The authenticity of the substrate is the essence and soul of intangible cultural heritage

Reporter Zhou Yue) Recently, the 9th Chinese Studies Research Forum of China Academy of Social Sciences, sponsored by the Department of Literature, History and Philosophy of China Academy of Social Sciences and hosted by the Institute of Ethnic Literature, was held in the Academic Report Hall of the Academy.

The theme of this forum is "Theory and Practice of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection".

Zhang Qingshan, Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of China Academy of Art, Liu Kuili, Honorary Member of the Faculty of China Academy of Social Sciences and President of China Folk Society, and Chao Gejin, Director of the Institute of Ethnic Literature and President of China Ethnic Literature Society, respectively gave thematic reports titled "Concepts and Practices in the Construction of Cultural Ecological Reserves","Inheritance Mechanism and Protection Principles of Intangible Cultural Heritage","'Root of Human Expression of Culture': Interdisciplinary Study of Oral Tradition."

Protecting intangible cultural heritage: from indifference to attention

"In the development of cultural undertakings in China, nothing has attracted widespread attention than the protection of intangible culture." Zhang Qingshan said that this is an affirmation of China's rich and colorful intangible cultural heritage and an affirmation of China's intangible cultural heritage protection work.

In fact, my country's intangible cultural heritage work did not start early.

Zhang Qingshan introduced that when UNESCO first published a representative work of human oral and intangible cultural heritage in 2001, China's Kunqu Opera was included in the published list for the first time.

After UNESCO announced the news at its headquarters in Paris, China only reported one piece of news on the night's news broadcast, and other media did not respond.

When the news of Japan's Noh drama and raving claims successfully applied for the World Heritage Site reached Japan, the whole country was jubilant, just like the reaction when China successfully applied for the Olympic Games.

Such a huge contrast reflects the gap between us and Japan in the protection of intangible cultural heritage at that time.

This gap is not unrelated to the historical process of each country and their understanding of their own culture.

Why do Japanese people attach so much importance to their culture? Japan is the country that best combines suits and kimonos.

Kimonos must be worn for the most solemn ceremonies, but this does not affect their modernization process, because Japan has experienced a painful process.

The process of self-understanding.

During the Meiji Restoration, Japan put forward the slogan of leaving Asia and joining Europe, but after the end of World War II, Japan legislated to protect its intangible cultural wealth, because after World War II, Japan deeply felt that the Yamato nation lost its dignity and autonomy under the occupation of the US military.

During the U.S.

occupation, even singing kabuki was not allowed.

This made the Japanese people deeply realize that the country can be occupied, but if the culture of a nation is also eliminated, this country and this nation will truly be destroyed.

my country has proposed the protection of intangible cultural heritage and has received great attention in a short period of time.

It even appeared in the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

This shows that we have realized that intangible cultural heritage is something that is very needed for the development of our country and nation.

Academic circles have also made many contributions to this end.

At this forum, experts introduced theoretical thinking on intangible cultural heritage from different aspects.

This is not only a sorting out and summary of past protection work, but also an important and far-reaching impact on future intangible cultural heritage protection practice and research.

Cultural and ecological protection experimental areas should be established

Zhang Qingshan said in his report that the establishment of a cultural and ecological protection experimental zone is an important measure taken by my country in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

Intangible cultural heritage is "intangible culture", a product of certain lifestyles and production methods, and is closely connected to people's lives, customs, and beliefs.

Intangible cultural heritage has a material carrier, but it reflects its value through intangible forms.

The expression and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is a living process.

Whether it is music, dance, drama, etc., folk customs, festivals, rituals, etc., it is all completed in a dynamic manner.

This is the characteristics and laws of intangible cultural heritage.

In the protection of intangible cultural heritage, we must adhere to the principles of integrity, vitality, and authenticity.

Only in a certain cultural and ecological environment can intangible cultural heritage survive and develop better, which requires measures to establish cultural and ecological reserves.

It is reported that eight cultural and ecological protection experimental zones have been established in our country, namely, the Southern Fujian Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Huizhou Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Sichuan Qiang Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Qinghai Regong Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Zhejiang Xiangshan Marine Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Guangdong Meizhou Hakka Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, the Hunan Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, Shanxi Jinzhong Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, etc.

