[Deng Qiyao] Whose ancestral hall is it? What is legacy?

Abstract: The ancestral hall, the physical carrier of folk beliefs with ancestor worship as the core, is a landmark building in ancient villages in Lingnan.

As a kind of "heritage" with the characteristics of both material cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage, due to historical reasons, its ownership and cultural heritage value have many cognitive problems.

These problems have directly led to a series of mishandling in the protection and development of cultural heritage.

Therefore, how to fully protect the rights and interests of cultural heritage owners, encourage community participation, and comprehensively understand the multiple values of cultural heritage are the key to the sustainable development of the protection and development of ancient villages.

Keywords: protection and development of cultural heritage of ancient village ancestral halls

Project Fund: National Social Science Fund major project "Investigation and Digital Preservation and Arrangement of Religious Art Heritage in China" Project No.

11ZD &185)

About the author: Deng Qiyao, professor at the School of Sociology and Anthropology, Sun Yat-sen University, president of the Guangzhou Historical Rural Protection and Development Association

In recent years, due to the needs of research projects and entrusted by relevant cultural relics and cultural heritage protection agencies, I have participated in some inspections and evaluations of historical villages and ethnic cultural ecological villages in Guangdong, Yunnan, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guizhou and other places.

Among them, ancestral halls are the focus of attention.

This article comes from a field survey of some representative ancient village ancestral halls in the Pearl River Delta region.

The ancestral hall is a landmark building in ancient villages in Lingnan and a physical carrier of folk beliefs with ancestor worship as the core.

Since the Southern Song Dynasty, due to war and other reasons, a large number of immigrants moved south.

In order to gain a foothold, they had to gather strength and compete for resources through their clansmen's blood organizations.

Ancient buildings with clan ancestral halls as the center of ethnic gathering and identity are very common in the Pearl River Delta region.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Confucian elite culture was popularized to rural society, rural clan organizations became increasingly prosperous, and a large amount of material cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage, with ancestral halls and related beliefs, rituals, folk customs, and folk crafts as the basic cultural elements, became an organic part of the ancient village ecology.

Based on field inspections, this paper intends to take the ancient village ancestral halls and their cultural ecology as the starting point to conduct necessary reflections on some problems existing in the protection and development of ancient towns and ancient villages.

1.

Whose ancestral hall is it?

In April 2011, entrusted by the Dongguan city Museum, I and teachers and students from the School of Sociology and Anthropology, School of Communication and Design, and Xinghai Conservatory of Music of Sun Yat-sen University began a preliminary inspection of traditional cultural resources in Dongguan city.

Among them, NS Village and TW Village, which are listed as "National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units", are one of the targets of the on-site inspection.

NS Village, Chashan Town, Dongguan city is a common agricultural settlement in Lingnan.

Before the Southern Song Dynasty, residents with multiple surnames lived here.

At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, some people surnamed Xie moved south due to war to avoid disaster and settled in NS.

Due to its emphasis on education, the Xie family flourished Dingwang.

After more than 700 years of development, NS Village gradually became a blood village dominated by the Xie family.

It became a common practice to build temples for the ancestors of the ancestors and the branch ancestors of Ding Cai.

NS Village now has more than 20 ancestral halls and family temples, more than 200 residential houses, as well as academies, shops, pavilions, village walls, water squares, ancient wells, alleys, gate doors, etc., with a total area of more than 60,000 square meters, constituting a cultural landscape with strong Pearl River Delta characteristics, and has now been developed into a famous tourist attraction in Dongguan city.

Because it is a "tourist attraction", the ancient village has been transformed into a public space for paid consumption.

The parking lot at the entrance of the village is full of tourist buses and various self-driving passenger vehicles.

The village is enclosed and there are people collecting tickets at the gate.

Most of the old houses along the roadside in the village have been renovated, with blue bricks and gray tiles, and flying eaves and arched arches, re-demonstrating the elegance of traditional Lingnan buildings; a small number of tile-faced cement houses appear vulgar in the ancient building community and are covered by curtains printed with blue bricks.

Covered and disguised as old houses.

We followed the bustling tourists and followed the guided route to visit some buildings.

The village is centered on a long pool, and on both sides of the pool are the best locations for feng shui, with the main ancestral hall.

The ancestral halls in NS Village are divided into ancestral halls, family halls, and family temples according to the order of ancestors.

The ancestral halls are arranged in three stages, and each family temple and family temple are in the form of two-stage courtyard houses, integrating Cantonese style, emblem style and Western architectural styles.

