[Wu Bingan] China's Intangible Cultural Heritage: The protection of inheritors is increasingly standardized
After more than five years of concerted efforts across the country, my country has made great progress in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
In the comprehensive census, the establishment of a national four-level heritage list, the protection of representative inheritors, the construction of cultural and ecological reserves, the construction of intangible cultural heritage special museums, folk museums and training centers, the construction of protection institutions, funding investment and legislation on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, etc.
In the vigorous promotion of various aspects of work, unprecedented breakthroughs have been made in the protection of representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects, which has attracted special attention from the whole society.
As we all know, the objects of protection of material cultural heritage are objects, while the objects of protection of intangible cultural heritage are first and foremost people.
They are the carriers and transmitters of precious knowledge and superb skills of intangible cultural heritage.
They are the representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage passed down from generation to generation.
Only by protecting them and their inheritance mechanisms can it be possible to rescue precious heritage from the endangered situation where people die and people die.
Therefore, the protection of representative inheritors is the top priority in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Based on the above clear understanding, my government has actively played a leading role in the past few years and effectively promoted the protection of representative inheritors from the following two aspects: First, the Ministry of Culture is carrying out the first and second batches of national-level intangible cultural heritage.
During the process of applying for and reviewing the list of intangible cultural heritage, we lost no time and staggered the identification and naming of representative inheritors of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects.
On the one hand, a special representative inheritor review committee has been established to be responsible for the identification and review of representative inheritors; on the other hand, review rules and identification standards and conditions for representative inheritors have been formulated.
In addition to the common standards for all representative inheritors, specific evaluation standards for ten different professional categories have also been formulated.
After repeated identification, review, verification, confirmation and other links, the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects were finally announced on June 9, 2007.
There are 226 representative inheritors in the five major categories of folk literature, acrobatics and competition, folk art, and traditional handicrafts.
On February 15, 2008, 551 representative inheritors of the second batch of national-level projects in the five major categories of traditional music, folk dance, traditional drama, folk art and folk customs were announced, totaling 777.
Immediately afterwards, on February 28, 2008, the Ministry of Culture held a grand certification ceremony for representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage projects in the Great Hall of the People.
Badges and certificates were issued to representatives of representative inheritors from all over the country.
These public activities of great significance have attracted the attention and praise of the whole society, especially the vast number of rural grassroots people and urban community people who are working hard on the front line of intangible cultural heritage protection.
What followed was that various provinces and regions successively carried out the identification and naming of provincial representative inheritors, making the work of protecting inheritors the biggest highlight and craze for a while.
The most prominent example is Yunnan Province.
So far, a four-level inheritor protection mechanism has been established.
1893 inheritors at the county level in the province alone have been named, making the inheritors of this multi-ethnic province with intangible cultural heritage The protection was implemented as early as possible.
2.
The Ministry of Culture solemnly issued the "Interim Measures for the Identification and Management of Representative Inheritors of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Projects" in the form of a ministerial order, effectively increasing the protection of inheritors from the implementation of policies and regulations.
This interim measure specifically stipulates the identification standards, rights and obligations, application and recommendation, review and publicity, funding for teaching activities, and establishment of inheritor files for representative inheritors of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects.
It is highly feasible and easy to implement.
Some provinces (autonomous regions) have also earlier promulgated local interim measures for the identification and management of representative inheritors, all of which have played an effective role in promoting the identification and management of representative inheritors.
At present, the implementation and implementation of the Interim Measures has produced obvious results in three aspects in many provinces and cities across the country to the grassroots level.
First, a group of representative inheritors have received subsidies and provided living allowances or allowances.
In particular, the living conditions and living conditions of old artists and old craftsmen have been improved.
For example, in the past two years, Zhejiang Province has allocated funds from the provincial finance to provide national and provincial representative inheritors over the age of 65 with a subsidy of 3000 yuan to 4000 yuan per person per year until the inheritor's death.
Some regularly pay living allowances ranging from a few hundred yuan to one or two thousand yuan to old artists.
Second, a group of representative inheritors or inheritance units have received funding for teaching activities, allowing them to continue to effectively carry out teaching activities.
For example, under difficult conditions, Huan County, a poverty-stricken county in Gansu Province, also provides a subsidy of 500 yuan per person to the old inheritors of the national intangible cultural heritage project Daoqing Shadow Puppet Troupe to carry out teaching activities.
Some good ethnic minority song and dance training centers in Yunnan, Hubei, Hunan and other places have also received corresponding financial subsidies to carry out training and apprenticeship activities, so that a number of national treasure intangible heritage can be effectively protected and passed down.
Third, a group of representative inheritors have received strong funding, and the protection unit will seize the favorable opportunity to make rescue recordings and videos of the representative inheritors 'skills, so as to provide a living preservation or database for the representative inheritors' superb skills., prepare materials.
For example, 86-year-old Tan Zhenshan, a well-known folk storyteller in the country and a representative inheritor of national projects in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, has received a subsidy of 200,000 yuan from the state.
The protection unit is systematically recording and filming thousands of folk stories told by the elderly, and the progress is smooth and the results are remarkable.
His first collection of stories has been published.
A multi-volume hardcover edition of nearly 10 million words from the Manchu National Heritage Department of Jilin Province has also been publicly available.
Obviously, the protection of representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects has entered a positive track of standardization in many places across the country.
To this end, the competent work of the Ministry of Culture took advantage of the situation.
On July 28, 2008, the General Office issued the "Notice on Recommending Representative Inheritors of the Third Batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Projects".
The content of this notice was formulated based on summarizing previous experience and overcoming past shortcomings, which is obviously much stricter than in the past.
At the same time, in the work requirements item, special attention is also paid to the recommendation and application of representative inheritors in earthquake-stricken areas.
This is the spirit of "Special Affairs in Earthquake-stricken Areas" reflected in the recommendation of the third batch of national-level representative inheritors.
Along with the notice, a recommendation form in a unified format was also issued.
The "Notice" clearly stipulates that recommendation materials will be submitted to the Ministry of Culture before December 31, 2008.
People expect that the recommendation, application, identification and review of the third batch of representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage projects will achieve greater results, so that the protection of intangible cultural heritage can have a greater leap forward!