Spinning, by Naruo. Photos courtesy of Naruo

Naruo, who lived and worked in a lawyer friend's flat, would spend long hours each day in the library, copying and interpreting the ancient texts.

He made a living from selling paintings. His paintings, extolling Naxi life, the beauty of youth and the snow-capped peaks and gorgeous river valleys of his home country, were well received.

"Of the 14 paintings I sent to a gallery the first time, six were sold," he recalls.

He was particularly drawn to the form and meaning of the pictographs of Naxi Dongba, or shamanistic priests. He adapted typical pictographs, such as the sun, birds and water, to his own work.

In 2000 he returned to Beijing to teach at his alma mater and continued researching ancient Naxi pictographs. His book, An Annotation of Ancient Naxi Pictographs, was published by the Ethnic Publishing House last year.

Naruo describes his 20 years of research as "lonely and happy" and his current life as "quiet and happy".

The book, a collection of more than 800 pictograph words and almost 100 sentences, introduces the skills of "writing" and painting, and shows his oil paintings featuring typical elements picked from the Naxi ancient texts.

He plans to write more such books and include the almost 1,000 sentences the current collection could not accommodate, but won't sell them.

His apartment, near the campus, is bare, except for his paints and brushes - and almost 20 pairs of shoes. There is an open kitchen at the end of the living room with an overflowing refrigerator.