[1] The history of literature and its protection [2]
Summary: Folk literature (Oral literature) is a kind of oral language art literature that the broadest lower class of people, with farmers and craftsmen as the main body, reflects the objective world, social life and spiritual world in a fantasy and artistic way.
It is soaked with their value judgments, moral judgments, ethical judgments, right and wrong judgments, etc., so it has a distinct ideological nature.
Ideology and criticism are the fundamental attributes and basic characteristics of folk literature.
There are some misunderstandings in the national "intangible cultural heritage" list in the protection of folk literature.
Legend accounts for the largest proportion, while folk stories are relatively small.
In addition to a few works such as "Lankeshan", there are many world-renowned fantasy stories or magic stories, such as "Cinderella","Snake Lang","Frog Girl","Clever Daughter-in-law","Snake Wife", and "Hundred Bird Clothes"; Life stories, such as "Dog Farming the Field","Stone Gate Opens","Frog Husband","Don't Give Up Without Seeing the Yellow River", and "Ginseng Stories"; Animal stories or fairy tales,"grandma wolf","Zhongshan wolf","cat and dog feud"...
none of them have been established at the national level, which has been scientifically and effectively protected, making the directory system unbalanced.
The reasons are not only the concepts and interests of local governments, but also the disconnect between theoretical research and protection work.
For folk literature "intangible cultural heritage", advocating record preservation, including written records, video records and digital protection methods, is not only in line with the provisions of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China," but also an effective protection method widely adopted by countries around the world.
Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage era; oral language art; misunderstandings; record-keeping
1) Starting from the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Era"
The "integrated era" of China's folk literature, which began in the 1980s and lasted for 25 years, has ended with the arrival of the 21st century.
The beginning of the new century has pushed the development of folk literature to a new era-the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Era." What is the basis for saying that folk literature is in the "intangible cultural heritage era"?
First, in order to adapt to the social transformation and cultural changes brought about by the modernization process, inherit and carry forward excellent traditional culture, and promote the prosperity and development of socialist culture, since 2003, my government has begun to implement the "China National Folk Culture Protection Project" under the policy of "government-led, social participation" was changed to "China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Work" after 2005.
At about the same time, In 2002, the non-governmental organization China Folk Literary and Art Association launched the "China Folk Cultural Heritage Rescue Project" specially commissioned project by the National Social Science Foundation.
Internationally, UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage on October 17, 2003.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of my country ratified this treaty in August 2004, and my country became one of the earliest signatories.
The protection of my country's folk culture, including folk literature, has since been incorporated into the framework and concepts of the UNESCO Convention.
Second, due to the rapid development of modernization, globalization, informatization, especially urbanization, the rural population has dropped sharply.
By the end of 2012, the urban population had accounted for 52.57% of the national population.
The farming society, rural settlements, which are interdependent with folk literature with oral communication as the main form, have undergone and are undergoing unprecedented rapid changes and transformations.
As a result, the folk literature passed down orally by the people has shown a trend of rapid decline, becoming endangered, and even partially disappearing, making rescue and protection work unprecedentedly urgent.
Third, my country ratified, or accepted, the UNESCO Convention in 2004, and at the same time has to assume the obligations stipulated in the Convention, which means accepting its concepts at the national level.
The concept is expressed as follows: "'Intangible cultural heritage 'refers to the various social practices, conceptual expressions, manifestations, knowledge, skills and related tools, objects, handicrafts and cultural venues that are regarded by communities, groups, and sometimes individuals as part of cultural heritage.
This intangible cultural heritage has been passed down from generation to generation and is constantly recreated as communities and groups adapt to their surrounding environment and interact with nature and history, providing these communities and groups with a sense of identity and continuity, thereby enhancing cultural diversity.
and respect for human creativity." [1]My country's government-led intangible cultural heritage protection project), since joining the Convention, work has been carried out in accordance with this definition, and court cultural heritage, religious cultural heritage and people's cultural heritage are collectively referred to as intangible cultural heritage.
Protect.
According to this statement by UNESCO, folk literature, as one of the intangible cultural heritage, of course, emphasizes that it is constantly recreated, recognized and continuously developed among a certain community or group, without considering or ignoring its creator, inheritor, communicator, and holder.
This expression is inconsistent with the generally recognized concept in my country's folk literature and art circles in the past century.
In my country's academic circles, since Xu Weinan's "Folk Literature", the first general work in the 20th century, although different researchers have slightly different specific expressions, they generally believe that folk literature is created and passed down by the lower class of people with farmers and craftsmen as the main body.
That is to say, what Mr.
Lu Xun called "the art of producers" rather than "the art of consumers"[2].
Accepting UNESCO's philosophy is undoubtedly a major turning point and change in the construction of folk literature and art in China.
At least the author does not dare to agree with this non-discrimination theory or the theory of the whole people, because if I agree with this concept or theory, it will be tantamount to obliterating the ideological and critical nature of folk literature, which are the fundamental attributes and basic characteristics of folk literature and all literature and art.
