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Center for East Asian Studies to send four to China

By Brandy Entsminger

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Mayul Multi-Disciplinary Technical School in Qinghai, China, is working to preserve Tibetan culture and teach financial independence. A team of four people from the University of Kansas will spend next summer in China, helping to get a new technical school started.

The team members will survey local culture and conduct research in the area. Their plan is to develop an art curriculum in the school, which is sponsored by the Mayul Gesar Foundation. They will return the summer of 2010 to continue their work.

Eric Rath, associate professor of history, will go on the trip. He said he wanted to expand the curriculum at the school to include things such as machine maintenance and other occupations that will help students make a living.

“I think we’re going to be able to create some things that we haven’t even imagined yet,” Rath said.

The Tibetan school is located in one of the poorest regions of China and will serve a traditionally nomadic Tibetan population.

While the team members are working at the school, they will choose five Mayul teachers or students to attend the University of Kansas in 2010.

In preparation for the trip, the team members will share research on Tibetan culture at monthly meetings and will learn to speak the Tibetan language. Rath said Champa Lhunpo, lecturer in East Asian languages who teaches a Tibetan language course at the University had been helping the other team members learn to speak it.

Sooa Im, a Seoul, South Korea, graduate student who will go on the trip, said the most challenging part of learning the Tibetan language was spelling because many Tibetan words are spelled differently, even though they have the same pronunciation.

The U.S. State Department’s Ngwang Choepal Fellowship Program made the project possible with a $215,000 grant.

Rath said Marsha Haufler, director of the Center for East Asian Studies, approached him about applying for a grant from the program. He served as principal investigator and located a Tibetan charity to work with.

Hungkar Dorje, abbot of Thubten Chokorling Monastery in Golok China and director of the Mayul Multi-Disciplinary Technical School, will speak at the University about Tibetan education tonight at 7 at the conference hall in the Hall Center for the Humanities. The event is free and open to the public.

— - Edited by Becka Cremer

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