[…] At the time, dictionaries between Chinese and the world’s languages were very few, and many languages had no competent speakers in China.

After polling several schools, Che Hongcai was found to be the only professor especially skilled at the Pashto language of Afghanistan.

Ultimately, only 70 percent of the dictionaries ordered ever saw publication during the 1980s. Most simply fell through the cracks and were forgotten as roles changed and professors passed away.

That Che persevered – unsupervised – for 34 years stunned Zhang Wenying, editor-in-chief of the Commercial Publishing House. It took Zhang two years of research to unearth the forgotten dictionary program and arrange for the publication of Che’s work. More.

See: Beijing Cream