[Liu Shouhua] On Cultural Ecology and Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection

At the beginning of the New Year in 2006, we ushered in a happy event for China's cultural construction.

The Ministry of Culture announced the first batch of 518 recommended protection lists to be included in the national intangible cultural heritage, of which Hubei Province accounted for 20 items.

Subsequently, a national exhibition on the protection of intangible cultural heritage was held in Beijing, which opened people's eyes.

Now is the first Cultural Heritage Day.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage is advancing with unprecedented strong momentum.

Intangible cultural heritage protection projects are of great significance.

In August 2004, with the approval of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People's Congress, my country joined the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage formulated under the auspices of UNESCO.

Originally, we have been implementing a large-scale national and folk cultural protection project nationwide since 2003.

After signing and joining the international convention, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country" in March 2005, which further strengthened and enriched the national and folk traditional cultural projects that were originally being implemented.

The main body of intangible cultural heritage is still national and folk traditional culture.

As Minister Zhou Heping of the Ministry of Culture pointed out, these cultural wealth "is the spiritual vegetation and soul root of our nation, and is also an important foundation for our construction of advanced socialist culture with China characteristics today." [1]However, the various challenges brought about by economic globalization and modernization have caused the living environment of our country's ethnic and folk traditional culture to deteriorate rapidly, and face the fate of continuous destruction and disappearance.

Therefore, rescuing and protecting these cultural heritage has become a top priority for national cultural construction.

After the end of fierce class confrontations and ethnic conflicts in one country and many countries, people began to pay attention to the protection of cultural heritage and the construction of a new life.

It is obviously a major progress in human civilization; from protecting material cultural heritage and natural heritage to protecting oral and intangible cultural heritage, the scope of protection continues to expand, which is another major progress in human civilization.

It shows people's high respect for cultural creativity and cultural diversity, and also marks the enhanced awareness of safeguarding the country's national cultural sovereignty.

It is of great significance to the sustainable development of human society.

The comprehensive implementation of this cultural project in our country will undoubtedly play a huge role in promoting our construction of a modern harmonious society.

(1)

Protecting intangible cultural heritage is a huge cultural project.

Based on the census, we are currently conducting a selection of some of the most representative and important items to be included in national and local directories is only the beginning of this project.

The scientific protection that comes with it has become more arduous and difficult.

In the "Opinions" issued by the State Council on March 26, 2005, there is a general outline for building an "intangible cultural heritage protection system with China characteristics", which is:

For representative works of intangible cultural heritage included in lists at all levels, methods such as naming, awarding titles, commendation and reward, and funding and support can be adopted to encourage inheritors (groups) of representative works to carry out teaching activities.

Through social education and school education, the inheritance of representative works of intangible cultural heritage will be made possible.

It is necessary to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights of intangible cultural heritage.

Research and explore ways to carry out dynamic and holistic protection of villages and specific areas with relatively complete traditional cultural ecological protection and special value.

In communities and villages with distinctive traditional cultural characteristics and a broad mass base, carry out activities to create a hometown of folk traditional culture.

[2]This is a summary of the successful experiences of protecting folk traditional culture in some pilot areas, which will be continuously enriched and improved in the future promotion and implementation process.

This involves the issue of "cultural ecology".

Based on my experience of studying folk literature and folk culture in Hubei for many years, I think that "cultural ecology" is a theoretical and practical issue of key significance in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

It is urgent to attract the attention of all parties through discussions.

Otherwise, the so-called "scientific protection" will be difficult to implement and achieve due results.

Whether people tell stories, tell jokes, sing, dance, or act, from the perspective of general genetic principles, it can be said that they are all "feeling sad and acting according to events"; However, these folk literary and artistic activities in different time and space The rise and fall of heat within the interior is not an isolated event.

It is always related to certain special conditions and customs in people's production and life to become a trend and persist for a long time.

Take the long-standing folk song style in the "Lujiahe Folk Song Village" at the foot of Wudang Mountain as an example.

People play "grass harvesting gongs and drums" when working in the fields, and herd cattle children sing "war songs" to entertain each other in the mountains and fields.

They sing even more when holding weddings, funerals, and funerals, and funerals, singing "disturbing the night", singing "disturbing the year", and festivals, and singing "warming the house." Since hundreds of thousands of migrant workers gathered in the Ming Dynasty to build the Wudang Mountain Taoist Palace, this area has a rich accumulation of folk songs from the south and the north.