What has more local characteristics is the application of red gravel.

Wall foundations, lintels, window frames and other components are all made of red sand and gravel collected by nearby ancient quarries, making the ancient village shine out of the overall gray.

After walking around the central area of the ancient village less than once, I was about to enter a visiting spot, the "Evening Festival Hall", as usual, when I was stopped by several security guards in black uniforms.

I asked why they were not allowed to enter if they had tickets? The black uniform said that a leader was taking photos inside.

I know that these days, leaders like to appear cultured.

Those who can write write inscriptions everywhere and charge extraordinary "pen conditioning fees"; those who can't get their hands on the words carry out cameras and inspect everywhere and press the shutter.

Then someone pays to compile albums for exhibitions to earn extraordinary "manuscript fees".

These things have become well-known to the industry.

Due to such elegant interest, donating antiques or valuable calligraphy and paintings to leaders for viewing and reference, equipping high-end photographic equipment and providing travel convenience, etc.

has become a new model of research without money, commonly known as "elegant bribery".

But right now, this fellow is too domineering to "create"! Isn't this a public place? How can we turn public places into special supply territories! If he wanted to find a "public servant" to ask what was going on, he only moved his mouth and stood up in his black uniform, posing as a servant to protect the driver and "maintain stability." With students around, I had to endure it.

At this point, he lost his spirits and did not want to stay in such a place any longer.

But some questions have been raised: Whose ancestral temple is it? When did the sacred space where clans worship ancestors become a secular space where tourists are charged? And why does this shared space that seems to be open to the public become a "special supply" space for powerful people?

A year later, we were doing a project on investigating historical and cultural resources and setting tourism themes in SW Ancient Town, a larger ancient village near Guangzhou, but we encountered similar problems again.

This large ancient village SW Village is also a national historical and cultural town), located in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta.

The main residents are also immigrants who fled the war in the late Southern Song Dynasty.

These immigrants had no land to cultivate when they first came, so they could only build fields from the sea in shallow sea and tidal flats, that is, develop Shatian) and create their own land.

In order to gain a foothold among various forces, clans with the same surname play a decisive role in their historical development, and the establishment of ancestral halls of the same clan has become an important means to unite clan members to cooperate with each other and compete for resources.

The immigrants who moved south here used the cultural means of clan to gain national and local recognition and obtained the development rights of Shatian.

They first enclosed ponds to raise fish and plant mulberry trees, and then used the Pearl River to release silt and fill soil to create fields.

After more than 800 years of ants moving to reclaim the sea and extending the land southward, the clan that obtained real estate through reclamation of Shatian and obtained funds from working abroad abroad along the sea gradually flourished, forming a Guangfu agricultural and commercial settlement group that includes 4 natural villages and small towns with "three streets and six cities".

Before the 1950s, the most influential clans in SW Town were He, Wang, Li, and Zhao.

Among them, the famous clans have the surname of He, Wang, Li, and Zhao.

They have more than 60,000 acres of land and more than 10,000 members.

They are among the top "super clans" in the entire Pearl River Delta region.

Each branch has a prosperous branch, and many celebrities and wealthy families have emerged.

The developed clan economy provided the foundation for the prosperity of culture.

The clan advocated the Confucian culture promoted by the state among its internal members, trained their children to participate in the imperial examinations and gain fame, thereby strengthening its local power and promoting the development of local culture.

On the flagpole clips in the square in front of the ancestral halls of various surnames in the Lingnan area and on the plaques and inscriptions in the ancestral halls, the names of the people with their surnames in terms of imperial examinations and career achievements are very deliberately highlighted.

After the 1950s, clans became a symbol of decadent social power, and clans and wealthy groups were even targets of revolution.

As a result, just like the situation in almost every place in the mainland of China, the clan organization in SW Ancient Town was quickly disintegrated.

A large number of clansmen fled to Hong Kong or overseas.

The clan properties were "publicly owned".

Ancestral halls were confiscated, destroyed or even demolished.

Those lucky were transformed into government offices, warehouses or public canteens.

Disaggregated clans can only exist in the form of scattered small families.

In addition to the retention of surnames, many things have long existed in name only.

After the 1980s, the state implemented a housing policy for overseas Chinese, allowing overseas Chinese to recover their confiscated property, and surviving ancestral halls and ancient buildings were gradually returned to the clan.

