"Chinese students always honor Tsinghua University as the country's most prestigious institute of higher learning. But Tibet University, in my eyes, is by no means inferior as it is an authority on Tibetan language education and Tibetology," he said with obvious deep affection for his mother tongue.

As a child Bu Cering recited the "Story of the Wise Uncle," a well-known Tibetan folk tale, and showed enthusiasm for the language throughout his adolescence.

His Tibetan composition "My Best Teacher" won first prize in the region's Tibetan essay competition when he graduated from junior middle school.

"The composition, later published in 'Tibet Youth Daily' is my first Tibetan work. The award did spark my determination to devote myself to Tibetan language research," he said.

The current written Tibetan language comprises 30 consonants and four vowels as well as some pictorial punctuation. It was invented more than 1,000 years ago by Tonmi Sampozha, a minister of Tubo, an alternative name for Tibet during the Tang and Song Dynasties (618-1279).

During the past thousand years, a tremendous amount of ancient Tibetan books and records were handed down, next only to the quantity of Mandarin records.

For a long time, many Tibetan experts have been dedicatedly protecting, collecting and researching ancient Tibetan works.

Bu Cering joined this team in 1986. That year, he was admitted to Tibet University's Tibetan language and literature department with the highest examination marks.

He took 48 subjects, including Tibetan wording and Tibetan modern literature in his four years of university study.

During that time his Tibetan articles were often published in Tibet Daily and Tibet Youth Daily.

He remained at the university as a lecturer in Tibetan languageand literature after graduation. Since then, he has embarked on the path of Tibetan language research.

Nine years of research work, plus two years post-graduate studyin the field of Tibetan legends made it easy for him to write his post-graduate dissertation "Development and Features of Legendary Tibetan Literature."

In the past, experts have focused only on the content of recorded Tibetan legends, but never studied their whole evolutionary history. Bu Cering's research filled this gap.

The evaluation committee highly praised his dissertation, saying that the work raised a new theory that Tibetan legends originated from the primitive legends of Tibet, but not from Buddhist stories as long believed.

(eastday.com July 30, 2002)