Folk literature, oral literature) is an innate oral language art.
Its survival, dissemination and continuation rely on oral and spiritual teachings among the general public at the bottom of society.
As long as language as a communication tool is created by humans, humans will continue to create folk literature (oral literature); and the reason why folk literature (oral literature) is constantly created is to adapt to the need of human beings as "social people" to "express opinions".
With the advancement of human society and entering class society, social stratification and class opposition have emerged.
Folk literature, oral literature, has become the exclusive spiritual product of the ruled lower-level workers and producers.
As their "aspirations", it has been continuously created and passed down, and is distinguished and opposed to aristocratic literature and court literature with its criticism of society.
Due to the oral nature of the inheritance and dissemination methods of folk literature, any work of folk literature, oral literature, is completed through continuous superposition and layering, that is, in the process of inheritance and transmission, groups and individuals are constantly pondering and revising the ground.
There are gains, elimination, and continuous improvement.
Due to the increase of human psychological needs and the improvement of human mind, the genre form of folk literature (oral literature) has become increasingly complex.
From the original single myth, it has formed myths, legends, stories, jokes, epics, narrative poems, dramas, rap, proverbs, common sayings...
and other genres coexist.
In terms of its nature, folk literature, oral literature) is a literary work that reflects the objective world, social life and spiritual world by the broadest masses of the people at the bottom of society in a fantasy and artistic way.
It is soaked in their value judgments, moral judgments, ethical judgments, judgments of right and wrong, etc., so it has a distinct ideological nature.
In terms of its quantity, among all categories of human intangible cultural heritage, folk literature is not only the largest in quantity, but also the most concentrated and direct reflection of the national spirit or the spirit of national culture.
The importance of folk literature (oral literature) in the cultural heritage of mankind is self-evident.
This is why UNESCO's Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage lists it at the top of the five intangible cultural heritage categories in the definition of "intangible cultural heritage".
Due to the characteristics of oral inheritance and oral communication of folk literature, folk literature is often positioned as oral language art in literary and artistic theory.
This characteristic also determines its mutability, variability) and instability.
Only in this way, folk literature (oral literature) is one of the cultural heritage that is most alienated from matter.
Contemporary society is a material era.
Usually everything is related to material.
Folk literature and oral literature is precisely the category of intangible cultural heritage that is most irrelevant to material and most alienated from money.
There are no secular "interests" and "political achievements" to speak of, so in the protection of intangible cultural heritage, it is often in a "weak" position that is not taken seriously.
Advocating material and abandoning spirit is certainly a manifestation of some Chinese people being confused and lacking "cultural consciousness" in the material era.
However, since a trend or tendency has been formed, it has increased misunderstandings and difficulties in protection work.
It is really a kind of helplessness.
Intangible cultural heritage protection workers in various places often encounter or hear such situations: those with high economic value, or those with interests, or those with political achievements are often valued, while those with low economic value and no interests are often despised or ignored.
The tendency to despise or ignore folk literature is because folk literature, oral literature, has no interests to seek and no political achievements to speak of.
This obviously involves the issue of understanding the value of folk literature (oral literature).
We say that in terms of the value of intangible cultural heritage, a brocade, a Thangka, a jade carving, and a lacquer carving may be invaluable in terms of economic value, while a sachet, a paper-cut, a dance, a folk song, a folk story, and a New Year painting cannot be compared with them, but in terms of cultural value, they are the same.
If everyone has such an understanding, the significance of the protection work and the measures taken will become different.
2) Misunderstandings of intangible cultural heritage lists in folk literature
Since 2006, my country has successively established a list system consisting of intangible cultural heritage lists at the national, provincial and municipal levels, prefecture-level, and district and county levels.
By 2011, according to the data released by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture, there were 1219 items in the national directory.
There is a lack of official statistical data on the total number of provincial-level directory items.
According to the author's statistics, as of May 10, 2013, there were 8994 items contained in the national provincial-level directory.
The "directory" system has achieved great results.
However, because my country's list protection adopts a bottom-up declaration method, and local governments often link heritage applications with government achievements and economic interests, an imbalance in the "list" has been consciously or unconsciously caused.
This imbalance has increasingly shown a tendency to be detrimental to the healthy and stable development of the list system.
There are 8994 intangible cultural heritage projects received in the national provincial directory, of which 698 are folk literature projects, and folk literature accounts for 7.8% of the total number of projects in the national directory.
[3]There are 1219 items contained in the three batches of national-level intangible cultural heritage lists, while there are only 125 items in folk literature, accounting for about 10% of the total.
The status of the national directory is shown in the following ranking table:
If we compare the selected items in the national directory with the "common story types" identified by experts from various provinces in the "Three Collections of China Folk Literature" collected and compiled in the 1980s, the problem will become more obvious.