Coupled with the long-term cultural atmosphere created by Wudang Mountain as a Taoist holy place, the atmosphere of singing folk songs has been integrated into people's daily life and constitutes a local characteristic.

This is the "cultural ecology" we want to study.

During production and construction, people over-felled trees, causing soil erosion and flood disasters.

After such painful lessons, people understand that protecting the environment must start with protecting the "natural ecology".

This has become the consensus of the public in all countries in the world today.

This principle is also applied to cultural construction.

The concept of building cultural ecological reserves and implementing the protection of folk culture or intangible cultural heritage starting from the protection of cultural ecology is derived from this.

It can be seen from such examples that the composition of folk cultural ecology should have the following two basic characteristics:

First, it is an interactive system composed of interrelated aspects around a certain folk cultural activity.

"A single filament cannot make a thread, and a single tree cannot make a forest." No matter what style of folk literature and art, it cannot survive in isolation from relevant social and cultural conditions.

Second, it is presented in a living state, wedged into the daily production and life of the people, and plays its own special functions.

Its movement changes are both spontaneous, but also have an intrinsic motivation that makes it pass down from generation to generation and has sustained and stable vitality.

Based on this, I believe that the scientific protection of intangible cultural heritage must start from grasping and protecting such cultural ecology.

It is not difficult to understand that only living water can feed fish.

The problem now is that "with the strengthening of globalization and the acceleration of modernization, my country's cultural ecology has undergone tremendous changes," as a result, many aspects of national and folk traditional culture have been seriously impacted and destroyed; under this circumstance, how to protect, restore and rebuild the relevant cultural ecology requires careful research and exploration.

As far as I know in recent years, with the rapid transformation of our country's society, the changes in rural folk cultural ecology have shown a very complex and diverse trend.

Therefore, countermeasures to effectively protect relevant intangible cultural heritage from improving cultural ecology must also be targeted.

Treat it flexibly and not simply do it with a one-size-fits-all approach.

(2)

The folk cultural ecology in some areas has been relatively well maintained, so related folk literary and artistic matters can survive to this day.

Among the 20 projects listed in the national directory this year in Hubei Province, Changyang Tujia people dance and dance, namely "Sa Ye Er", and "Hanchuan Shanshu" in the art of rap, are examples in this regard.

Tujia dance funerals have a history of hundreds of years.

When local funerals are held for the elderly who have passed away, the coffin of the elderly must be parked at home and gathered to sing and dance to "make a night" for one to two or three nights.

Its songs and dances are beautiful and vivid, fully demonstrating the vigorous temperament of the Tujia people.

The Bashan dance adapted from it has fully demonstrated its artistic vitality as a modern fitness dance; it holds funerals as festive activities, integrating weddings and weddings and weddings.

It is not only a rare song and dance entertainment in mountainous areas, but also can enhance the friendship between the countryside.

It has multiple positive social functions, thus constituting a folk custom that is popular among the people and continues to endure; In addition, the party and government leaders and cultural people in Changyang County cherish the cultural wealth of the nation very much, creating a good atmosphere for its survival.

The connection and interaction of the above aspects not only makes the funeral songs, dances and rituals survive to this day, but also has a tendency to spontaneously extend to urban residents.

As for "Hanchuan Shanshu", it is not only because Shanshu has a long history in the local area, and a large number of artists and cultural workers who love it have always grasped it, accumulating 300 to 400 old and new books; it is also because it integrates traditional customs for storytelling and leisure in teahouses in the same town, and can improve its content and singing form with the progress of society.

The "good books" popular in the south and the "treasure scrolls" popular in the north belong to the same type.

They evolved from the customs of monks in temples in the Tang Dynasty.

They originally had a strong religious color and were relatively monotonous in form.

However, the saying of "good books" that is popular in the Hanchuan area of Hubei Province has long faded from the color of religious belief, but it has maintained its close proximity to people's life and the valuable characteristics of moral education.

Moreover, male and female artists perform cross-singing.

The form is flexible, simple and lively.

In this way, it becomes vibrant in the local folk cultural ecology.

Under the above circumstances, the following protection measures proposed by the National Center for the Protection of Folk Culture are completely feasible.

