Formatting numerals and dates in other locales in C#/.NET -

in application i'm writing want display current date , time, in english, in other locales.

for example russian, arabic , chinese.

// datetime.tolongdatestring doesn't support iformatprovider parameter datetime.now.tostring("dddd, d mmmm, yyyy", new cultureinfo("en-us")); // "wednesday, 7 august, 2013"  datetime.now.tostring("dddd, d mmmm, yyyy 'r.'", new cultureinfo("ru-ru")); // "среда, 7 августа, 2013 r." 

works fine...

datetime.now.tostring("dddd٫ d mmm٫ yyyy", new cultureinfo("ar")); // "الأربعاء٬ 30 رمضان٬ 1434" 

seems work fine.

however... i'd show numerals (eastern) arabic numerals, not latin/arabic numerals. though of course solved doing simple substitution ('٠‎' '0', 1 '١' etc).

but there's chinese:

datetime.now.tostring("yyyy年m月d日dddd", new cultureinfo("zh-cn")) // "2013年8月7日星期三" 

chinese numerals seem quite bit more complex doing simple substitution; 1 character becomes 2. next that, formatted date seems show current gregorian date, not current chinese date.

so question is:

a) there localization functionality in .net/c# display numbers (specificly dates) in other numeralsystems?

b) can force .net/c# display dates in chinese (and possibly japanese , other) calendars, seems arabic calendar?

see these questions (and answers):

• string.format not converting integers correctly in arabic

• how can display culture-specific native digits instead of arabic numerals?

• msdn: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.digitshapes.aspx

as whether work all languages? ...i wouldn't bet on it, in cultures of china there multiple ways , context-sensitive usage.