Due to space constraints, it is impossible to list all the "common folk story types" in 30 provinces, cities, and districts.
We have to select one province, city, and district from each region as an example:
1) In Northeast China, there are 27 common story types in Liaoning Province.
[7]In my opinion, at least 18 are worth protecting: 1.
Tiger mother, tiger grandma);2.
The old monkey spirit marries a daughter-in-law;3.
Snake Lang;4.
Toad son;5.
Weird child weird child);6 The calf marries a daughter-in-law;7.
Baibird clothes;8.
Two brothers Xiao Tang Luo);9.
Western Heaven Ask Living Buddha Ask Living Buddha);10.
I will not shed tears until I see the coffin, and I will not give up until I reach the Yellow River;11.
People's hearts are not enough to swallow a snake;12.
Invisibility Cloak;13.
Golden Colt;14.
The road knows the horsepower;15.
Clever daughter-in-law;16.
Panic 3;17.
Fools learn to speak;18.
Ugly wife.
However, none of the two batches of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" entered.
2) In North China, there are 15 common story types in Beijing City.
2) In North China, there are 15 common story types in Beijing City.
[8]In my opinion, at least 9 of them are worth protecting: 1.
A clever daughter-in-law;2.
A wolf mother and a tiger grandmother);3.
A treasure is suppressed; 4.
A cat and dog feud;5.
A fool learns to speak;6.
The people are weak and the snake swallows them.
7.
It is fate that they come thousands of miles to meet; 8.
Don't give up until we see the Yellow River;9.
People die for wealth and birds die for food.
However, none of the two batches of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" entered.
3) There are 17 common story types in Northwest China and Shaanxi Province.
[9]In my opinion, there are at least 14 worthy of protection: 1.
Grandma Wolf;2.
The old monkey spirit married a daughter-in-law;3.
The Guoluo child cried;4.
The son of the toad;5.
The fairy girl in the painting;6.
Wang En and Shiyi;7.
Western Heaven Ask Buddha;8.
The Yellow River is not dead;9.
The soul is weak;10.
The first wife dies;11.
A greedy brother and a righteous brother;12.
The road knows the horse's power from a distance, and the people's hearts are seen over time;13.
Choose son-in-law;14.
Open a hole to explore treasures and open the stone door).
However, none of the two batches of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" entered.
4) There are 30 common story types in East China and Zhejiang Province.
[10]In my opinion, at least 19 are worth protecting: 1.
Rats marry their daughters;2.
Cats and mice;3.
Dogs and cats have feud;4 Tigers are afraid of leaks;5.
Sika deer encounters tiger;6.
Tiger grandma;7.
Marry Snake Lang;8.
Field snail girl;9.
Three Danshui and the Dragon Girl);10.
Ten Brothers;11.
Hundred Bird Clothes;12.
Dogs plowing the fields;13.
The Peacock Gong Brothers split up);14.
People's hearts are not enough to swallow a snake;15.
Embroidery Shoes Falling in the Cloud;16.
Mandrill hat;17.
Digging gold ingots;18.
A clever daughter-in-law is in charge;19.
A foolish son-in-law pays his respects to his son-in-law).
However, none of the two batches of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" entered.
5) There are 12 common story types in Southwest China and Sichuan Province.
[11]In my opinion, at least 11 are worth protecting: 1.
Snake Lang;2.
Dogs plowing the fields;3.
Field snail girl;4.
Toad son;5.
Ask Buddha;6.
People's hearts are not enough to swallow a snake;7.
Xiong Family Grandma Lang);8.
Dragon Girl;9.
Wangniangtan;10.
Luo Yin sent waist;11.
A clever wife solves difficult problems.
However, none of the two batches of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage List" entered.
Up to now, only a few intangible cultural heritage projects such as folk literature, oral literature, have entered the national list, such as the story of Liang Zhu, the legend of the cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the legend of the white snake, the legend of Dong Yong and the story of Lankeshan.
However, there are 20-30 of the above-mentioned stories identified by experts as "common story types" in each province, such as the story of a sweater girl (the famous swan virgin story), the story of a snail girl, the story of a clever daughter-in-law, the story of two brothers, the story of a tiger's grandmother, the story of a snake boy, the story of a mouse marrying a daughter...
and other widely circulated and popular folk stories and story types have not entered the national directory.
If we think that the number of "common folk story types" from all provinces, cities, and districts) may be too large, then at least 60 types proposed by experts are common nationwide after research., it is undoubtedly something you can refer to.These 60 types are: 1.
The mouse marries his daughter; 2.
The chick takes revenge; 3.
Tigers are afraid of leaks; 4.
Cats and dogs have feud; 5.
Grandma Wolf; 6.
Zhongshan Wolf; 7.
Centipede repays kindness; 8.
Yihu; 9.
The righteous dog savior; 10.
The myna bird takes revenge; 11.
Grateful animals and ungrateful people;12.