This measure is: "By establishing cultural and ecological protection areas and naming the hometown of ethnic folk culture and art, the original ecological culture will be preserved relatively completely and dynamically and continuously protected.

Cultural areas with special value and rich characteristics." [3]In these places, the inheritance of folk art varieties with ethnic and local characteristics can be supported by local government departments and loved by groups, and relevant folk art varieties can also show vitality in a relatively stable cultural ecology.

After all, there are not many cases where folk cultural ecology is protected relatively completely like this.

In the mid-1980s, I conducted a rough survey on the survival status of folk oral literature in the countryside through students from the Chinese department of Huazhong Normal University from all over the country.

The conclusion was that the original folk literature is relatively rich, emerging popular culture has dominated, and the old and the new are intertwined, accounting for about one third of the world, each accounting for one third.

[4]Twenty years have passed now, and the territory of original folk oral literature has been greatly reduced.

As a result, even one-third of the areas with a relatively complete folk cultural ecology may not reach, and the living conditions of intangible cultural heritage have deteriorated sharply.

The maintenance, restoration and reconstruction of folk cultural ecology has become an important topic that needs to be studied and solved urgently.

Two issues that have attracted much attention are proposed here for discussion.

One is the transformation of folk culture into tourism cultural resources, and the other is whether the cultural ecology of some folk oral literature can be rebuilt.

Transferring relevant non-material cultural heritage projects to the tourism market has become a hot topic of attention.

China's tourism industry is developing rapidly.

Among the three most attractive tourism and cultural resources, in addition to the beautiful natural scenery and wonderful scenic spots and historic sites, which have eternal charm, those colorful folk customs are becoming increasingly attractive and have become a hot tourism project.

Nowadays, many places attach great importance to intangible cultural heritage-related projects, largely because they want to develop them as pockets of the tourism market.

At tourist attractions, interspersing local folk songs and dances and using them to attract tourists has become a common business strategy in the domestic and foreign tourism industry, and it is nothing new.

I visited several places with a deep tradition of folk literature and art, and local cultural people told me that it is difficult to find beautiful girls in the village who can sing, dance, and they have all gone on tourism.

But this is not enough to constitute the cultural ecology of a region.

In the Lujiahe Folk Song Village in Wudang Mountain, Hubei Province we mentioned above, among the local simple customs, singing folk songs was originally customary.

However, in the past 20 years, this custom has gradually faded, and the original cultural ecology has been fragmented.

This place, known as the "First Village of Han Folk Songs", was discovered by folk artists 10 years ago and became famous across the country through various media reports.

It later became one of the local tourism brands, realizing the transformation of a "folk song village" into a tourist attraction.

In recent years, rural construction and residents 'living conditions have made great progress, showing bright development prospects.

It must be noted that there are two most important conditions for the reason why Lujiahe Folk Song Village can reach this point.

First, the folk songs are full of performance and can attract tourists; second, it is close to the Wudang Mountain Taoist Temple, which is listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site, and is on the tourist hotline.

If it were not for the Wudang Mountains, it would be difficult to enter the real tourism cultural circle by relying on a certain folk culture.

In the development process over the past few years, Lujiahe folk songs and a group of folk singers have become famous all over the world.

A large number of folk songs have been recorded orally by residents, and the atmosphere of singing folk songs has been strengthened under the new situation.

Tourism has also brought some negative effects.

For example, no one listens to "The Song of the King", which is of the most historical and cultural value, but many tourists pestered beautiful girls to sing "dirty songs"; when making film and television programs, the choreographers led the peasant actors by the nose and walked around, blindly aligning with the fashionable colors of the cultural market, making them irrelevant from singing to costumes, etc.

As the kitsch tendency that caters to tourists 'fashion tastes dominates the tourism market, it cannot but cause a certain degree of damage to the simple and vigorous original folk literature and art.

This situation is universal in China at present, so it has attracted the attention of scholars.

As a scholar pointedly pointed out in a recently published treatise: "No matter what form the development of folk cultural tourism takes, there is a contradiction between authentic development and distorted development." This distortion is not only manifested in the vulgar adaptation and production of the original work, but more seriously in the "self-derogation" of the cultural awareness of the indigenous residents:

From the perspective of sustainability, we should first start by eliminating a destructive self-identity among folk and marginal cultural holders, which is imposed by the discourse of modernity and has been internalized into the self-identity of these cultural holders.

