On April 9, the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress launched a law enforcement inspection on the implementation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Intangible Cultural Heritage Law and the Beijing Intangible Cultural Heritage Regulations to find out the protection and inheritance of the intangible cultural heritage in the capital.
In recent years, from the local level to the national level, the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage has been paid more and more attention. The 2024 government work report proposes to promote the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. The work report of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) in 2024 proposed that the law enforcement inspection of intangible cultural heritage will be carried out this year.
Many deputies to the National People’s Congress said that China is a big country with intangible cultural heritage, and intangible cultural heritage is a treasure of Chinese culture. It is necessary to organically combine protection, inheritance, development and utilization through measures such as introducing incentive policies, strengthening the construction of talent teams, and deep integration with cultural tourism, so that intangible cultural heritage can be "protected", "lived" and "passed on" to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese excellent traditional culture.
Improve the legal protection system
On June 1, 2011, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law came into force. Since then, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have successively issued regulations on the protection of intangible assets.
Under the protection of laws and regulations on intangible cultural heritage protection, China’s intangible cultural heritage protection has made great progress in recent years. At present, there are more than 100,000 non-legacy representative projects at all levels in China, including 1,557 national non-legacy representative projects.
As a non-legacy craftsman of Zhuang embroidery, Lan Lin, deputy of the National People’s Congress and technical director of Zhuang embroidery factory in Zhuang Meifang, Mashan, Guangxi, deeply realized that to inherit and protect the non-legacy craftsmanship, it must be alive, and the old craftsmanship should be brought back to daily life and integrated into the smell, temperament and aesthetic style of current life. With the progress of the times, you can be "young" if you don’t leave.
"When we inherit and develop traditional Zhuang embroidery, we attach great importance to letting Zhuang embroidery skills show a product related to the aesthetics of the times through contemporary design and aesthetics of the times." Lan Lin hopes that there will be more policies to support the exhibition or sales channels, so as to vigorously promote the development of intangible cultural heritage.
Xu Zerong, deputy to the National People’s Congress and director of the Xu Zerong Kiln Art Museum in Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province, suggested improving the legal protection system with the intangible cultural heritage law as the core, encouraging all localities to improve relevant local laws and regulations in light of actual conditions, and further improving the intangible cultural heritage laws and regulations system.
"It is necessary to strengthen supervision over the implementation of laws and regulations and establish a law enforcement inspection mechanism for intangible cultural heritage. Comprehensive use of copyright, trademark rights, patents, geographical indications and other means to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights of intangible cultural heritage. " Xu Zerong said.
Actively cultivate young talents
The key to intangible protection lies in people. At present, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has identified 5 batches of 3,068 national-level intangible heritage inheritors, and more than 16,000 provincial-level representative inheritors have been announced by various provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities).
At the same time, however, the aging of the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects and the lack of successors can not be ignored. How to actively cultivate young talents is a topic of concern to the delegates.
Xiang embroidery is one of the four famous embroideries in China. Cheng Xinxiang, deputy to the National People’s Congress, executive director and general manager of Hunan Xiangxiu Research Institute Co., Ltd., suggested that traditional culture should be empowered by science and technology, so that intangible cultural heritage can shine in modern society and cultivate richer cultural self-confidence.
"We must constantly enhance the attractiveness of digital cultural products and show the contemporary value of Chinese excellent traditional culture." Cheng Xinxiang suggested making full use of digital technology to innovate and transform traditional cultural content forms and create more digital cultural products bearing Chinese culture and China spirit; Empower Chinese excellent traditional culture with digital technology and realize "culture+technology" and "non-legacy+technology". At the same time, college students are encouraged to combine art design, intangible cultural heritage protection and digital technology to cultivate intangible cultural heritage scientific research and development and creative talents.
Chen Cheng, deputy to the National People’s Congress and vice chairman of Jiangsu Dramatists Association, has been very concerned about the systematic inheritance of traditional Chinese opera culture. "Every drama in the drama industry has leading figures who can represent the highest level of drama. On this basis, how to systematically promote the inheritance and construction of young outstanding drama talents needs to further explore more appropriate measures."
Chen Cheng suggested to further improve the relevant mechanisms to encourage leading talents and provide more support policies, so that more outstanding artists can better and systematically impart skills and better inherit the excellent Chinese traditional culture.
Explore the integration and development of cultural tourism
In recent years, many places have organically combined the protection, inheritance, development and utilization of intangible cultural heritage by exploring the development path of cultural tourism integration and innovating intangible cultural heritage industries, thus giving full play to the positive role of intangible cultural heritage in promoting economic development.
Laomudeng Village, Pihe Nu Township, Fugong County, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, is located halfway up Biluo Snow Mountain and is called "the village on the cloud" by tourists.
Yu Wulin, a deputy to the National People’s Congress and a villager in Laomudeng Village, explored "non-legacy+tourism" in the process of developing homestays, and incorporated non-legacy performances such as "Oh De De", "Dabia" and oral string into the tourist reception process, which was well received by tourists. After years of exploration on the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, Yu Wulin feels that only by integrating national culture and intangible cultural heritage skills into the tourist experience can rural tourism be promoted for a long time, and intangible cultural heritage can also bloom more fascinating brilliance.
"Intangible heritage is a high-quality cultural resource for tourism development. How to activate and make good use of intangible heritage on the basis of protecting intangible heritage is a very challenging proposition of the times that cannot be ignored. " Yao Jianping, deputy to the National People’s Congress and vice chairman of the China Association of Literary and Art Volunteers, said.
Yao Jianping believes that the standardization of the integration of intangible cultural heritage and tourism should be strengthened, so as to better protect and inherit intangible cultural heritage, improve the quality of tourism services, shape the local image and carry forward excellent traditional culture. Therefore, it is suggested to strengthen the organization and management of the standardization of the integration of intangible cultural heritage and tourism, formulate the standards for the use of Chinese intangible cultural heritage signs in tourism, standardize the procedures and processes of the integration of intangible cultural heritage and tourism, and establish the protection responsibilities and behavior norms of stakeholders related to the integration and development of intangible cultural heritage and tourism. (Pu Xiaolei)