Weak people;13.
Lankeshan;14.
Immortal test;15.
Please poor gods;16.
Seeking good luck;17.
Ghost couple;18.
Ghost mother raising children;19.
Fishermen and water ghosts;20.
Song Dingbo sells ghosts;21.
Chasing the city god;22.
Murderous houses catching monsters;23.
Shimen opens;24.
Sun Mountain;25.
Silver transformation;26.
Ginseng essence;27.
Cooking sea treasure;28.
Being conscience;29.
snail girl; 30.
Snake wife; 31.
Dragon Girl; 32.
Fairy rescues husband; 33.
Shelang; 34.
Frog husband; 35.
Marriage for a month; 36.
My heart will never die without seeing the Yellow River;37.
Strange child;38.
Ten brothers;39.
Black horse Zhang San brother;40.
Dragon son Wang Niang;41.
Hunter Hailibu;42.
King of Hell;43.
Long horn on his head;44.
Long nose;45.
Dog farming;46.
Cinderella;47.
Girl with broken hands;48.
Calf wedding;49.
Dragon silkworm;50.
Two old friends;51.
Road distance knows horse power;52.
Zhang Lang divorces his wife;53.
The old man is a treasure;54.
Hundred bird clothes; 55.
Clever daughter-in-law; 56.
The cobbler's son-in-law; 57.
Mr.
Meng; 58.
Long-term workers and landlords; 59.
Wife theft was revealed; 60.
Two mothers compete for their children.
[12]
3) Record keeping should be the most desirable method of protection
After all, what is quoted above is folk literature that was popular among the people in the 1980s and 1990s).
But folk literature, oral literature, always changes with the progress of the times, but this change follows the laws of culture itself, rather than artificial.
The author believes that the evolution of folk literature (oral literature) depends on three factors: 1) the change of production and lifestyle, that is, the weakening of the self-sufficient farming and production lifestyle, and its gradual replacement by industrialization, post-industrial production methods and modern lifestyles;2) The decline of blood family relations and their derived etiquette and customs systems and moral values;3) The rapid implementation of the urbanization movement has led to the rapid disappearance of rural settlements.
As mentioned above, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that by the end of 2012, the urban population had accounted for 52.57% of the national population.
A large number of farmers who had lost their land had moved into high-rise buildings, losing the environment for the dissemination of oral literature.
Losing the land and the settlement environment means losing the inheritance culture they know well.
Regarding the current situation of folk literature in the first 20 years of the 21st century that we are currently experiencing, the academic community still lacks in-depth research based on surveys.
Some "Development Reports" that have been published by relevant institutions basically cannot meet the requirements of academic development because they do not have comprehensive and classified surveys on a large scale supported by correct academic theory.
As for the protective measures taken accordingly, it is also difficult to put in place.
Over the past ten years, the government and academic circles have proposed various protection methods regarding the protection of intangible cultural heritage, such as overall protection, ecological protection, productive protection, performances and displays, masters leading apprentices, and establishing inheritance bases., establishing folk song halls, story halls, intangible cultural heritage on campuses, etc., are undoubtedly effective, but they all have certain limits.
As for the protection of folk literature, although some opinions have also been put forward, it seems that there is no established method that is universally applicable and recognized by the government.
It still needs colleagues in the cultural and academic circles to continue to explore based on the characteristics of folk literature.
The "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" promulgated in 2011 came into effect on June 1 of the same year.
Article 3 of the General Provisions of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law stipulates: "The state shall take measures such as identification, recording, and filing to preserve intangible cultural heritage, and shall preserve intangible cultural heritage that embody the excellent traditional culture of the Chinese nation and have historical, literary, artistic, and scientific values.
Cultural heritage shall be protected by measures such as inheritance and dissemination." The dual-track protection concept and principle of paying equal attention to "preservation" and "protection" has attracted the attention and implementation of more and more protection responsible units.
The main connotation of "protection" should be the overall and ecological protection of living intangible cultural heritage projects.
The main connotation of "preservation" should be to record and preserve intangible cultural heritage projects, especially those that are gradually declining or even on the verge of disappearance.
For a period of time, intangible cultural heritage projects that rely on materials and are easy to carry out productive protection, as well as intangible cultural heritage projects of performing arts that are relatively easy to enter the cultural industry chain, have received general attention.
Their protection efforts are relatively large and the results are also remarkable.
Attention; and for those projects that are closely related to the daily lives of the people at the bottom and are continued through word of mouth, their protection efforts are relatively weak and weak.
The latter is represented by the category of folk literature, oral literature.
After the end of the national intangible cultural heritage census, some responsible protection units conducted more in-depth investigations based on the census and made scientific records while investigating.
The first one to edit and publish the texts of the survey records of the new century was the folk story collection of Geng Village, Gaocheng City, Hebei Province-"Geng Village Thousand and One Nights"(Volume 6) on the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list).
