Society for the Study of Folk Art will cooperate with over 10 publishing firms in this project.
    The project borrows the name "Collection of Four" from The Chinese Imperial Collection of Four from Qianlong's period in the Qing Dynasty, as it is also of a similar significance, the only difference being that the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Collection of Four was a compilation of all kinds of works and scriptures already written. The Chinese Folk Collection of Four is instead a compilation of works handed down orally.
    Feng Jicai, the chairman for the Chinese Folk Society for the Study of Folk Art remarks: 'In Chinese folk culture's grave situation, a project like The Chinese Folk Collection of Four is a way to salvage these works. We will have saved the most wonderful and the most worthy of cultural heritages- the heritage of people's memories-and we will have at the same time protected the intellectual rights of the China's nationalities' treasures'.
   It is estimated that the project will take 15 years to complete.

   China publishes five ethnic minority versions of Necessary Reading for the Prevention of Aids
    The booklet, Necessary Reading for the Prevention of Aids, was published on the 30th of November in Beijing in five languages:  Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazak and Korean.
    Yunnan, Sichuan, Xinjiang and Guangxi, are some of the areas where aids is spreading fastest, and where many ethnic minorities live. People involved in aids prevention work in ethnic minorities regions are attracting progressively wider attention and are being given more importance by the government and society. Ninety thousand copies of the series of booklets Necessary Reading for the Prevention of Aids designed for the ethnic minorities, have been published and will be given out for free. Accordingly, these publications are the second public welfare project by China's Health Department after the Nationalities Publishing House published the Words on SARS for the Ethnic Minorities.

An unusual academy established 200 years ago by a family clan is discovered in Jiangxi
    A worker in a museum in Ji'an, in Jiangxi province, has recently discovered the Yanshan Academy, an academy established 200 years ago by a family clan.  The curator of the Ji'an Museum believes that regardless of its size, teaching methods or architecture, the Yanshan Academy is a rare find in the country. According to Mr. Huang, who is a descendant of the originators of the academy, this college was founded by his ancestor, Huang Youxiang, and was built from 1794 to 1806 A.D. by his three sons.
    The academy occupies an area of about 3,000 square meters.  On the center of the Wen Chang Ge building there is a memorial tablet of Confucius. The roof of the building imitates a hill, and the buildings as a whole maintain their integrity. Mr. Huang says that the Yanshan Academy is the place where the boys in his family clan studied. It is in Jinxia village, and had at its peak 200-300 students. At the time, two successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations graduated from here.

    Observe and record the members of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference
    Li Shi Jie, a writer for a Hui minority group and a member of the Beijing Islam Association, is keen to observe and record the system of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference. He has written several books on the subject. Focus on the Members of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference is his third book on the topic. It records some facts about how the members of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference participate in political consultation, and how they finish their duties by taking photographs.
    Two other books by Mr Li on the subject are The Members of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference and The Members of the Chinese People Political Consultative conference and the Proposals.

   The Black Snow of the Himalayas
    In 1991, a mountain climbing group encountered heavy snow while climbing Mount Everest. What surprised them was the fact that the snowflakes were in fact black. The black snowflakes were falling rapidly and they soon found themselves enveloped in a dark storm.
    The cause of the black snow was the 1990 Gulf War. This war, in addition to costing 100 billion US dollars and causing the loss of a hundred thousand lives, also brought a series of severe environmental disasters. During the war, about 700 Kuwaiti oil wells were destroyed, and those that were set on fire by the retreating Iraqi forces burned for eight months, consuming 800 thousand tons of crude oil at the most. The burning wells released 1,900 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) every hour. The large amount of soot and other particulates released by the burning oil spread widely with the smoke drifting eastward on the warm moist air from the Indian Ocean.  Some of it finally precipitated as black snow when it reached the Himalayans. Black snow absorbs sunlight more quickly than white, making the snow and ice melt faster.  This can cause rivers to overflow which can result in disasterous floods.   
    The economic losses that this war brought to the countries taking part can be calculated numerically, but the long-term catastrophic environmental consequences are impossible to estimate.  The Persian Gulf may indeed recover to its original pre-war state, something that experts estimate will take a hundred years, but it is impossible to anticipate all the things that the people and creatures living and growing  in the Gulf region during these hundred years will have lost.

   The ceremony marking the first publishing of the revised edition of Venezuela
    - The Hometown of Bolivar was held on February 28 in Beijing
    The event was organized by the Ethnic Publishing House of China and the Venezuelan Embassy in China.
    Venezuela - The Hometown of Bolivar is the first book "Walk Into Latin America" series of books. The series is being published by the Ethnic Publishing House of China.
    The book was originally published in 2004, to commemorate 30 years of China-Venezuela diplomatic relations, and to also celebrate the 221st anniversary of Simon Bolivar's birth. Bolivar is regarded by Venezuelans to be the father of their nation. The 3,000 books from the first printing sold out quickly. To meet demand, the Ethnic Publishing House of China revised and republished the book.