[Wu Bingan] The beginning of folklore in the 21st century: The connection with intangible cultural heritage
Any relationship in the world: If the combination is good, it will be good, and if the combination is not good, it will be enemies, and what will be left is all unspeakable gratitude and resentment! At present, China folklore has casually entered the 21st century for more than eight years.
In recent years, it has accidentally encountered an unfamiliar "intangible cultural heritage".
As a result, a traditional humanities and a new cultural project became connected due to close relatives of culture, and soon they became familiar at first sight, consensual, and formed close relatives.
It is obvious to all that after nearly six years of development, the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China has set off a world-recognized upsurge across the country.
It is worth noting that China folklore, which has been relatively cold and at low temperatures for many years, has unexpectedly heated up rapidly in this intense and growing cultural heat movement; at the same time, almost all folklore scholars have not only witnessed the process of this cultural heat movement with their own eyes, but more importantly, most folklore scholars from all over the country have also personally experienced and participated in the practical work of this cultural protection project, and achieved considerable results.
Faced with this new trend of cultural engineering that attracts special attention, how should we understand and think about it? What response measures and strategies should be taken? It is a practical issue worthy of serious discussion by folklore scholars in the new century.
1.
Folk culture is chosen for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, but intangible cultural heritage is not the same as folk culture, and folk culture cannot replace intangible cultural heritage.
--For example: Suppose that intangible cultural heritage is a large supermarket with tens of millions of goods, and folk cultural heritage is only a counter for some specialty goods in this supermarket.
In the face of intangible cultural heritage, the heritage of folk culture can only be chosen by the procedures for the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
International organizations have selected certain folk cultural heritage as objects when they initiated cultural heritage protection work at the end of the 20th century.
This can be said to be an innate condition for the protection of intangible cultural heritage and folklore.
At the 25th session of the UNESCO General Conference held in Paris from October 17 to November 16, 1989, the "Recommendation for the Protection of Folk Creation" was issued, which clearly stated: "Folk creation (or traditional folk culture) refers to all creations from a cultural community that are based on tradition, expressed by a group or individuals, and are considered to be in line with the community's expectations as an expression of its cultural and social identity; norms and values are passed down orally through imitation or other means.
Its forms include language, literature, music, dance, games, mythology, etiquette, habits, handicrafts, architecture and other art." This definition obviously contains a specific interpretation of folklore's definition of folk cultural traditions.
Regrettably, this recommendation has been implemented internationally for more than eight years but has had little effect.
Therefore, UNESCO adopted the "Regulations on the Declaration of Representative Works of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" at the 155th Executive Board meeting in November 1998.
Since then, the term Intangible heritage has been adopted internationally.
The "Regulations" once again clearly reaffirm that the definition of "oral and intangible heritage of mankind" is the original definition of "folk creation" that is intact and verbatim.
So far, intangible heritage is obviously related to folk culture.
It can also be said that a major cultural protection work of the United Nations has selected oral language and literature, folk music, folk dances, folk games, oral myths, folk rituals, customs, ethnic folk handicrafts, folk architecture, etc.
in folk culture as objects.
Next, on October 17, 2003, the 32nd session of UNESCO officially adopted the Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
In August 2004, my country's first-sixth signatory country joined the Convention with a rapid response.
On March 31, 2005, the State Council of my country promulgated the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country" and also formulated corresponding protection measures.
Since then, The foreign word and concept of "intangible cultural heritage" officially entered the official language of China and was quickly adopted by the academic community.
It has even become the most popular new fashion word in the cultural context of China.
The definition in the Convention is: "'Intangible cultural heritage 'refers to the various social practices, conceptual expressions, manifestations, knowledge, skills and related tools that are regarded by community groups and sometimes individuals as part of their cultural heritage., objects, handicrafts and cultural sites." (Cultural places or translated as cultural spaces) At the same time, it is clearly pointed out: "Intangible cultural heritage includes the following aspects: 1.
Oral traditions and forms of expression, including language as a medium of intangible cultural heritage;2.
Performing arts;3.
Social practice, etiquette, festivals;4.
Knowledge and practice about nature and the universe;5.
Traditional handicrafts."
In this definition and scope, although the objects of folklore still account for a large proportion, other non-folk cultural heritage that are not objects of folklore can also be seen from it.
Let's go back and look at the entry of intangible cultural heritage protection into China.