Zhang Qingshan believes that to establish cultural and ecological reserves, we need to adapt to local conditions and develop our own characteristics based on the actual conditions of each place.

We must also "return farmland to forests".

Due to economic development and other factors, our cultural and ecological environment has undergone great changes, and some of them need to be "restored", especially the restoration of customary activities, respect for beliefs and customs, and the protection of traditional festivals are extremely important.

In a cultural ecological area, customary activities play an extremely important role in restoring, restoring and protecting the cultural ecology.

In addition, we must attach great importance to the revitalization and inheritance of traditional handicrafts.

Intangible cultural heritage protects the authenticity of the substrate

"In today's era,'utilitarian' often overrides 'meaning', which often leads us to short-sighted use of intangible cultural heritage that can provide assistance to cultural development as a means of pursuing utilitarian efforts in the face of utilitarian development.

At this time, special attention must be paid to the principles for the protection of intangible cultural heritage determined according to its nature, with special emphasis on the issue of the authenticity of the intangible cultural heritage." Liu Kuili believes that the authenticity of the matrix means that a thing still has its own unique attributes, and is a prescriptive measure to measure that a thing is not another thing or has not transformed or transformed into another thing.

For intangible cultural heritage objects, the authenticity of the substrate is its essence and its soul.

If the soul is present, the objects are present; if the soul changes, the objects will also change; the disappearance of the soul means that the objects are like the end of life.

Protection is to make a heritage project maintain its original attributes as much as possible under an ideal state through conscious efforts.

The minimum requirement is to prevent the project from losing its most basic attributes.

Because of the loss of its most basic attributes, the project is no longer itself.

The concept of substrate authenticity does not ignore and especially does not oppose cultural changes and innovations, but ensures the basic consistency of cultural events while recognizing the legitimacy of the community itself to carry out cultural adjustments and cultural innovations.

Cultural changes are inevitable.

As long as the changes do not lose their authenticity, as long as the basic nature, structure and function of cultural events and the value relationship between the events and people do not change fundamentally, they can be regarded as normal.

The change and evolution of culture has its own laws.

In this law, naturally, there are also external factors.

However, any artificial "catalysis" that violates the law will damage the normal life process of cultural events.

Paying attention to the matrix authenticity of things is to combine two seemingly opposed but completely unified concepts such as protection and development to achieve dialectical unity.

The gap between oral and written poetry is not always insurmountable

Chao Gojin said that among the five categories of "intangible cultural heritage" listed by UNESCO,"oral tradition" is listed first, and its importance is undeniable.

In environments where there was no writing to be used, such as the ancient times before the invention of writing, or places that are still in a "non-writing society" today, most of the information is passed down orally, and there are special information transmission methods such as African "drum language"), which we collectively call "oral tradition".

In the "oral tradition", the various genres of folk literature-myths, legends, ballads, stories, proverbs, especially epic and other large-scale verse narratives-are the most important styles.

Chao Gejin introduced that among human information transmission technologies,"oral tradition" is the most ancient method and the most complex internal rules.

Oral thinking is very different from written thinking.

There are great differences in the understanding and classification of things between illiterate and non-illiterate societies.

The conceptual world of illiteracy is more related to their own experiences and practices than to reasoning.

Generally speaking, the characteristics of illiteracy's thinking and expression can be summed up as: addition rather than progressive, aggregation rather than analysis, redundancy or "repetition", conservatism and tradition, closeness to the humanistic life world, confrontational style, empathy and participation, dynamic balance, situational rather than abstract, etc.

Chao Gejin believes that with an in-depth analysis of this oral thinking and expression characteristics, it will be easier to understand several attributes of oral poetry.

Recent research has shown that there is not always an insurmountable gap between oral poetry and written poetry.

In many societies, different types of singers can be observed.

They are exposed to tradition, are influenced by contemporary education, and are influenced by written culture.

As a result, they use some of the rules of written literature in their narratives, and their works have some characteristics of written literature.

Rather than saying that there is a polar oppositional relationship between oral poetry and literati poetry, they are a genealogical relationship from one end to the other, with a large number of intermediate transitional types in between.