About the blog

This site is designed to be an accessible, one-stop resource and blog for those who wish to learn more about the Naxi Dongba script and the culture of Lijiang 丽江, in China’s Yunnan province.

The first problem for the average Western enthusiast is this: about 98% of all material related to the scripts is in Chinese.  Even the huge research project undertaken by the Dongba Culture Research Institute that translated a large chunk of the Dongba scriptures was conducted in Chinese, save for a few poorly translated abstracts. This is a great shame, especially when you keep in mind that it was in fact a western scholar/explorer, Joseph Rock, who opened the door to Naxi studies.

The second problem is that unlike more popular scripts, such as Chinese and Tibetan, there are virtually no online resources to aid in the study of the Naxi Dongba script.

These humble pages are an attempt to redress the balance, to provide the English-speaking enthusiast and interested reader with a collection of study aids, book reviews, articles and other items of interest that will hopefully help them to get to grips with this most fascinating of scripts.

About the author

Duncan Poupard studied Chinese and Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and has studied the Naxi pictographic script at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences  (Lijiang).

Like many, my first contact with the Naxi and their pictographic script happened completely by chance, on a trip to Lijiang in 2004.  Since then, I have endeavoured to study the script, and in doing so have collected a fair number of textbooks, dictionaries and other academic or not-so-academic works which form the basis of a lot of the writing on this site.

I am wholly responsible for any mistakes or oversights present on this site. Please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch if you would like to make any corrections or contributions.

Contact e-mail: duncanjamespoupard at gmail.com