Although the clan organization was later partially resurrected in the form of a "ancestral family association" or a genealogy compilation group jointly organized by overseas Chinese and fellow villagers, the original clan organization and mobilization capabilities long ceased to exist.

Therefore, even if part of the family property is returned, most of it is in ruins.

Most of the capable people moved overseas and were beyond their reach; the people who stayed behind in the country were too busy to take care of themselves and could not help them in repairing ancestral halls shared by the people.

Occasionally, overseas Chinese businessmen return to their hometowns, and the reconstruction of ancestral temples is often put on the agenda.

However, the scope of donations is limited, and what is easily recognized is the construction of kindergartens, schools, nursing homes, etc.

It was not until more than a decade that the country promoted the protection and development of "cultural heritage" that traditional culture related to ancient villages and traditional folk customs was partially restored and rebuilt.

However, this cultural restoration and reconstruction is in many cases government-led and commercially operated.

Just like the general situation in China, the SW Town Government saw the value of developing tourism in these historical and cultural resources, established a tourism company and started related development work, hoping that through tourism development, it can not only protect the existing traditional ancient buildings and traditional folk art, but also bring considerable economic benefits.

In order to engage in tourism development, properties such as ancestral halls and some idle residential buildings in SW Ancient Town were taken over by the government and tourism companies.

The receivers invested in restoring many ancestral halls and transforming them into exhibition halls.

On New Year's Day 2011, the first phase of the SW Ancient Town Scenic Area was completed and officially opened to the public.

Since tickets have become an important source of income for tourism in "scenic spots", not only tourists, but also most of the local residents in the scenic spots have to buy tickets first.

To this, many local residents reacted violently.

For example, a Mr.

He told us that in the past, residents living nearby often came to the ancestral hall to sit idle and chat, but now, even if local residents walk a little closer to the ancestral hall, security guards will immediately come and chase them away.

Mr.

He said that the tourism company spent money to restore the ancestral hall of the He surname and protect the culture of the He clan.

He was very grateful to the people surnamed He, but after the ancestral hall was repaired, the people surnamed He could not enter, which made it too impersonal."Since there are tablets of the He ancestors in the ancestral hall, can't we people surnamed He go in and pay homage to our ancestors without even burning an incense stick?" Other interviewees surnamed He we met basically held the same view, believing that the government and tourism companies used tourism development to occupy their own clan's industries.

Such cases once again raise the question of "whose ancestral temple belongs to".

Moreover, the trouble with this issue is that for the ancient village ancestral hall that has been transformed into a public space for tourism consumption, if the precedent is the behavior of damaging the rights and interests of tourists who pay for consumption due to the inertia of power, and only involves "outsiders" like tourists, then the latter example, in which even the owner of the ancestral hall or the holder of ancestral hall culture is excluded, has already harmed genuine "insiders".

What is even more troublesome is that these examples do not seem to be isolated cases.

They once again remind people to question and reflect on questions such as "whose ancestral hall is" and "who is the owner".

2.

What is legacy?

To answer ownership questions such as "whose ancestral hall" and "who is the owner", it is necessary to sort out the basic question of "what is heritage".

Ancestral halls are an industry left over from the history of specific groups of clans and have become an important part of China's traditional "cultural heritage." As a kind of material heritage, the ownership of venture capital such as funds, building materials and labor invested by its property founders is unquestionable.

In addition, as a cultural heritage, ancestral halls not only exist in hardware such as architectural materials, but also include cultural software components.

In the hundreds of years of cultural cultivation of the clan, the social capital of the clan maintained by the ancestral temple, the cultural capital constructed by the ancestral temple beliefs, rituals and folk customs, and the symbolic capital deduced by spatial meaning, craft symbols, song and dance dramas, and oral narratives have formed an inseparable organic whole with the ancestral temple.

These tangible and intangible things together constitute the "cultural property" attribute of the material cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage of the ancestral hall.

It is a "thing", which involves the assets or capital, property rights or ownership that make up the property; it is also a "cultural relic", with the cultural and spiritual connotations attached to it, like the gold mask in an ancient tomb, which is the same as the bank.

Gold bars of the same weight are of different value and cannot be regarded as.

If we look at historical maps before the Song and Yuan Dynasties, many areas of Guangdong are still in the vast sea.

For example, the original site of SW Ancient Town was just a bay at the mouth of the Pearl River.

At the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, immigrants from the south built their habitat on the earthen mound along the beach of this ancient bay.