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The self-derogation of folk and marginal cultural holders is the most effective means for modern discourse to oppress marginal and folk discourse.

These cultural holders should be made to realize that there is no distinction between superior and inferior cultures and should all occupy a place in world culture.

[5]

Scholars 'concerns about the negative effects brought by the development of folk culture tourism deserve our serious consideration.

However, judging from the tourism development of Lujiahe Folk Song Village, I think its positive effect on promoting the inheritance and protection of folk culture is the main one.

Over time, it will constitute a new cultural ecology to stabilize.

What we need to do is to use scientific methods to protect the characteristics of traditional folk culture from being damaged.

This requires popularizing modern cultural knowledge not only to tourism operators, but also to local residents participating in it, improving their cultural consciousness and cultural taste, and effectively implementing relevant national regulations on the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

The generation of the original folk cultural ecology was spontaneously realized.

In today's market economic environment, tourism culture, is deeply driven by economic interests; blindly catering to fashion trends will inevitably cause distortions in folk cultural products.

The transformation of many intangible cultural projects in various places into tourism cultural resources has become a general trend today.

We should adopt active guidance and rectify the source, rather than sit on the sidelines and let go of the fast-flowing attitude to promote the successful realization of this transformation.

Let's talk about the contemporary destiny of folk stories, an oral language art.

Storytelling is the most popular cultural and recreational activity in agricultural and handicraft societies.It can be interspersed in many production and labor processes, and is the most convenient entertainment during leisure and a close companion for children in childhood.

However, since the great changes in rural areas in China began in the 1980s and 1990s, storytelling activities have become increasingly declining due to the rapid changes in people's production and lifestyle.

Just in the Wudang Mountains in Hubei Province, there is also a "Wujiagou Folk Story Village" that is comparable to Lujiahe Folk Song Village but is more well-known.

In the 1980s and 1990s, through the efforts of local folk artists, two story collections were collected and published, and special documentaries were also filmed under the auspices of UNESCO.

From the perspective of static protection, excellent results have been achieved.

But now most young people in the village go out to work, and the children are busy with studies from morning to night.

The "Story Hall" built more than ten years ago originally had more than 30 residents, but now only a few old ladies live a lonely life there.

The original cultural ecology of oral stories no longer exists.

Although the people concerned are very anxious, they have so far not found a way to resurrect it.

The famous German philosopher Walter? In his novel article "The Storyteller" published in 1936, Benjamin once asserted that the talent of storytelling was cultivated in an agricultural and manual production environment.

It requires the storyteller's heart, eyes and hands.

A high degree of coordination, so this is the reason why "the art of storytelling, woven thousands of years ago in the oldest atmosphere of manual production, has gradually faded." [6]His observations and thinking are quite reasonable.

Such a situation has not only occurred in Europe and the United States, where modern industry and commerce are developed, but also in China.

The rich and beautiful folk stories created by the people of all ethnic groups in China over the long years still remain in many corners waiting for scholars to record them.

However, it is almost impossible to restore the cultural ecology of storytelling in the past.

Wujiagou Story Village has also tried to transform into tourism culture to seek a new way out, but with little success.

This is not only because Wujiagou Village is not within the viewing area of Wudang Mountain Taoist Palace in terms of geography and transportation, but also because farmers 'impromptu stories are far less lively and moving than singing folk songs.

In this way, the cultural and ecological issue of storytelling seems to have reached a dead end and it is difficult to find a way.

This forces us to turn our horizons overseas.

In the mid-1980s, Ms.

Jenny Yoren, an American children's writer known as the "King of Stories", edited and published an extensive "Overview of World Famous Folk Stories".

In its "Preface", I actually read something like this: "Today, America is once again ushering in the 'Renaissance' period of storytelling." It turns out that the United States once had an interesting journey of storytelling activities that was once a "Renaissance".

Please see her narration:

Today, the United States has once again ushered in the "Renaissance" period of storytelling.

In the middle of this century, except for some remote areas who still carry storybooks in their pockets, storytelling is dying in the United States...

Later, radio appeared, and then movies appeared, and television was the most fatal attack on storytelling.