This large-scale collection of folk stories, which contains more than 1,000 folk stories, is the text of another survey recorded in the early 21st century 18 years after the first census was held in May 1987.
[13]Next, Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, the responsible protection unit for the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in the first batch of national lists, conducted two on-site surveys and recordings from 2006 to 2008 with the cooperation and support of teachers and students of the Institute of Folklore of Shandong University.
The results of the survey were compiled and published "The Legend of the China Girl Weaver Girl·Yiyuan Volume".
In addition to the investigation report "Yiyuan Volume", it also edited "The Legend of the China Cowherd and the Weaver Girl·Research Volume","Folk Literature Volume","Popular Literature Volume","Image Volume"), held the "First National Academic Seminar on the Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl".
In these two surveys, a total of 56 stories about the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl were collected and 5 important story inheritors were found.
[14]Chang 'an District, Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, with the support of the School of Liberal Arts of Shaanxi Normal University, organized a survey and record."The Legend of Chang 'an Doumen Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" edited by Fu Gongzhen was published by Shaanxi Normal University Press in 2009.
The "Legend of the Badaling Great Wall" in the second batch of national-level lists was investigated and collected by the Cultural Bureau of Yanqing County, Beijing City, the responsible protection unit, and the two volumes of "Legend of the Badaling Great Wall" were published by Beijing Publishing House in 2010.
To put it casually, the Great Wall spans ten provinces and regions in China and is a world heritage site.
In these provinces and regions, legends about the Great Wall are more or less spread among the people.
However, for some reason, except for Yanqing County in Beijing City, the other nine provinces and regions have not applied for protection of this project, and no newly collected legendary works in the 21st century have been contributed to the general audience.
Cultural officials in those places don't know what they are thinking and doing!).
For the "Manchu Folk Stories" in the second batch of national-level directory, the responsible protection unit of the Liaoning Province Folk Literary and Art Association, on the basis of the 2006 national census, once again organized master's and doctoral students at the school to conduct in-depth and scientific field surveys in six Manchu counties in Liaoning, and recorded 800 oral folk stories with a total of 2 million words.
The 1.2 million compiled and selected "Manchu Folk Stories·Liaodong Volumes", upper, lower and lower volumes, were published by Liaoning Nationalities Publishing House in 2010.
The Literary and Art Circles of Qingtian County, Zhejiang Province, one of the responsible protection units, organized an investigation and collection of the "Legend of Liu Bowen" in the second batch of national lists.
The book "Legend of Liu Bowen" edited by Zeng Weiyang was published by China Literary and Art Circles Publishing House in 2008.
The western Miao heroic epic "King Yalu" included in the third batch of national-level lists is the responsible protection unit in Ziyun County, Guizhou Province.
Since 2009, it has organized manpower to carry out extensive and arduous investigation records and Chinese translation work.
The first part of the Chinese version, two volumes (12000 lines), was published by Zhonghua Publishing Company in December 2011, attracting national attention.
The protection items "The Legend of Cao Xueqin in the Xishan Mountains" and "The Legend of the Temple of Heaven" in the third batch of national lists have also been organized by the responsible protection units Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall in Haidian District, Beijing City and the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center of Dongcheng Area.
The recorded texts have been edited and published successively "The Legend of Cao Xueqin in the Xishan Mountains" Zhonghua Publishing House (2009) and "The Legend of the Temple of Heaven"(Beijing Art Photography Press (2012).
For the "Xibe Folk Stories" in the third batch of national lists, the responsible protection unit, the Cultural Center of Yuhong District of Shenyang City, organized manpower to record them on site, the representative inheritor of the Xibe ethnic elderly He Junyou.
He Junyou recorded 600,000 words of the Xibe folk story from the oral narration, and edited and published the book "He Junyou Long Story of the Xibe Ethnic" Liaoning People's Publishing House, 2009).
Not long ago, He Junyou passed away.
This recorded text left precious national works for the Xibe people.
What I have mentioned here is only what I know.
A large number of selected folk literature works surveyed and collected in the new century have yet to be released by authoritative departments.
However, just these selected folk literature compiled into books based on surveys and collected in the new century have confirmed the correctness of the principle of "record preservation" stipulated in the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law: record preservation and protection are the preferred model for the protection of intangible cultural heritage of folk literature.
Although these folk literature works collected and recorded in the fields under the new social conditions are not large enough in number and not broad enough in coverage, they still provide us with a general idea of the evolution of folk literature under modern conditions.
We can see from the postscript written by Ms.
Xia Qiu to "Manchu Folk Stories·Liaodong Volume" that when they paid a return visit to the famous narrators of the 1980s, the stories they told seemed simplified, some plots were forgotten, and the language was no longer as vivid as it used to be.