After hundreds of years of reclamation of Shatian, the sea has gradually become a mulberry field, and the desolate corners of the earth have become a land of fish and rice.

Coupled with the dense water network and natural connection of sea routes in the Pearl River Delta, convenient water transportation, frequent economic, trade and cultural exchanges, developed overseas Chinese merchants, a reproduction of population, and prosperous clans.

Countless agricultural and mixed villages of agriculture, industry and commerce have sprung up like bamboo shoots after rain as the land spreads southward.

The prosperous economy in the Pearl River Delta is inseparable from this long-term cultivation foundation of "nothing out of nothing".

This is the general environment for the existence of cultural heritage in coastal areas.

In terms of the material "hardware" of cultural heritage, since many ancient villages in coastal areas are involved in "overseas Chinese", some ancient buildings have been protected by policies.

Even if the building is empty, it will not be occupied, such as the thousands of watchtowers in Kaiping, Guangdong).

Although SW Ancient Town has been hit by various political movements and economic tides, the basic pattern of its large-scale ancient villages still exists.

For buildings that can be classified as "cultural heritage", in terms of ancestral halls, the most prominent ancestral symbol of the clan, there are more than 100 ancestral halls built in a small area of several square kilometers.

These ancestral halls are strategically located and beautifully crafted.

The Gaomen Courtyard is a masterpiece of Lingnan architecture, integrating various folk art heritage such as brick carving, wood carving, stone carving, clay sculpture, gray sculpture, calligraphy, and lighting.

There are also countless ruins and ancient buildings such as ancient walls, temples, houses, academies, Bubuzhai Primary School), towers, waterways, and ancient wells.

The total number of old Mashi streets and alleys in the "Stone Steps" alone reaches 10 kilometers.

A large number of different types of buildings during the Ming, Qing, Republic of China, Cultural Revolution and reform and opening up periods, such as a tube of bamboo, three rooms and two corridors, wok ear houses, Western-style houses, freestyle houses, tile-faced large plank houses, etc., are like a living The architectural history museum reflects the historical sites of social transformation and cultural changes in the Pearl River Delta region.

In terms of the spiritual "software" of cultural heritage, ancestral temples and folk beliefs such as ancestor worship, feng shui concepts, and ritual ceremonies have long been in perfect harmony.

Every year, the parade on the birthday of the North Emperor on the third day of the old calendar, the completion of ancestral halls or the holding of ancestral ceremonies, including floating colors and lifting pavilions, and various temple fairs, are also a kind of spatial performance that connects ancestral halls, village temples and residential houses.

Among them, the Beidi Parade was the most solemn celebration in Shawan in the old days.

Villagers carried the Beidi out of the Beidi Temple and paraded among the alleys, inviting the theater troupe to perform a three-day drama.

Folk and folk literary and artistic activities such as Guangdong Music Private Club, Cantonese Opera, Guangdong Music, Dragon and Lion Dance, Turtle Fish Dance, Dragon Boat Stealing, etc.

are all must-have programs in different festivals and are integrated into the daily lives of villagers.Some of these projects have become local cultural classics and have landmark achievements.

For example,"Guangdong Music", which is an important part of Nanqu, and SW Ancient Town has produced famous Cantonese music such as "Sailing Dragons to Seize the Brocade" and "Rain Beat the Bananas".

The "Three Heroes of He's" are known as the birthplace of Guangdong music.

It can be said that Lingnan folk architecture with the ancestral hall as the core and its accompanying various folk arts and folk activities are the most representative comprehensive cultural heritage of Lingnan culture.

They are integrated and inseparable.

Precisely because of the preservation of ancient buildings and rich folk art, SW Ancient Town has been rated as "Hometown of Folk Art in China" and "National Famous Historical and Cultural Town" since 2000.

Obviously, in the "heritage" structure of ancient villages and their landmark ancestral halls, due to the special nature of cultural heritage, the property rights of "culture" include property rights and intellectual property rights) and capital cultural capital, social capital, symbolic capital and entrepreneurship.

Financial capital during the formative period), the proportion of creators and inheritors of the cultural heritage is the largest.

Therefore, they should naturally occupy a reasonable and legal position in their asset evaluation and equity distribution structure.

How to evaluate the ownership, value and reconstruction possibility of cultural heritage between "tangible"(material) and "intangible"(intangible) not only determines whether rights and interests can be reasonably divided, but also affects the level of development, so that the development of old heritage in the new era can be carried out.

