China's basketball star Yao Ming and Olympic 110m hurdles
champ?Liu Xiang are both rewarded with entries in the second
edition of the
Encyclopedia of China, to be published this
year.
The new 60-million-word edition of the encyclopedia will stretch
over 32 volumes, replacing the first edition published in 1993,
sources with the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House said. It
will contain 60,000 entries, 30,000 pictures and 1,000 maps.
Chief editor Liu Hang revealed the heated debate that raged
between members of the editorial staff over which personalities
should be included. The final consensus was to select those
"typical personalities with a great influence in their own field
and also in history," Liu said.
Popular director Zhang Yimou and China's first astronaut Yang
Liwei also find their way into the encyclopedia, but Yi Zhongtian,
a currently popular TV lecturer and Wang Shuo, a writer whose words
and behaviors have recently triggered fierce debate among netizens,
were left out.
(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2007)