As a signatory to the Convention, China immediately placed the protection of intangible cultural heritage on the shoulders of the national government and implemented a government-led policy.
Corresponding policy documents were quickly formulated.
On March 26, 2005, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in my Country", which clearly stated that "Intangible cultural heritage is a variety of traditional cultural heritage inherited from generation to generation by people of all ethnic groups and closely related to people's lives.
Forms of expression and cultural space." This judgment.
In the "Interim Measures for the Application and Evaluation of Representative Works of National Intangible Cultural Heritage" issued at the same time, it specifically states: "Intangible cultural heritage can be divided into two categories: (1) traditional cultural expressions, such as folk activities, performing arts, traditional knowledge and skills, etc.;(2) Cultural space, that is, a place where traditional cultural activities are held regularly or traditional cultural expressions are concentrated, which is both spatial and temporal." At the same time, the scope of my country's intangible cultural heritage has been determined based on international documents,"including: (1) oral traditions, including language as a carrier of culture;(2) traditional performing arts;(3) folk activities, rituals, festivals;(4) Traditional folk knowledge and practices about nature and the universe;(5) traditional handicraft skills; and (6) cultural spaces related to the above forms of expression."
Here, there are enough international and national official documents to prove that the expressions of folk culture and their cultural spaces are indeed protected in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
This shows that it will be indispensable for folklore to intervene in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
At the same time, it also indicates that there are other cultural expressions and cultural spaces that have little to do with folklore, and that other disciplines and majors other than folklore are required to intervene.
For example, traditional performing arts such as Kunqu Opera art and Guqin art that are not recreational folk customs, many traditional arts and crafts, traditional diagnosis and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Chinese medicine processing and traditional handicrafts in various industries are outside the scope of folklore majors.
Folklore people here should have a clear understanding.
They should not think that all kinds of intangible cultural heritage are stamped with folk customs, and just think of using a pan-folklore perspective to cover the world of intangible cultural heritage, or even replace folklore research with research on intangible cultural heritage; or want to completely replace intangible cultural heritage with research on folklore.
This is obviously inconsistent with objective reality.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage selects many forms of folk culture as objects, which is a requirement of a cultural engineering goal of international organizations, countries or governments.
It certainly has certain positive significance to the applied research or professional practice of folklore; However, it is impossible to completely replace the ontology needs of folklore's own discipline construction and development.
2.
Folklore research participates in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, but folk culture is not the same as intangible cultural heritage, and intangible cultural heritage cannot replace folk culture.
--For example: Suppose that folklore is a big supermarket, but intangible cultural heritage protection work is a permanent special counter in this supermarket entrusted by the government to handle hot-selling products.
The protection of intangible cultural heritage is in the face of folklore, but it is impossible to fully accept the constraints of the academic norms of folklore.
Before encountering the completely unfamiliar concept of intangible cultural heritage, folklore research has been engaged in the theoretical and practical work of folklore and folk literature and art in its own subject field.
This is not only a scientific and practical work of folklore scholars, but also a professional work.
Even periodic cultural engineering work is without exception the job within the field of the subject.
For example, the census, collection, collation and compilation of the "Three Sets of Integration of China Folk Literature" in the 1980s has affected almost all folk literature and art scholars across the country.
This is a good proof.
Next, in the second half of 2002, the China Folk Literary and Art Association officially launched the "China Folk Cultural Heritage Rescue Project", a key cultural construction project of the National Social Science Fund, established a national working committee for the project, hired 59 colleagues in folklore and folk literature and art circles to establish a national expert committee, with Feng Jicai serving as director and Liu Kuili and Wu Bingan serving as deputy directors.
During this period, Wu Bing 'an was also responsible for preparing the draft general census outline, the outline of folk customs census, and the detailed outline of village folk customs census, participated in the on-site inspection of the village census sampling team, and compiled the detailed outline of the folk customs census questionnaire in Hougou Village, Yuci District.
In January 2003, the project announced the project plan outline, general census outline, classified survey outline, various survey forms, and published a census manual and its CD-ROM.
A national census of folk cultural heritage with literary and art societies and associations as a unit has begun, with a scheduled period of 2003 to the end of 2008.
This is the first cultural project and academic practice chosen by folklore in the 21st century that belongs to its own professional discipline.
All classification systems, census operation steps and methods can be determined to be basically in line with the norms of applied practice in the discipline of folk culture.