Reconstruction is operable and reserves room for sustainable development.

As mentioned earlier, the common problem now is that the evaluation of such "heritage" uses roughly the general real estate evaluation system, and it is also the evaluation standards similar to "second-hand houses" and "old houses".

Therefore, these ancient cultural relics are in many cases disposed of as old objects and waste.

Most of the owners receive less compensation such as demolition subsidies or rental of old houses.

Then of course,"whoever pays the money will have the final say."

However, this understanding of cultural resources does not associate them with the historical value of heritage, nor does it associate them with living original ecological lifestyle communities and holders of this culture.

It only includes the material aspects of them.

The "property" among them is included in measurable evaluation indicators, while the non-material aspects of "culture" are not fully understood, or things that can be "sublimated" into commercial performance are isolated.

After "packaging", it will be sold as a tourism "product".

Due to their "pseudo-customs" and unsustainability, the effects of such exhibitions and performances can be imagined, and it is reasonable that operating costs cannot be recovered.

For example, a certain "Floating Color" performance organized by SW Ancient Town with a huge amount of money was divorced from the true context of folk customs, and the community's active participation was not enough, and it could not be effectively integrated into folk life.

It only became a lively government-run cultural performance; and the large-scale restoration of the ancestral hall also became a "dead house" that lost its spiritual core due to the lack of cultural content related to this special building.

Of course, it did not receive many tickets.

Although SW Ancient Town has been recognized by the state as a famous historical and cultural town in China, this gold-lettered signboard has not yet fully realized its potential value.

For example, the local ancient architectural complex represented by ancestral halls is a comprehensive cultural heritage that is compatible with clan culture, folk beliefs, folk activities, etc.

However, influenced by years of ideological and economic transformation, clan organizations have disintegrated, and folk beliefs and Folk activities are mostly regarded as "superstitious activities" and have been banned.

The cultural function of ethnic festivals and social ceremonies has basically disappeared due to fear of being blamed for "feudal superstition." Therefore, the ancestral hall is left with only a material shell, and there are no folk beliefs and folk activities related to the ancestral hall.

The ancestral hall is like its soul has been extracted.

They were converted into exhibition halls and became fee-paying venues that displayed relics and even only still text and pictures.

After a few folk activities were listed out and rectified by another set of ideology and cultural standards, only certain performance forms remained, and most of their cultural core had disappeared.

The long-standing history and the current retention and external image fail to effectively match, which directly leads to the psychological gap among tourists and affects the subsequent advancement of the protection and development of ancient towns.

3.

Issues in the assessment and development of ancient village cultural heritage

It can be seen that how to recognize and evaluate the cultural heritage of ancient villages will directly affect the level of protection and development, and directly affect whether these cultural resources can gain value and develop sustainably.

It is not only related to the rights and interests of cultural heritage holders, but also related to the interests of developers and consumers of cultural heritage.

First of all, how to evaluate the rights and interests of cultural heritage owners is the key to whether ancient villages and ancient towns can be effectively developed

An unavoidable contradiction is that the formation and development of almost all ancient towns and villages are closely related to clans and private ownership, and have a deep-rooted influence on their culture and values.

However, in the contemporary history of China, due to changes in the country's political system, ownership revolution, class struggle, ideology, social transformation, and economic and cultural changes, the ownership of land, houses, etc.

in rural areas in China has already changed several times.

The authoritarian clan rights and theocratic rights, which are the core of clan culture, have been eliminated by diversified contemporary culture.

Huge clan groups tend to die out due to political movements, family planning and the continuous departure of young people.

Farming life and its traditional culture have mutated due to changes in the nature and use of land.

A new wave of migrant populations has also brought complex concepts and lifestyles.

Judging from the current situation, due to the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in the Pearl River Delta region, many ancient villages are neither ancient nor villages.

Villagers have no time to care about the reconstruction of local ancient history and culture.

Ancient architectural properties such as ancestral halls have become demolition targets for new real estate projects in many places, or they have been left to be abandoned and collapsed naturally.

Farmers have no land to plant, and every inch of land is precious.

As long as conditions permit, people will tear down the single-story ancestral house as soon as possible and build a new building with a large floor area ratio on the vacated foundation so that the extra floors can be rented out.

SW Ancient Town is a large village that has not yet been completely shelled.

It is still home to indigenous residents.

This is a good model for the development of living ancient towns and villages.

However, correspondingly, this kind of development will inevitably require a certain intersection with indigenous communities.

