Society

China marks national Cultural Heritage Day

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-06-11 22:37

JINAN - Contests, exhibitions and performances are just a few of the activities that were organized to celebrate Cultural Heritage Day in East China's Shandong province on Saturday.

The main venue of the national event is the city of Jining, where famous Chinese scholars Confucius and Mencius were born.

A children's quiz contest, an exhibition of historical streets and a completion ceremony for the renovation of the city's Yan Temple, where one of Confucius' students once lived, were included in the event.

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Event participants were encouraged to jointly sign an agreement calling for the public to join in the government's efforts to protect the country's cultural heritage.

This year's activities showed that the protection of cultural heritage is a common interest among the public, said Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The activities were intended to encourage citizens to be more aware of the need to protect China's cultural heritage, as the protection of ancient relics is in the public's best interest, said You Shaoping, vice director with the Shandong provincial bureau of cultural heritage.

The Chinese central government declared in 2005 that every second Saturday of June would be celebrated as Cultural Heritage Day in order to promote the protection of its rich cultural resources.

Similar efforts were made Saturday in other parts of the country as well. In Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet, a center for protection of intangible cultural heritage was set up in the latest attempt to better protect traditional Tibetan culture.

In the Chinese capital, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage unveiled an audio-version guidebook of notable historic sites along the city's central north-south axis.

This signaled the kick-off of Beijing city authorities' campaign to have the main historic sites along the central axis on the world cultural heritage list.

INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS

In addition to the official efforts, ordinary people around China also contribute to the protection of cultural heritage.

"Since the government attaches great importance to cultural heritage protection, I feel it's my responsibility to pass down the Mongolian Long Tune," said Lu Badema in her 70s.

Badema, who was named as an typical inheritor of Mongolia Long Tune in 2008, accepted an offer to teach the national intangible cultural heritage  at Inner Mongolia University two years ago.

Known as the "living fossil" of Mongolian music, long-tune folk songs were included in the UNESCO representative list of world intangible cultural heritage in 2005. The inclusion was applied for jointly by China and Mongolia.

As many young teachers and students invited her to participate in activities to promote Mongolian culture, Badema often skipped her nap at noon with utter joy.

"Busy but fulfilling" is the phrase Badema often uses to describe her teaching career.

On Saturday, Xiong Xinglan, an inheritor of Miao embroidery, also an intangible cultural heritage, showed her needlework at the Guizhou Provincial Museum.

Xiong said that she began to learn embroidery skills at 11, but then the skills were used in clothes-making, and nowadays embroidery has become a fashion.

Xiong has asked her two granddaughters to learn the Miao embroidery. "I do this not only for living and hobby, but also for the continuance of Miao people's traditions," she said.