Full coverage: ‘看中國’外國青年影像計劃專題

Editor’s forward: "Looking China" International Youth Film Project is co-organized by the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC), Beijing Normal University and Huilin Foundation. The program focuses on the young participants’ personal experiences of Chinese culture and encourages them to discover and tell Chinese stories from their own perspectives.

As of the year 2018, students from 35 countries were invited to participate in the "Looking China" project. They were stationed in 11 municipalities, provinces and autonomous region here in China. Every filmmaker has worked out a 10-minute short film about Chinese culture around the topic of "Ecology, Biology, Lifeology."

The Miao, a culturally and linguistically related group of people, is recognized by the PRC (People's Republic of China) as one of the 55 minority groups in the country. They primarily live in Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Sichuan provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Miao people have their own languages and cultures. Embroidery, batik making and bull fighting are some of their traditional customs. Nonetheless, with more young people going to cities for better paid jobs, the old heritages and traditional cultures are at risk of vanishing.

Director Martin Loh and his team carefully recorded the worries and wishes of local seniors. One villager said, "Our native language has to live on, we can't let the next generation forget it. Of course Han language is important, because the education system is based on Han, but we also have to know our own language well. If we do not know our own language, then the next generation will not know who they are. Without our language, then we will cease to be Miao."

According to the "Language of China" published in 2007, there are 129 languages in the country with 117 languages are either endangered or on the verge of extinction.

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