Whether the relationship with local residents can be properly handled is the key to the sustainable development of tourism development.

However, due to the above-mentioned problems such as unclear resource ownership and rights structure in the tourism development of SW Ancient Town, indigenous residents have certain resistance to the behavior of concentrating tourism development resources in a certain group.

Historically, there have been records of conflicts and mistrust between local clan culture and the government, which are preserved in memory to this day.

Now, in order to coordinate the management of ancient town resources, tourism companies centrally collect and compile properties with cultural value in the form of overall leasing.

However, due to the lack of flexibility in the way of collecting resources and the lack of flexible management and control mechanisms in the allocation of resources; moreover, the economic dividends brought by tourism development have not yet been achieved by tourism development companies and community residents, thus leading to tourism development has become a unilateral government-led behavior, with low community participation and limited enthusiasm.

On the other hand, due to management needs, tourism companies try to implement closed management of scenic spots.

For example, vehicles are prohibited in and out of the scenic spots, and roadblocks are set up at important intersections when major events are held.

During the National Day, tourism companies held floating color activities, which placed the coloring process in the ancestral hall and opened it to tourists to collect tickets.

Even on the last day of the floating color event, the tourism company set up roadblocks in the west square of the ancestral hall.

The floating color team only cruised inside the square, rather than walking through the streets and alleys as in the past to bring blessings to every household.

Residents have considerable opinions on this.

An elderly woman surnamed Wang said that in the past, she would be guarding at the door of her house and the floating procession would pass by, but now she has to buy a ticket to see it, which makes her feel very uncomfortable.

Community participation is not so much a lack in the tourism development of ancient towns, but rather a solution to contradictions that make it difficult to reach consensus.

For example, there is a row of houses in front of a large ancestral hall, all belonging to one family, and the tourism company rented one of them from them.

Later, the family wanted to convert the remaining buildings into family hotels to provide accommodation for tourists, but the tourism company did not approve, but hoped that they would rent them to them and let them carry out unified development.

The family was quite dissatisfied with this and decided that the remaining buildings would never be rented to the travel company.

It is precisely because the tourism company has too many restrictions that local residents are not enthusiastic about participating, and the exploration of local culture is never enough during the development process.

For example, some ancestral halls have been extracted from the spiritual core of local culture on the one hand, and on the other hand, in order to fill in the gap, some popular exhibits from foreign museums have been introduced, which does not reflect the local characteristics at all; SW Ancient Town, which is famous for its delicious food, has most of the stalls set up at the food festival held during the National Day.

In fact, among local residents, there are still rich food cultural resources that have not yet been explored.

In short, if property rights and public resources are monopolized by merchants and the original cultural holders of the cultural resource sites cannot effectively participate, the asset transformation of the resources will easily fail.

We know that the composition of capital is actually mainly composed of social capital, cultural capital, symbolic capital, and financial capital.

If the main owners of the first three capital assets accumulated over hundreds of years are marginalized, and financial and management capital is part of social capital operated by power), when trying to monopolize all this, the villagers 'rejection and the conflict between the community and the scenic spot will inevitably become prominent.

Secondly, how to evaluate the market's perception and demand for the value of cultural heritage is the basis for how to plan ancient villages and towns.

According to a questionnaire survey conducted by project team members on the SW Ancient Town tourism market, 1464 people and 30 travel agencies were randomly interviewed):

For the consumption behavior of scenic spots, sightseeing tourism and leisure vacations each account for half of the country.

As the SW Ancient Town Scenic Area, which is only more than half an hour's drive from Guangzhou, the corresponding business meeting consumption only accounts for 2% of consumer behavior, and high-end consumption needs to be explored urgently.

In terms of ticket revenue price customization for sightseeing and tourism activities in SW Ancient Town, the acceptable ticket prices range for respondents is 5-10 yuan, accounting for 45% of the surveyed respondents.

The low added value of sightseeing and tourism is once again evident.

Therefore, the key to the current predicament of SW Ancient Town lies in the precipitation of purchasing power.

In terms of tourism consumption objects, according to the questionnaire survey, SW Ancient Town is more attractive to young people.

The consumer age group is concentrated in 18-24 years old, accounting for 47% of the respondents in the consumer group.

The group with the strongest relative purchasing power is 25-44 years old) also accounted for 42% of the respondents, and the middle-aged and elderly group accounted for 11% of the respondents.

