Tibetan language promoted among government workers

As a holder of an MA degree, Wu Manzhong never imagined his career in the government would start in a Tibetan language class.

Sitting in a classroom in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province, Wu followed his teacher's instructions to write Tibetan words. The language has become an important skill to Wu since he took a job as a government worker in Gannan's Diebu County this summer.

"I used to know nothing about the language, so it was pretty hard for me to communicate with local Tibetans. Sometimes I even had to rely on gestures," Wu said.

The 29-year-old is one of 161 government workers in Gannan who are taking a four-month full-time language program at a local school. The courses teach basic Tibetan expressions and grammar, and students must complete homework and receive grades from teachers.

Gannan, which lies in the border area of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces, is one of the country's ten Tibetan autonomous prefectures, with Tibetans making up the majority of its population of 700,000.

In order to break language barriers and facilitate communication between the government and locals, Gannan kicked off a campaign in 2011 to promote the teaching of Tibetan among its civil servants.

The prefecture has trained more than 600 bilingual civil servants so far and hopes to train more than 1,000 others by the end of 2014.

Wei Zhourong, a senior official at Gannan's personnel office, said only by mastering the Tibetan language can non-Tibetan local officials better understand people's concerns.

The language is even linked with the promotion of local officials. In Gannan, grassroots officials who fail to master the language after three years working in Tibetan communities will be denied promotion.

Yang Xiao'e, a Gannan official who graduated from the program last year, said the class did facilitate her communication with local herders.

Without the language, her friendship with Tseringji, a Tibetan herder, would have been almost impossible. Yang recalled when she went to conduct the census at Tseringji's home years ago, Tseringji had to show the number of her family members using her fingers.

"Speaking the same language now, Tseringji and I can talk freely, and we even call each other 'sister' in Tibetan," Yang said.