The listener and the narrator are far separated by various advanced electronic equipment...

The 1960s was a period of revival of folk customs.

Young people were first fascinated by folk skills, and then deeply attracted by the simplicity of folk songs and folk songs.

These young people couldn't wait to find their roots again and find the roots of themselves and others.

Another activity was born amid the root-seeking craze.

In 1974, an inconspicuous story festival was held in Zenisboro, an unknown town in Tennessee.

At that time, more than 200 people, most of whom were curious listeners, came here on weekends.

Today, Zenisboro's October Story Festival attracts more than 3,000 people, including storytellers, learners and listeners.

There are also story festivals, story seminars and story weekends in more than 20 states across the United States, and even Canada and the United Kingdom have begun to hold such activities.

Storytelling is still a part of daily life in many places around the world...

Thanks to the efforts of American storytellers, storytelling has become a common practice throughout the North American continent.

[7]

We don't know what the current situation is in this regard.

However, in 1994, the author visited the "Xihua Village" in Tono City, Japan.

There, he listened to several female storytellers telling stories to tourists from afar who came for special tourism.

The story itself and the way it was told were as original as possible.

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In 1998, I went to visit relatives in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, and I also met people who told stories to young readers in the local children's bookstore.

It can be seen from this that although the crisis faced by the cultural ecology of storytelling is global, it also has the possibility of restoration and reconstruction.

It is not like ordinary folk performing art that can be flexibly wedged into tourism culture, but it shows its independent and viable cultural value with the unique charm of oral narration.

It just needs to be recognized and actively advocated by people.

(3)

Whether it is to maintain, restore or rebuild the cultural ecology of intangible cultural heritage mentioned above, the key is inseparable from the people who create and enjoy these cultures.

When these cultural events truly return to the people and take root in their production and life, they will become a stable cultural ecology and effectively protect relevant folk cultural wealth.

There is still much to be done in this regard.

For example, in education, folk literature, customs, etc.

of various ethnic groups and regions can be incorporated into local local teaching materials, allowing singing of folk songs and telling stories to come into the classroom, which has been piloted in many places.

This article is also included in the folk culture protection regulations that are being drafted and submitted to the National People's Congress for approval.

This is a century-old plan to carry forward the fine traditions of national culture.

For another example, my country has many life festivals and annual festivals, which can be appropriately restored.

There have been many new festivals set up after the founding of New China.

If folk literature and folk culture can be integrated into these festival activities, my country's cultural ecology will become more rich and diverse, and many folk cultural products will also come alive.

For example, the cultural department of Hebei Province proposed to use the Qixi Festival, when the cowherd and the Weaver Girls meet on the Magpie Bridge, as a Love Festival to replace Valentine's Day, which was introduced from the West, and many people responded.

To implement the protection of folk culture or intangible cultural heritage, a lot of work needs to be done.

It is not only necessary to protect the noumenon of those folk cultural events, but also to protect the cultural ecology that depends on them.

We should especially cherish those ethnic and folk cultural ecosystems with profound traditions and not cause them to suffer new damage; the cultural ecology transforming into tourism culture should pay attention to maintaining the simple and vigorous characteristics of folk culture itself; in addition, we should also strive to restore or cultivate a new cultural ecology that is conducive to the growth and vitality of multiple ethnic folk literature and art.

As long as we make active efforts, the goal of "raising live fish with running water" in the protection project of intangible cultural heritage can be achieved.

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[2]National Center for China Ethnic Folk Culture Protection Project: "Survey Manual of China Ethnic Folk Culture Protection Project", 173 pages, Culture and Art Press, 2005 edition.

[3]"China Folk Culture Protection Project" is 9 pages, compiled and compiled by the National Center for the Protection of National Folk Culture of China Ethnic and Folk Culture in 2004.

[4]Liu Shouhua: "Rural Transformation and Folk Literature in China," Sichuan Folk Literature Essay ", Series 3, December 1987.

[5]Liu Xiaochun: "One Person's Folk Vision", 142 pages, Hubei People's Publishing House, 2006 edition.

[6](German) Selected Works of Benjamin, 299 pages, China Social Science Press, 1999 edition.

[7](America) Jenny Yoren,"The World Written Famous Stories: Preface" translated by Pan Guoqing and others, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1991.