However, the current situation of tourists coming to SW Ancient Town is that most of them are middle-aged and elderly.

The contradiction between this current situation and the questionnaire just shows that if planned properly, young people can become potential consumers of SW Ancient Town tourism.

For the living geography of tourism consumers in ancient towns, the radiation radius of SW Ancient Town needs to be expanded.

At present, its radiation range is limited to Guangzhou City.

The radiation to cities in the Pearl River Delta is extremely weak, and tourists are also scattered.

Regarding the occupational composition of tourism consumers in ancient town, company employees, students, managers and business service personnel account for 69.5% of the total consumer population, of which company employees account for 31.3%.

Regarding the income level of tourism consumers in ancient town, the working class with a monthly income of 3,000 - 4,999 yuan is the main consumer force, accounting for 32% of the respondents, and the consumer group with a monthly income of more than 8000 yuan only accounts for 6% of the respondents.

This also reflects that the ancient town tourist attractions lack appeal to high-income groups.

For travel agencies and other organizations, ancient town tourism also shows problems such as lack of appeal.

Almost all travel agencies interviewed know about SW Ancient Town, but in the past year, only 43% of travel agencies have visited SW Ancient Town.

And tickets are free.

It is worth noting that after the lockdown charges began in New Year in 2013, travel agencies have significantly reduced the number of tours.

In terms of customer perceptions provided by travel agencies, 13.3% of travel agencies reported that SW Ancient Town had a weak sense of history, which reflected a problem.

The exploration of history and culture by tourism development in ancient town was far from meeting customer expectations.

Regarding the improvement of tourism facilities in SW Ancient Town, respondents had obvious suggestions for de-modernization, accounting for 20% of the suggestions.

Secondly, suggestions for improving business facilities included setting up food streets, leisure and entertainment facilities, and business travel accommodation) accounting for 39.8%.

In addition, suggestions for improving public service facilities are also relatively concentrated.

Due to the imperfect supporting facilities related to community services in ancient town, the passenger carrying capacity is limited.

Among the suggestions for improving tourism services in ancient towns, there is an urgent need to introduce explanations of the customs and culture of SW ancient towns.

Among the corresponding travel agencies interviewed, most travel agencies are willing to organize tours to SW ancient towns again.

The market for the development of Gucun and Ancient Town is currently mainly the tourism market.

The attraction of ancient villages and ancient towns to ordinary tourists mainly lies in their ancient buildings.

However, the ancient buildings of SW Ancient Town do not have the advantages of Zhouzhuang and others as a whole, so it is necessary to do something outside the architecture.

Due to the mixed existence of new and old buildings in the scenic area, the landscape belts appear quite scattered, lacking a kind of integrity, and also downplaying the "ancient charm" of the ancient town.

In addition, all attractions in the ancient town are now exhibition halls, which statically display the history and culture of SW ancient town.

However, they lack a living cultural landscape, which gives tourists only a "textbook"-like impression of this place, instead of a more vivid and in-depth understanding.

The lack of content and lack of appeal in expression at the visit points have become the consensus opinions and suggestions of visitors.

When the promotion work of SW Ancient Town officially takes effect on society, this issue will sprout a crisis of trust in the cultural heritage value of SW Ancient Town.

Therefore, we believe that on the basis of static display, more living local culture should be added.

For example, we should regularly hold some folk activities that reflect the characteristics of local culture, and add a number of shops selling local specialties, such as local specialty foods, folk crafts, etc.

This requires deeper exploration of the inherent culture of the ancient town and mobilizing the enthusiasm of local residents to participate in development.

Finally, for tourism developers, the sustainable development of ancient villages and towns is the key to the success or failure of development

In order to achieve overall planning and sustainable development in the future and solve the problem of uncontrolled demolition and construction, SW Ancient Town, with the support of the government, purchased and leased 160 related properties and buildings and protected them first as a resource for the sustainable development of the tourism company.

These properties are divided into 7 categories according to their cultural relics value and building age: 17 buildings under legal cultural relics protection), 6 historical buildings in the Qing Dynasty), 35 historical buildings during the Republic of China), 6 historical buildings during the People's Commune Period (1958-1984), 6 historical buildings in the past 30 years (1984-2012) 66 buildings), 4 new buildings in ancient town development projects), and 26 buildings that have been demolished or oversize).

The biggest advantage of SW Ancient Town in tourism development lies in its history and culture.

