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Co-organized by Cultural Monthly magazine and Beijing Union University, a nine-month national intangible cultural heritage knowledge contest has concluded with 154 people from a range of professions winning.
But at the awards ceremony on June 8 in Beijing, experts called for more action to preserve culture.
"While society is developing so fast today and changing people's lifestyles and customs a lot, our intangible cultural heritage must be passed down to future generations," said Qu Shengrui, a former official in the Ministry of Culture. "The accelerating processes of industrialization and modernization are damaging that heritage.
"Just people's participation is far from enough," he said. "Some workers actually lack related knowledge and do not know how intangible cultural heritage should be passed down, so they can only bring about negative impact on protection."
Yuan Li, one of the creators of the knowledge test and researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts, agreed with Qu, adding that a key to protecting intangible cultural heritage is establishing the right concepts from basic definitions and the government's role to commercialization.
Liu Qingzhu, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said "as the family relationship is maintained by blood, a nation is bonded by culture".
"Carriers of intangible cultural heritage deliver something in a civilization," he said. "While the methods of delivery could change with time, the essence remains the same."
He said one example is how the Chinese express filial piety. In the Sui (AD 581-618) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties, people made tri-colored glazed pottery, but today they make paper figures instead.
"The aim of protecting intangible cultural heritage is not just to preserve it in museums or libraries, but to pass it down, to let more people know," he added.
The knowledge contest was held from September last year to May 2014. The test questions were published in Cultural Monthly magazine and on a number of websites, allowing all people to participate, regardless age, businesses or location.
Over the same period, organizers also held lectures on the subject across the nation. More than 10,000 answer sheets were submitted.
A mother and daughter were among those who won awards. The mother, a statistician in the countryside, won first prize, while her daughter earned a second-place award.
The Cultural Monthly magazine will start columns inviting the makers of the test to give detailed answers to the questions and interact with readers.
A previous intangible heritage knowledge contest was held in 2011.
zhangzhao@chinadaily.com.cn