In the preface to "The Legend of the Badaling Great Wall", the author once wrote this passage to express my feelings about the newly collected and recorded materials: "Although modernization, urbanization, and informatization have covered and strongly influenced Yanqing County, including the Badaling Great Wall, and promoted the Yanqing regional culture, which has strong ethnic diversity and is rapidly integrating city culture and rural culture, to make great strides towards modernization, the folklore deeply rooted in the people still adheres to its own cultural traditions and retains and inherits such diverse and rich oral works.
Fighting against the increasingly obvious trend of cultural convergence...
Keeping our folklore is only one aspect of maintaining cultural diversity, but it is an important aspect." [15]Yanqing County is located in the outer suburbs of Beijing.
It is a place where multi-ethnic cultures meet.
Although it is strongly promoted by the wave of modernization, compared with the suburbs of Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, social changes are not severe.
Therefore, folk literature, oral literature, still adheres to a solid tradition to a certain extent.
Folk literature is language art, and narrative language or singing language is a symbol of the artistic life and artistic style of any storyteller or singer.
In an article, I once compared and studied the stories of "Toad" told by Hu Huaimei, a female storyteller in Linyi, Shandong Province, and Li Mashi, a female storyteller in Xiuyan, Liaoning Province.[16] Almost all of them are elderly female storytellers who have never traveled far away but have rich life experience.
The stories they tell each show their unique style.
Reading the recorded texts, you can still appreciate their ingenious artistic concepts, vivid local language charm and irrepeatable language personality.
If we could really follow the "performance theory" of American scholar Richard Bowman, provide the images or descriptions of their narration and return to the on-the-spot scene when they were telling, what a great artistic enjoyment it would be! A few years ago, the author once listened to the narration of a storyteller.
His narration language was basically official language like a public official cadre, and even a large amount of social language mixed with official circles.
It lost the vivid folk language and local language inherent in folk stories.
It sounded boring and had little merit.
Although this kind of narration can feel the great changes of the times, it has already left the track of the natural evolution of folk stories.
For the intangible cultural heritage of folk literature, the protection method of advocating record preservation, including written records and video records, is not only in line with the provisions of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China," but is also an effective protection method commonly adopted by countries around the world.
As long as the texts of the narration and singing are recorded, once the elderly storyteller, singer, and rapper who have a large number of folk literature works stored in their minds pass away, The recorded text becomes the only basis for the continuation of his life and legacy.
As Lu Xun said: "Because there is no record of works and it is easy to eliminate, the scope of circulation cannot be very broad, and few people know about it." [17]Unfortunately, this has not been recognized and promoted by leaders in all places.
From a national perspective, before and after folk literature intangible cultural heritage projects entered the national list, they fulfilled the protection commitments made at the time of application, organized serious and scientific on-site investigations and records, and published special text records written and sung by representative inheritors.
Or there are indeed not many local people who are still recording texts in folk literature in "living" popular areas.
These protection entities obviously did not fulfill their commitments at the time of application.
In these places, the items listed in the national directory are just dead letters and are not protected very seriously.
The author hopes that friends in cultural authorities and the media will pay attention to it and awaken local intangible cultural heritage managers to strengthen their sense of responsibility and cultural awareness in protecting intangible cultural heritage.
At the same time, we also hope that experts, scholars and students in colleges and universities and research institutions will go deep into the grassroots fields to make solid textual records of the folk literature and oral literature spread among the people, so that it can be used as a "second life".
Spread on a larger scale and make it last long.
The folk literature teaching and research section of each school and the folk literature research sections of the institutes of literature of the provincial Academy of Social Sciences should have their own collection of proprietary folk literature works embodying academic concepts.
Fortunately, we already have a number of such classic anthologies of folk literature.
For example,"Selected Stories of Tan Zhenshan" recorded and compiled by Professor Jiang Fan of Liaoning University, Liaoning Education Press, 2007),"Collection of Stories and Balms of Lu Ruiying" recorded and co-compiled by Professor Chen Yongchao of Peking University and researcher Zhou Zhengliang of Jiangsu Province Institute of Literature, Xueyuan Press, 2007),"Folk Narratives of the Southern Shinto in Wudang Mountains" edited by Professor Chen Lianshan of Peking University and Mr.
Li Zhengkang, an expert in folk literature and art in Hubei Province, Yangtze River Press, 2009), The pronunciation and translation of "The Narrative Poems of Ethnic Minorities in the Heilongjiang Basin·Hezhe Volume" edited by researcher Huang Renyuan of the Institute of Literature of Heilongjiang Province, Heilongjiang People's Publishing House, 2012), etc.
We are often proud of our Chinese culture, which has a long history and has never stopped flowing.
We also have many new and old experts in folk literature, but we have never compiled a collection of national folk stories that can be shared by generations of the entire nation, such as "The Thousand and One Nights", the Germanic nation's "Grimm's Fairy Tales", and Denmark's "Andersen's Fairy Tales".
The anthologies of folk works I mentioned above collected by scholars from the fields during the first decade of the 21st century, as representative works of their schools and research institutions, will undoubtedly become China's folk literature and folk literature.