At this time, on January 18, 2003, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance, together with the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, officially launched the "China Ethnic and Folk Cultural Heritage Protection Project." At the launching ceremony of the Ministry of Culture on January 18, appointment letters were officially issued to two ethnic and folk cultural heritage protection project experts who were invited to attend the meeting (No expert committee has been established at this time) Zi Huayun and Wu Bingan, the former comes from the art research community, and the latter comes from the folklore community.
So far, folklore scholars have officially entered the work of protecting ethnic and folk culture led by the national government; January 24 The expert committee was established.
The first expert committee has a total of 27 members, 9 of whom are from folklore and folk literature and art, accounting for 33% of the total number of members;14 are from various art majors, accounting for 51%; Among the other four, 1 is an ethnic scholar, 1 is a social scholar, 1 is from the technical science community, and 1 is a leading cadre in cultural management.
This ratio indicates that folklore only participates in part of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, but not all of it.
It can be concluded that folklore cannot cover or cover 100% of the protection of all ethnic and folk cultural heritage, and the relationship between the field of folk customs and the field of intangible cultural heritage is an inequality.
In this conservation project, the participation of folklore is necessary and important, but it is not the main; it is limited, partial, but not infinite and complete.
It was under this division of labor that folklore participated in the specific work of the ethnic and folk cultural heritage protection project.
After 2004, the ethnic and folk cultural heritage protection project was fully transferred to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and the coordination between folklore and other disciplines was relatively normal.
Among them, the most telling thing is the work of classifying and guiding a comprehensive census of heritage.
At that time, classification codes for heritage surveys were formulated, with a total of 16 categories:
1.
Folk literature, 2.
Folk art, 3.
Folk music, 4.
Folk dance, 5.
Opera, 6.
Quyi, 7.
Folk acrobatics, 8.
Folk handicrafts, 9.
Production and trade customs, 10.
Consumption customs, 11.
Life etiquette and customs, 12.
Annual seasons, 13.
Folk beliefs, 14.
Folk knowledge, 15.
Entertainment, traditional sports and competition, 16.
Traditional medicine.
Obviously, the classification systems of intangible cultural heritage and folk culture overlap but are very different.
Such classification methods are considered from the recognition of heritage items in cultural manifestations.
Therefore, the folk literature major is responsible for Category 1; the art major is responsible for Category 2; the music major is responsible for Category 3; the dance major is responsible for Category 4; the drama major is responsible for Category 5; the folk art major is responsible for Category 6; the acrobatics major is responsible for Category 7; various scientific and technological majors (such as forging, casting, brewing, architecture, dyeing and weaving, ceramics, etc.) are responsible for Category 8; the medicine major is responsible for Category 16; and the folk custom major is responsible for Categories 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
This is an arrangement method for classifying cultural protection work by item, which is not completely consistent with the classification of the basic knowledge system of folklore.
Folklore has never been classified based on cultural expressions.
This is enough to show that the intangible cultural heritage in the perspective of folklore is not equal to the folk culture faced by the folklore major.
When the census work of intangible cultural heritage entered the stage of the representative list of heritage project application at the same time, the seven categories responsible for folklore, since it was impossible for the protection project work to be subdivided into seven professional groups for review, could only be merged into one large folk category during work operation.
As a result, a large category of folklore and a small category of other nine majors were placed in parallel classification status, resulting in a situation where folklore and folk literature were divided into two categories.
This is obviously nondescript in the classification system of folklore; but it can be held in the working classification of intangible cultural heritage, because it is catalogued by the manifestation of heritage, just as traditional medicine items are classified in the classification of folk culture.
In the classification of folk knowledge and skills, traditional medicine is a larger category parallel to folk customs in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Here, the classification system of folklore cannot be incorporated into the classification needs of intangible cultural heritage protection work.
On the contrary, the practicality of work classification can randomly constitute the classification of heritage items.
In addition to the differences in the classification systems between the two, attention should also be paid to the evaluation of folk cultural heritage in the protection of intangible cultural heritage and the evaluation of folk cultural heritage by folklore, which are obviously not completely consistent.
Intangible cultural heritage protection has established a national policy-based evaluation system from the beginning, which is a system that is not the same as the academic evaluation of folklore.
