Miao scholar shares his culture in classroom

Before Yang Zhengjiang enrolled at Guizhou Minzu University in 2002, he had little idea of the rituals and traditions of his ethnic group, the Miao.

Yang was born and raised in the remote Mashan township of Guizhou's Ziyun county, where the Miao people have lived for hundreds of years without much contact with the outside world.

Yang said that during his upbringing, he spoke the language but had no idea of its written characters or of Miao literature or the folk arts found in the elders' singing or storytelling.