China's top legislature on Saturday voted to approve UNESCO's
convention on safeguarding intangible cultural
heritage.??
Sun Jiazheng, Chinese minister of culture, said China is rich in
intangible cultural heritage, as it has 5,000-year-long
civilization without interruption. However, as a developing
country, China's intangible cultural heritage protection is at the
verge of risk under the impact of the country's modernization
drive.
He said the approval of the convention by the 11th session of
the 10th National People's Congress (NPC)
Standing Committee will make local governments and cultural
organizations intensify the protection of intangible cultural
heritage.
The convention on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage was
passed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization on Nov. 3, 2003. By July 14, 2004, the convention has
been approved by seven countries and it will go into effect after
being approved by 30 countries.
With nine chapters and 40 items, the convention stipulates
conception of intangible cultural heritage and regulates a nation's
duties of intangible heritage protection. It also sets objective,
form, condition and procedure for applying international assistance
on intangible heritage protection.
The convention on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage
defines the intangible cultural heritage as the practices,
representations, expressions, as well as the knowledge and skills,
that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize
as part of their cultural heritage. It is sometimes called living
cultural heritage.
Fable, ballad, adage, music, dance, drama, shadow play,
paper-cut, painting, sculpture, embroidery printing and dyeing, as
well as rituals and festive events are all included in the scope of
intangible cultural heritage.
Protection of intangible cultural heritage is not optimistic in
China. For instance, only a few aged artists could play Nuoxi, a
local drama in southern China nowadays. Shadow play, which was once
popular in north China's Shannxi
Province, had more than one hundred programs before 1950's, but
today its program number dropped to less than 30.
Chinese government has recognized the importance and urgency of
safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. The Ministry of Culture
has launched some projects and set up regulations in a bid to
protect intangible cultural heritage. Some colleges have introduced
living cultural heritage into their curriculum.
China's Kunqu opera and Guqin, or seven-stringed plucked
instrument, have been proclaimed by the UNESCO as masterpieces of
the oral and intangible heritage of humanity respectively in 2001
and 2003.
(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2004)