Look up a Chinese character and see which people have used it in which poems or prose pieces at what time in history. Look up a Chinese saying and find out when it came into being and how its usage has evolved.

With the publication of the four-volume set A Comprehensive Reference for the Chinese Language (Zhongguo Yuhui Tongjian), such fairytale search through thousands of Chinese classics has become a convenient reality.

The reference series is the first in the People's Republic of China to adopt random indexing by any Chinese character one may come across, according to Professor Li Xiusheng from the Beijing Normal University.

Others agree that there have been few large-scale Chinese dictionaries with this particular indexing feature in the history of Chinese lexicography. Such a search feature allows the reader to find out the origin and various uses of characters or expressions in a wide range of works, no matter whether the word or phrase is the first in a line of verse or whether it occurs in the middle of a line.

"The series published by the Henan University Press (in December) is highly valuable because it is so convenient for people looking up the sources of idioms, allusions, and well-known sayings," said Professor Zhang Dainian of Peking University, one of the country's best-known Chinese scholars.

In his research, Zhang himself, aged 93, also found looking up literary quotations "rather troublesome."

In the past, Chinese intellectuals had been so fond of literary quotations for so many thousands of years that during the May 4th Movement, launched in 1919 and aimed at introducing modern thinking and Western knowledge rather than feudal ethics and rules, the new culture campaigners banned such citations from their new writings to make literature understandable to the masses.

For today's people, as well as for the spread of Chinese culture, "the series blazes a new trail in the exploration of the riches of Chinese culture," said Wang Zhenduo, associate president of the Chinese Editing Society.

Through most of the nation's history, the appreciation of Chinese literary treasures was the preserve of the educated elite. Nowadays this is increasingly less the case as the country's education improves. The public's love of the traditional classics has brought about changes in the study of literature.

According to Wang, such changes were first seen in the public's practical attitude to ancient cultural wealth. Instead of spending lots of time in memorizing ancient verses and essays, more people choose to understand them and, when necessary, simply look them up in handy data bases.

Now, ordinary people are showing increasingly more interest in studying famous sayings, idioms and poems, and quoting from them in their own writing or speeches instead of reading entire classics.

"This is because the pace of life today is getting faster and people's needs vary," said Wang, a professor with Central China's Henan University based in Kaifeng, although scholars remain fond of intensive study of the classics.

Professor Li Xiusheng echoed the same opinion. Li noted such methods are more conducive to overseas people interested in Chinese language and literature and "more helpful in the spread of Chinese culture."

"The series is a response to the needs of the general public," said Liu Zhanfeng, chief editor of the reference series. "The four volumes are a start for us to improve the indexing and speed up the spread of Chinese culture."

Liu, now general manager of Xinhua Bookstore in Kaifeng, embarked on this undertaking in the late 1980s when he found himself caught in laborious searches for the origins of his favourite poems. His spare-time efforts have been enhanced by the convenience and efficiency of computers during the past two decades.

"The strenuous research is indeed very useful but very dull and it takes a strong mind to persevere in this kind of work," said Deng Shaoji, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "Its publication is an immeasurable benefit for us."

The reference, currently in four volumes, collects 35,000 Chinese idioms and 43,000 celebrated quotations excerpted from almost all of the ancient Chinese literary classics and works in the fields of history and economics.

(China Daily March 7, 2002)