Therefore, the town government and tourism companies hoped to firmly control various cultural resources in their own hands and carry out unified planning and development from the beginning.

In the past few years, the town government has made a lot of investment in the protection and development of SW Ancient Town, including time, political resources and money.

The ancient town has encountered unprecedented opportunities for rebirth in history, and its history and culture have received unprecedented attention for more than 60 years.

However, a series of investments also brought corresponding pressure.

Since the main idea of protecting cultural heritage is to protect it through development, protection investment is calculated as an economic growth cost.In order to cope with questions and pressures about when and how to recover costs, eager for quick success and instant benefits may become the guiding ideology and behavior of government management departments for the protection and development of SW Ancient Town.

After the tourism company occupied most of the property resources of the scenic spot, it imposed strict restrictions on private properties.

However, due to unclear understanding of the capital composition and heritage structure of "what is heritage", the plan has not been released or the feasibility of implementation, a large number of these properties are idle and become a huge burden, paying hundreds of thousands of yuan in rent every year.

Tourism companies are under great pressure for this.

At present, only a small part of the properties in SW Ancient Town that can be opened to the public after renovation are still available.

Most of the other properties are idle and not only cannot function, but the huge maintenance costs may make "resources" a "burden".

Therefore, how to develop these properties has become a particular headache for travel companies.

The ultimate result of this behavior will stop when there is a difference between the protection and development of cultural heritage and the market demand, or it will be completely controlled by the market, resulting in a completely different face.

We believe that protection and development must be substantively separated from work content and funding sources, and cultural protection must be carried out as the basic work of development, especially in terms of funding organization.

Investment in cultural protection should not be regarded as operating costs.

A survey on the development and management of developable resources in SW Ancient Town shows that the tourism company has become the main responsibility bearer for the historical and cultural protection and opening up of the entire SW Ancient Town.

Its income comes from government appropriations and income from the fee project for SW Ancient Town's opening up to the outside world.

At present, tourism companies are in a state of financial loss, which is mainly reflected in the fact that the income from normal opening-up charging projects cannot balance the daily expenses of tourism companies.

These expenses are mainly for the daily management fees of the SW Town community by the travel company and the rental fees paid for properties that have not yet been developed and operated.

In terms of decision-making and management, tourism companies are mainly influenced by the administrative influence of government departments due to mechanisms and funding sources.

Coupled with the current financial situation, travel company management is often in a passive state of decision-making.

Cuts and layoffs have become one of the business tools and have been used many times.

Not long ago, the attempt to enclose and charge the ancient town of SW was an act with the color of management monopoly, which triggered public doubts in the media and a public relations crisis, and also reduced passenger flow.

We believe that if you don't pay attention to the construction of cultural content, you won't be able to collect money no matter how many cards you set up.

The correct motivation for using this method should be based on attraction.

Facts tell us that in the past 100 years, many historical villages have encountered many devastating blows due to war, political and ideological conflicts.

The form was once violent and bloody.

In today's era of opening up and reform, shocks of the same nature appear in the form of economic development, and the atmosphere is completely different.

But all the questions still boil down to these aspects: Whose ancestral temple is it? Whose resources? Who is the subject of resources? Who are the inheritors and beneficiaries of culture? How does cultural heritage constitute? What is the value of its resources and capital reflected in? In current reality, can these resources be shared? How to share?

At present, the cultural protection and opening up of ancient villages and ancient towns have encountered the most promising opportunity in history.

However, when repairing historical buildings and excavating cultural resources in ancient villages and ancient towns, we still need to maintain a respectful and patient attitude, avoid opportunism and eager for quick success and instant benefit, let alone monopolize resources and monopolize special supplies.

Whether it is material hardware or cultural software, we need to patiently and cautiously handle the protection and sustainable development of ancient villages and ancient towns in the spirit of treating cultural heritage well and in a responsible attitude towards history and future generations.

Government management and commercial operations should focus on the overall interests of stakeholder groups and encourage community participation.

Any decisions that have potential conflicts with private interests or are competitive should be cautious or avoided.

In the protection and development of historical and cultural resources in ancient villages and towns, the core values of historical culture and modern society should be fully respected.

This article was published in the first issue of the Journal of Yunnan Normal University in 2016.

2500 words extracted from the second issue of "Academic Digest of Liberal Arts in Colleges and Universities" in 2016;"History and Society" Digest) 3200 words extracted from the first issue of 2016 with the title of "Problems and Thoughts in the Protection and Development of Ancient Villages").