China issued another white paper on Thursday to acquaint the world with its efforts on protecting Tibetan cultural heritage and promoting the learning and use of the Tibetan language. Wu Jia has the details.
Reporter:
This is the 7th white paper relating to the preservation of culture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, introducing 329 important cultural relics protected by the central government since 2006, including the world cultural heritage listed Potala Palace.
Yu Dawa, the Director of the Tibet Cultural Relics Bureau said the central government has dedicated a large amount of money to protecting these cultural relics and sites.
"As for the protection of cultural relics, according to our research, there was no protection work implemented in the past in Tibet at all. After Tibet was peacefully liberated, we just started the protection work from scratch and gradually enlarged its scale. We have now preserved more than 10,000 registered pieces."
Since the 1970s, Tibet had set up specialized institutions to save and preserve its traditional culture. 120 cultural items have been added to the cultural heritage list of Tibet, among which 61 are included on the UNESCOs world cultural heritage list.
"Life of King Gesar", the longest epic in the world is an important part of the worlds cultural heritage. To better protect it, from 1997, the regional authorities set up special bodies for the collection, research, editing and publishing of relevant books about this story.
The white paper also elaborates that Tibetan language as an important tool to carry forward the Tibetan culture has been well preserved.
Luo Sang is an official on the Tibetan language education. He introduced that students in the autonomous region are educated in both Tibetan and Chinese. Most of the news media in the region also reports in Tibetan.
"All the signboards of shops and offices in Tibet are translated into both languages; some have even been translated into three languages. Papers used in offices are headed with both languages. All these actions are demanded by law."
Computers and the internet are widely used now, attracting more and more Tibetan netizens to surf on-line. Luo Sang also expressed the governments efforts to popularize the use of the Tibetan language on the internet.
"In 2004, the Ministry of Information Industry invested 33 million Yuan to explore Tibetan language software. Now, we can switch between Chinese and Tibetan easily on the internet."
The white paper says all facts show that there has been no "cultural genocide" in Tibet over more than half a century. On the contrary, the traditional culture of Tibet has been appropriately inherited, effectively protected and vigorously promoted.
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