Chinese social network promotes Tibetan culture

Logging into a Tibetan-English bilingual language learning account on Wechat is a daily routine for Yang Xin, a junior English major from University of Tibet.

"Please type number 94 to get the content of today's course," it reads on Shengdimeiju (Beautiful sentences on the holy land), a language learning application on the popular mobile messaging service.

Three audio messages on how to express bad people or bad things in Tibetan and English, with a length of 59, 57 and 49 seconds respectively, then appear on Yang's cell phone.

"Shengdimeiju is a wonderful application. I can learn Tibetan and English at the same time," said Yang.

"If I have a question, I can simply type it on the phone and a teacher will answer it soon," he said.

The WhatsApp-like Wechat, operated by China's largest Internet company Tencent, had 490 million users by the end of June since its launch in early 2011, according to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology report.

"Official accounts" is a special Wechat feature that can be used by institutions, companies and individuals to interact with their followers.

Shengdimeiju founder, Lop Chamdoi, 33, hopes the application will give more people the opportunity to learn the Tibetan language in the mobile Internet era.

Chamdoi, an English-major graduate from Shaanxi Normal University, has set up a private Tibetan-English language training center in the regional capital of Lhasa. He launched the Shengdimeiju application in April.

Besides Shengdimeiju, a number of official accounts on Wechat, featuring Tibetan language learning, tourism and news have become new channels for people to better understand the plateau region.

Sina Weibo, a twitter-like microblogging service with more than 500 million users, is another major Chinese online platform promoting Tibetan culture.

Tibet Online, a government-run website, has a presence on both Wechat and Weibo. It has 758,331 followers on Sina Weibo as of Tuesday, providing information on Tibetan buddhism, tourism, literature, festivals, plateau diseases and even a list of bars.

Tang Xiaoshuang, a sophomore tourist from South China University of Technology, did not think he could access the Internet in Tibet before he went there to travel.

"From Nyingchi to Lhasa and Ngari, I share my photos on the way with my friends through Wechat and Weibo," said Tang.

Tibet, with a population of more than three million, had 1.76 million Internet users and 2.26 million mobile phone users by the end of May, according to the regional communication management bureau.

Among the mobile phone users, many have smartphones who can easily access the Internet.

Gunsang Jigme, a herdsman from Biru County, spent 3,000 yuan (486 U.S. dollars) buying a HTC smartphone at a China Telecom service center in Lhasa.

A member of staff downloaded Wechat for him.

"My old cellphone could not download such applications," said Jigme. "I made some money selling caterpillar fungus this year and I'd like to share my life moments with my friends as they do."

Digging and selling the fungus, a rare plant native to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and believed to be a medicinal cure-all, can be a lucrative trade.