Classics of the discipline are left to readers and future generations.It is recommended that the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture and the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center organize and preside over the compilation of a set of large-scale series of books on China's intangible cultural heritage folk literature projects, so as to leave a record of the text of the live lectures on folk literature in the early 21st century for our nation.
4) Digitalization: a new model for the protection of intangible cultural heritage of folk literature
The use of audio and video recording to record preservation and digitize the recorded intangible cultural heritage projects marks a major change in the intangible cultural heritage protection model.
The Ministry of Culture has established the China Digital Protection Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is responsible for the rescue project of intangible cultural heritage inheritors that has been stipulated in the national "12th Five-Year Plan".
For the digital protection of intangible cultural heritage such as folk literature, oral literature, a pilot project has also been selected-Wu Ge, and eight regions and units with protection responsibilities, including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changshu, and Zhangjiagang, have been designated as recording targets.
The digitization project of China Oral Literature is being carried out by the China Folk Literary Artists Association.
The purpose is to build a database that uses three sets of integrated county volumes of China folk literature from the 1980s to the end of the century as resources.
So far, 4852 county volumes have been entered, with words said to exceed 100 million.
In this way, the folk literature that was still orally circulated among ordinary people across China in the 1980s, that is, at the end of the 20th century, includes nine major categories of folk works, including myths, legends, stories, ballads, epics, narrative poems, proverbs and riddles, folk dramas, and folk rap.), will be included in it, becoming the database of Chinese folk literature with the largest data and storage capacity in the world.
It is reported that this database will be basically completed and put into use in a few days.
However, the resources in this database do not include the living folk literature circulated among the people during the first decade of the 21st century.
The data on the living folk literature still circulated among the people in modern times need to be collected on the spot during the ongoing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Project.
The protection of inheritors is the core of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, which has become a consensus in the cultural and academic circles.
There are a total of 1488 representative inheritors of named national-level intangible cultural heritage projects in my country.
According to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture announced in March, as of last year, 134 people had passed away.
There are 77 representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects recognized by the state: 32 in the first batch, 25 in the third batch, and 20 in the fourth batch).
According to the author's incomplete statistics, famous representative inheritors such as Tan Zhenshan's Story), Jin Zhengxin's Folk Story of Geng Village), Wei Xiande's Folk Story of Zouma Town), He Junyou's Long Story of the Xibo Nationality), Wang Anjiang, Guizhou's Ancient Miao Songs have passed away one after another in recent years.
These deceased national intangible cultural heritage inheritors are treasures of the country.
Their deaths have taken away the precious intangible cultural heritage they mastered, which is irreparable.
Recently, the Ministry of Culture launched a rescue project for representative inheritors on the national list in accordance with the provisions of the 12th Five-Year Plan.
The regulations say:
The protection of inheritors is the core of the protection of intangible cultural heritage...
In order to avoid the recurrence of "people walking and singing" and "people dying", it is urgent to take rescue and record measures for representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage projects who are endangered, whose inheritance chain is almost broken, and who are old and frail.
According to the characteristics of "people-oriented and living inheritance" of intangible cultural heritage, modern information technology means such as recording, video recording, and digital multimedia are used to truly and systematically record the oral history of representative inheritors, traditional technical processes, and representative drama festivals., and comprehensive information such as ritual procedures, and planned rescue recording projects for representative inheritors to leave precious genes of national traditional culture for future generations.
During the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the rescue records of 300 representative inheritors of national intangible cultural heritage projects were completed.
The construction of an intangible cultural heritage resource database will become the best embodiment and carrier of the "preservation" model stipulated in the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law", indicating that my country will ultimately achieve the sharing of human resources on the basis of "digital" preservation.
Experts have formulated "technical standards" and "operational standards" for this project, two standards for protection centers across the country to abide by, and are expected to be rolled out across the country in the near future.
According to the expectations of 300 representative inheritors in ten major categories across the country, there should be no less than 30 intangible inheritors in folk literature.
In the past, when the author participated in the review of inheritors, the experts participating in the review referred to Wei Xiande who could tell 1367 stories, Wei Xianfa who could tell 1141 stories [18], Tan Zhenshan (Taipingzhuang, Gongmin County, Liaoning) could tell 1040 stories [19], Liu Depei (Wufeng, Hubei) could tell 508 stories [20], Jin Zhengxin (Geng Village, Hebei) could tell more than 807 stories [21], Luo Chengshuang (Wujiagou, Hubei Province) can tell 417 stories [22], while others can tell about 500 stories, the discussion established a threshold for being able to tell 500 stories as a national-level inheritor.
Later, some people put forward opinions saying that the standards were too high and that the standards should be lowered.
So far, they have not seen the final decision issued by the leading organs.
If this rescue project can be carried out smoothly, it will make up for the historical regret of the lack of necessary recorded text materials for "living" folk literature works in the 2005-2009 National Intangible Cultural Heritage Survey.
