"Ark Peace" or "HE PING FANG ZHOU" they're all right, but "DAI SHAN DAO" is no longer in use at time.

IMO numbers beginning with 4 are not old as they were never used when Lloyd's Register introduced the "unique number" concept in 1963 by adding "5" to the beginning of the number of all ships in that year's register; so the lowest was 500001; later the check digit was added, which would make that number 5000017. From 1964 to 1990 the numbers did show the year of completion (or year of order from 1971). From 1991 numbers were issued sequentially with no new annual series, to ensure numbers did not run out after 1999. 7xxxxxx series were used for older vessels that were not in the 1993 register. Later other categories were given separate series, for example 1xxxxxx for large yachts. It looks as if 4xxxxxx are now being issued, though the 9xxxxxx series has not yet run out - it may be cause this ship is a non-commercial Government vessel..

She has a very old IMO for such a newish build.

Hello Justin.
On Shipspotting, as generally in the rest of the shipping world, we do not translate the names of ships into English or any other language, whether they be German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic or Chinese. What is done is to take the genuine ship's name - in this case 和平方舟 - and transliterate that into a basic western alphabet. There are international norms for doing this. The commonest reference for the ship is HE PING FANG ZHOU, including Equasis (which is what we normally follow, where possible), other international registers and even the ship's own AIS display. Of course that undoubtedly means in English "Peace Ark" or "Ark of Peace".

It is a little more complicated with this ship because she has an alternative PLAN name, which would used when acting as a military hospital ship is time of conflict: 岱山岛 = DAI SHAN DAO ("Daishan Island"), but it is hoped that it does not come to that, and it clear that at present the ship is 和平方舟 or HE PING FANG ZHOU.

I hope that this helps to untangle this a little.

She's name is "Ark Peace",NOT Dai Shan Dao!NOT Dai Shan Dao!NOT Dai Shan Dao! "Ark Peace" print on Gangway and “和平方舟”（Ark peace in chinese） in the Conference Room and ship emblem. http://jz.chinamil.com.cn/zttj/hepingshiming/content/2011-10/27/content_4711151.htm
http://news.ifeng.com/gundong/detail_2011_11/24/10883764_0.shtml