QUOTE
Chinese county enhances efforts to preserve rare ancient characters
A county in southwest China's Guizhou Province is working on new regulations to better preserve endangered ancient "Shuishu," the peculiar pictographic characters of the Shui ethnic group.
As the peculiar characters used by the ancient Shui ethnic group, Shuishu is in danger of being lost as most of the Shui people do not know how to read the characters any longer.
People who still know how to read Shuishu are usually wizards of the Shui ethnic group. They preserved most existing books written in Shuishu which have been passed down only to a single descendant within families.
In this sense, Shuishu is regarded as a "living fossil" of the Shui ethnic group as books written in Shuishu had recorded encyclopedic contents about the ancient Shui ethnic group, including astronomy, geography, religion, folk-custom, ethics, philosophy, aesthetics and law.
In March 2002, Shuishu was listed in the China Archive Heritage chosen by the State Archive Administration of China. Since then, great efforts have been made by the central and local cultural protection departments to protect the endangered characters.
Currently, the people of Sui ethnic group, numbered approximately 407, 000, live on the Yunnan and Guizhou Plateau in southwest China. The Sandu county, the only autonomous county of Shui ethnic group in China, has most of the Shui population in the country, or 52 percent.
Sandu county has allocated more than 100,000 yuan (12,500 U.S. dollars) each year for the translation and protection of Shuishu books over recent years.
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A county in southwest China's Guizhou Province is working on new regulations to better preserve endangered ancient "Shuishu," the peculiar pictographic characters of the Shui ethnic group.
As the peculiar characters used by the ancient Shui ethnic group, Shuishu is in danger of being lost as most of the Shui people do not know how to read the characters any longer.
People who still know how to read Shuishu are usually wizards of the Shui ethnic group. They preserved most existing books written in Shuishu which have been passed down only to a single descendant within families.
In this sense, Shuishu is regarded as a "living fossil" of the Shui ethnic group as books written in Shuishu had recorded encyclopedic contents about the ancient Shui ethnic group, including astronomy, geography, religion, folk-custom, ethics, philosophy, aesthetics and law.
In March 2002, Shuishu was listed in the China Archive Heritage chosen by the State Archive Administration of China. Since then, great efforts have been made by the central and local cultural protection departments to protect the endangered characters.
Currently, the people of Sui ethnic group, numbered approximately 407, 000, live on the Yunnan and Guizhou Plateau in southwest China. The Sandu county, the only autonomous county of Shui ethnic group in China, has most of the Shui population in the country, or 52 percent.
Sandu county has allocated more than 100,000 yuan (12,500 U.S. dollars) each year for the translation and protection of Shuishu books over recent years.
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