Draft released on June 12, 2013
It was read out at the "Academic Seminar on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Folk Literature" sponsored by the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture and the Central University for Nationalities on June 13, 2013; published in "Folk Culture Forum", No.
5-October 2013)
Notes:
[1]UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, see page 22 of Selected UNESCO Convention for the Protection of World Culture, Law Press, June 2006, Beijing.
[2]Lu Xun,"Qiejieting Essays: On the Adoption of Old Forms'", pp.
15-18, People's Literature Publishing House, 1973.
[3]These two figures are the author's own statistics, and the country has not released statistics in this regard so far.
[4]The "Folk Literature" category of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List is divided into: myths, legends, stories, ballads, epics, long poems, proverbs, riddles, and others.
There are nine subcategories in total.
[5]Liu Xiaochun,"The Chance of Fairy Lovers-Analysis of the Story of Cinderella","A Study on the Types of Folktales in China", edited by Liu Shouhua, pp.
547-557, Normal University Press, 1st Edition, October 2002, 1st Print, Wuhan.
[6]My article was published in Henan Social Science, No.
5, 2011.
The full text of "Cultural Research", No.
11,2011;"Xinhua Digest", No.
23,"Summary of Arguments".
[7]These 18 "Common Story Types in Liaoning Province" were recognized by the Editorial Board of "Integration of China Folktales·Liaoning Volume"(China ISBN Center 1994), and were reviewed and approved by the editor-in-chief of the National Editorial Committee for the Integration of China Folktales.
[8]These 15 "Common Story Types in Beijing City" were recognized by the Editorial Board of "Integration of China Folktales·Beijing Volume"(China ISBN Center 1998), and were reviewed and approved by the editor-in-chief of the National Editorial Committee for Integration of China Folktales.
[9]These 14 "Common Story Types in Shaanxi Province" were recognized by the Editorial Board of "Integration of China Folktales·Shaanxi Volume"(China ISBN Center 1996), and were reviewed and approved by the editor-in-chief of the National Editorial Committee for the Integration of China Folktales.
[10]These 19 "Common Story Types in Zhejiang Province" were recognized by the Editorial Board of "Integration of China Folktales·Zhejiang Volume"(China ISBN Center 1997), and were reviewed and approved by the editor-in-chief of the National Editorial Committee for the Integration of China Folktales.
[11]These 11 "Common Story Types in Sichuan Province" were recognized by the Editorial Board of "Integration of China Folktales·Sichuan Volume"(China ISBN Center 1998), and were reviewed and approved by the editor-in-chief of the National Editorial Committee for the Integration of China Folktales.
[12]Quoted from "A Study on the Types of Folk Stories in China" edited by Liu Shouhua, Central China Normal University Press, Wuhan, 2002.
[13]Yuan Xuejun and Liu Han edited "The Thousand and One Nights in Geng Village"(6 volumes), Huashan Literature and Art Publishing House, February 2006, Shijiazhuang City.
[14]Ye Tao's "Elephant Formed on the Earth in Tiancheng-Investigation and Research on the Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in Yiyuan County, Shandong Province", see "The Legend of the China Girl Weaver Girl: Yiyuan Volume" edited by Ye Tao and Han Guoxiang, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2008.
[15]Liu Xicheng's "China Style Wisdom and Humor-", edited by Guo Yanhui and Executive Editor by Zhang Yi,"The Legend of the Badaling Great Wall", Beijing Press, April 2010.
[16]Hu Huaimei's narration of "Toad" can be found on pages 157-162 of Jing Yimin's "New Archives of Oral Tradition-Analogy of Folktales and Memory Writing", China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Press, August 2011.
"Son of Toad" narrated by Li Mashi, see Zhang Qizhuo and Dong Ming's "Collection of Stories of the Three Manchu Old People", pages 256-262, Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House, December 1984.
[17]Lu Xun: "Qiejieting Essays·Menwai Wen Tan", p.
77, People's Literature Publishing House, 1973.
[18]According to the internal print of "Folk Stories of Zouma Town" compiled by UNESCO, China Folk Writers Association, and Sichuan Province Folk Writers Association), 1997.
[19]According to Jiang Fan,"Selected Stories of Tan Zhenshan", pages 476-495, Liaoning Education Press, 2007.
[20]According to Wang Zuodong's "Liu Depei) Xinxiaofu: Appendix", page 470, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, June 1989; and Liu Shouhua's "History of China Folk Stories", page 656, Commercial Press, April 2012.
[21]According to Yuan Xuejun's "On the Cultural Ecology of Geng Village", see page 4 of "The Thousand and One Nights of Geng Village" edited by Yuan Xuejun and Liu Han, Huashan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2006.
[22]According to the second episode of "Collection of Folk Stories of Wujiagou Village" edited by Zhang Erjiang, Shandong Literature and Art Publishing House, 1996.