Article 6 of the "Interim Measures for the Application and Evaluation of Representative Works of National Intangible Cultural Heritage" issued by the General Office of the State Council clearly stipulates that the original text is:
"Application items for representative works of national intangible cultural heritage should be folk traditional cultural expressions or cultural spaces with outstanding value; or have typical significance in intangible cultural heritage; or have important value in history, art, ethnology, folklore, sociology, anthropology, linguistics and literature.The specific review criteria are as follows: (1) It has outstanding value in demonstrating the cultural creativity of the Chinese nation;(2) Cultural traditions rooted in relevant communities, passed down from generation to generation, and have distinctive local characteristics;(3) It has the ability to promote the cultural identity of the Chinese nation, enhance social cohesion, and enhance ethnic unity.
The role of social stability is an important link for cultural exchanges;(4) Excellent use of traditional crafts and skills to reflect a superb level;(5) It has the unique value of witnessing the living cultural traditions of the Chinese nation;(6) It is of great significance to maintaining the cultural inheritance of the Chinese nation, and at the same time it faces the risk of disappearance due to social changes or lack of protective measures."
The document first states that the outstanding value, typical significance or important value that these heritage projects should have include the important value of folklore.
This is a prerequisite clearly stated in the policy guidance for protection work.
However, the six standards proposed later are specific conditions that all heritage projects, including folk projects, must meet.
It can be explained that even if a folk cultural heritage project meets the criteria of academic value of a folk discipline, it must meet the above six criteria before it can be rated as a project of outstanding value and typical significance.
Therefore, in the process of implementing the six standards, different or even completely opposing assessment conclusions naturally emerge.
Many folk heritages with important research value in folklore, typical significance in the history of folk culture, and outstanding representation of folk culture in specific regions are often judged by the unwritten "essence and dross" and "ignorance, backwardness and feudal superstition" and excluded from heritage items of outstanding value.
Obviously, the academic value or cultural history value of folklore is of no importance here.
This is the key to the problem.
This is also the node where the protection of intangible cultural heritage and folklore research collide.
How flexible are the two evaluation standards that are not exactly the same? Can it be unified to an objective standard? It is worth pondering and dialectical.
From this point of view, it can be concluded that the protection of folklore ginseng and intangible cultural heritage is not equal to the investigation and research of the original ontology of folklore.
The former has work goals and operating procedures designated by the government, while the latter is a scientific research with disciplinary standards.
Any confused understanding of the purpose of research is inappropriate.
Folklore's participation in the protection of intangible cultural heritage is bound to implement the work goals and operating procedures designated by the government.
This is of course necessary and important for folklorists; however, it is not the main reason.
The main reason is still its own main business.
The Bench study of folklore.
Here, there is another international academic definition worth learning from.
There is a saying in my country's folklore circles: It is said that the protection of intangible cultural heritage currently being carried out by China is exactly the same as the protection of "intangible cultural property" in the "Japan Cultural Property Protection Law" implemented by Japan in the early 1950s.
Japan's "intangible cultural property" is what we call "folk cultural heritage." Therefore, the protection of intangible cultural heritage in my country is equivalent to protecting folk cultural heritage.
This is what folklore should do, but now there are many other literary and art circles, Professionals such as handicrafts and crafts come to participate in this work.
Criticize this.
However, in fact, Japan's "Japan Cultural Property Protection Law" clearly stipulates that five cultural heritage must be protected.
They are: tangible cultural property, intangible cultural property, folk cultural property, souvenirs, and traditional building groups.
It stipulates that "intangible cultural property refers to traditional drama, music, crafts and other intangible cultural achievements with high historical and artistic value." "Folk cultural wealth refers to those related to food, clothing, housing, industries, beliefs, routine festivals and other customs, literature and art, as well as the clothing, utensils, houses and other objects used for these, which are indispensable to understand the changes in national life." It can be seen that the folk cultural heritage and intangible cultural property here are not the same kind of heritage.
This clearly distinguishes the study of folklore from the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
There is no reason to equate folk cultural heritage with intangible cultural heritage, because there are many categories of intangible cultural heritage that do not fall within the scope of folk culture, and many heritage in the scope of folk culture are not included in intangible cultural heritage.
This category is relatively clear.
In the end, I have to go back and say: any form of research on the protection of intangible cultural heritage is not a disciplinary or academic research of folklore itself; let alone it should not and cannot be used to replace the research of folklore.
Even if intangible cultural heritage protection is a cultural project or work with long-term goals, it cannot replace the value and significance of the sustainable development of folklore as a basic humanities discipline.
Folklorists should have the responsibility to defend their territory!
(Revised draft on May 2, 2009)