[Zhou Xing] Understanding cultural heritage from the perspective of "inheritance"

In recent years, domestic discussions on cultural heritage issues and cultural administrative practices related to cultural heritage have aroused widespread social repercussions and produced some preliminary but very important consensuses on cultural issues.

This is undoubtedly a new trend in the current social and cultural development of China.

This article will mainly discuss some academic issues related to cultural heritage, advocating that cultural heritage should be understood from the perspective of "inheritance" first.

In what sense and on what basis can culture be regarded as "heritage"? What is the significance of selected cultural heritage in modern society? Can cultural heritage really be protected intact? What is the relationship between the current strong government intervention in cultural heritage administration and academic cultural understanding? The author believes that the prerequisite for answering these questions is to return to the origin of inheritance, the basic attribute of culture [1].

Although some scholars admit that the inheritance mechanisms of oral inheritance and written inheritance are different, they pay more attention to the relativity of oral inheritance and written inheritance and the basic fact that they coexist, interact and complement each other in most writing societies.

In their view, oral inheritance and written inheritance are just two different inheritance models that have been idealized.

There is no absolutely insurmountable gap between them.

Although there are some differences in carrier forms or inheritance forms, their social and cultural functions are similar.

They are not so much two different knowledge traditions as they are just two easier means of inheritance or communication that are abstract from social culture or knowledge inheritance mechanisms that are easier to understand.

It is worth mentioning that in many ethnic groups, localities or specific grassroots communities, the cultural heritage rescue and inheritance activities committed by some intellectual elites with a sense of crisis and mission have raised many new questions for us.

Lijiang Dongba Cultural School, established in 1995, aims to protect and promote the Dongba culture of the Naxi nationality.

It cultivates key talents who can inherit Dongba culture through "running classes".

It also edits and publishes Naxi hieroglyphs, sacrificial rituals, and various teaching materials such as ancient books and traditional crafts [23].

In addition, Lijiang also has a Naxi Language Inheritance School sponsored by Naxi intellectuals.

These are all cultural inheritance experiments between formal and informal education, and their effectiveness remains to be tested.

Although there are some problems with such attempts, for example, does the right to interpret Dongba culture lie in Dongba, or does it lie with the researchers who run such schools? The inheritance of Dongba skills and knowledge takes place not in the community but in schools.

What does this mean for Dongba culture? Is the Dongba culture passed down through such schools still the previous Dongba culture? In any case, the spirit of the community elites who are committed to cultural inheritance is admirable and very commendable.

A virtual or even real "global village" that transcends the nation-state is gradually becoming possible in the Internet age.

At the same time, the margins of grassroots traditional communities within nation-states are becoming increasingly ambiguous or even disintegrating.

New communities are emerging one after another.

The intergenerational inheritance of culture presents a chaotic situation due to the rapid growth of knowledge and information and changes in knowledge methods.

In the contemporary era when knowledge is overwhelmed by various information and knowledge is rapidly electronic and digital, the way people obtain knowledge and information through modern media has gradually become the norm, which directly leads to the decline of the importance of traditional knowledge authority and promotes the continuous emergence of new knowledge authority.

At the same time, the knowledge and cultural inheritance of traditional grassroots communities (villages, towns) that are increasingly marginalized has been broken, which has also promoted various lifestyles, communication methods, and entertainment methods with more or less traditional attributes based on such communities or regional societies.

and various folk art categories have become intangible intangible cultural heritage due to the danger of inheritance.

The rapid popularization of radio and television in the 1970s and 1980s and the rapid decline of Leting drum artists and listeners around the same period [28] may be a typical epitome of this great change.

In fact, various differences in the international community on cultural issues have always existed for a long time.

Except for competition for declarations in the general sense, it is usually that developing countries participate more actively in such projects of the United Nations because they face massive erosion of Western culture and have a stronger sense of cultural crisis.

At the same time, some issues involving transnational cultural events or so-called cultural "sovereignty"(including "invention rights ") are also very eye-catching.

For example, in 2004, the news that the Gangneung Dragon Boat Festival in South Korea was to be declared as a world intangible cultural heritage triggered intensive discussions in China.

It not only promoted citizens 're-evaluation and protection awareness of traditional culture, but also emerged slogans and trends such as "Protect the Dragon Boat Festival." Stimulated by rumors of South Korea's application for the Dragon Boat Festival, Miluo, Hunan Province reopened the international dragon boat race that had been suspended for six years.

Before and after the Dragon Boat Festival in 2005, the idea of China and South Korea jointly declaring the Dragon Boat Festival as a world intangible cultural heritage and the opposition of Miluo locals to this idea can indeed be regarded as a typical example of such differences.

Coincidentally, at the 28th World Heritage Committee meeting in June and July 2004, China applied for the inclusion of the "Koguryo King City, Royal Mausoleum and Nobles Tombs" in Ji 'an City, Jilin Province, in the World Cultural Heritage List, which also attracted criticism from South Korea and North Korea.

It can be seen from the above situation that similar problems are often prone to arise between different countries or regions that are adjacent to each other and have a long history of cultural exchanges.

Here, the differences between nationalist and cultural views of human heritage are clearly visible.

On the occasion of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2005, Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province held the "First China Zongzi Culture Festival" and issued the "National Standards" for the Zongzi industry.

It is said that it was drafted by a food enterprise group in Zhejiang and approved by the National Development and Reform Commission.

Is there really no problem for a commercial company to make such use of the intangible cultural heritage of the entire nation? One of the criticisms about the commercialization trend of the Dragon Boat Festival is that the Dragon Boat Festival, which has a long history, rich connotations and many regional types, should not be simplified to a "Zongzi Festival".

Similarly, various developments surrounding the development or folk application of other folk cultures and intangible cultural heritage are currently active across China.

Among them, the one-sided pursuit of economic benefits and the over-utilization of world heritage or various intangible cultures as "cash cows" have caused many problems, and even damaged the authenticity and integrity of the original appearance of cultural heritage.

[11]A kind of female worker's supplies spread in southwestern Shandong, Shandong Province.

It is mainly used to store shoe patterns and various embroidery "flower patterns".

Usually, small woodprints less than a foot long are bound into books of varying thicknesses, and then a whole piece of home-woven blue dye cloth is used to wrap the book cover to make the cover and the back cover.

The shape is like a thread-bound book, so it is called a "book".

See Pan Lusheng and Zhao Yi's "Whose Books", Folk Culture Forum, No.

6, 2004.