A Study on the Chess Culture of Ethnic Minority Groups in Gansu Province

As a region inhabited by large populations of ethnic minority groups, Gansu province boasts rich ethnic cultural resources which reflect traditional culture and intangible cultural heritage that had taken shape thousands of years ago. Among these are various ethnic folk chess games. They are time-honored with many types such as the “Fang” chess of the Hui ethnic group, the “Jiu” chess of the Tibetans, the “King and Ministers” chess, the Mongolian chess, the Mongolian military chess, etc. These games embody distinctive ethnic and regional characteristics, as well as the cultural elements of a particular ethnic minority group. It is of great significance, therefore, to study the ethnic chess by collecting, documenting and comparing different types of related chess. The paper explores ways to standardize, protect and promote them scientifically in joint efforts, and draws a conclusion that examining their significance in the present era and the ethnic characteristics is the key to understanding the profound culture behind the chess.

Farming Ritual and Festival Folk Custom of Dong Ethnic Minority Group

In order to pray for harvest and express gratitude, Dong ethnic arranged sacrifices of farming in accordance with periodicity of rice production and its requirements to festivals and calendar. Meanwhile, New Year, Pray in Spring and Return in Autumn not only play significant roles in agricultural production, but also evolve to farming holidays which are enriched with more social connotations. Centered on husbandry and production, some folklore that is rich in local color has been formed in Dong society. The writer introduced some farming ritual of Dong ethnic group, such as, sowing, Kai Yang Men, Rain-praying, Chang Xin, reaping and Lunar New Year, summarized their belief in the land worship, festival ritual, ancestor ritual and ceres ritual. It is concluded that sacrifice is a production-related folklore, which is formed by repeated operation and constant practice. Some taboos were also prohibited in agricultural sacrifice because people were not able to change the unfavorable reality of farming with their insufficient experience and knowledge; however, they resorted to witchcraft for the purpose of harvest. It is believed that the activity of sacrifice will also be kept in the life of Dong ethnic group due to their dependency on agriculture and the land.

Genetic polymorphism of mitochondrial DNA HVS-I and HVS-II of Chinese Tu ethnic minority group

We analyzed the two hypervariable segments HVS-I and HVS-II of 108 Chinese Tu ethnic minority group samples for forensic and population genetics purposes, Comparing with Anderson sequence, 79 polymorphic loci in HVS-I and 40 in HVS-II were found in Chinese Tu ethnic minority group mtDNA sequences, and 90 and 64 haplotypes were then defined. Haplotype diversity and the mean pairwise differences were 0.9903±0.0013 and 5.7785 in HVS-I, and 0.9777±0.0013 and 3.5819 in HVS-II, respectively. By analyzing the hypervariable domain from nucleotide 1,6180 to 1,6193 in HVS-I, we defined some new types of sequence variations. We also compared the relationship between Tu population and other populations using mtDNA HVS-I sequences. According to Rst genetic distances, the phylogenetic tree showed that the Tu population, the Xi＇an Han population, the Chinese Korean, and the Mongol ethnic group were in a clade. This indicated a close genetic relationship between them. There were far relations between the Tu population and other Chinese southern Han populations, Siberian, European, African, and other foreign populations. The results suggest that Tu population has a multi-origin and has also merged with other local populations.

On General Issues of Bilingual Education for Minority Ethnic Groups

Minority language literacy is an important issue in national education policy for any multi-nationality country.China sticks to the policy of safeguarding the rights and interests of ethnic minority groups to use their own languages and writing systems.In education,considering communications among different nationalities and the development of minority ethnic groups,a bilingual education policy is being implemented by insisting on teaching students in their own ethnic languages;when the mastery of their own languages has been achieved,bilingual teaching will be employed.There are three types of bilingual teaching for minority ethnic groups:teaching in their own languages,with Mandarin Chinese added;teaching in Mandarin Chinese,with minority languages added;teaching both in Mandarin Chinese and in minority languages.The biggest problems to be solved in implementing bilingual education in ethnic minority regions are the editing of language textbooks and supporting materials for minority ethnic groups and the training of ethnic minority teachers.

Distribution of Dongxiang Folk Story Resources in Dongxiang Autonomous County,Gansu Province

Based on the field survey in Dongxiang Autonomous County of Gansu Province in 2017 and 2018,we found and obtained rich effective Dongxiang folk story resources.These first-hand story resources remain in relatively remote areas of the county,with elderly women in the Dongxiang Language Reservation Area in the central and east of the county as the main oral inheritance group.The distribution characteristics of folk stories:few people preserve most stories,while most people could not narrate complete stories,and few traditional story resources are widespread.At present,due to various reasons,the oral environment and inheritance status of folk stories in Dongxiang County is not optimistic,the survey is difficult,and the story resources are scattered,and there is a tendency to gradually disappear.Therefore,it is necessary to actively protect the existing Dongxiang folk artists and folk story resources,and to conduct digital sorting of these resources in time.