[Yang Lihui] Heritage tourism and the protection of intangible cultural heritage such as folk literature
Abstract: Starting from the perspective of public folklore, this paper strives to provide a reference model for the protection and development of intangible cultural heritage of folk literature by governments at all levels and related institutions.
Through the investigation of three cases in China, Germany and the United States, six elements for heritage tourism to successfully protect the intangible cultural heritage of folk literature are summarized, and they are summarized as the "one, two, three models":"one" represents a core principle, that is, the basic plot type or literary characteristics of folk literature should remain unchanged;"two" represents the other two elements: 1.
a guide guide's text; 2.
several thematic tourist attractions;"three" represents three other elements: 1.
A themed performance closely related to the intangible cultural heritage of folk literature; 2.
An inheritor recognized by the community and experts; 3.
Guidance from a public folklorist.
"One" has a core position and cannot be missed, and the importance of each element from "Two" to "Three" decreases in turn.
The application of this model emphasizes flexibility.
Keywords: folk literature intangible cultural heritage; heritage tourism; model; public folklore
In the summer of 2013, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture specially commissioned the School of Literature, Journalism and Communication of the Central University for Nationalities to organize an "Academic Seminar on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Folk Literature"[1] to listen to and learn from experts 'opinions on "How to protect intangible cultural heritage of folk literature" shows the importance of this issue to the current intangible cultural heritage protection and government cultural management in China.
Indeed, as a special category of intangible cultural heritage, the protection of folk literature has certain particularities.
For example, their protection is different from the protection method of folk arts and crafts of the art type-the latter can often directly direct products.
Commercialization and even industrialization (i.e., the so-called "productive protection ") can achieve the purpose of active protection in production practice, while folk literature is difficult to follow the example of gourd.
The current system of inheritors of folk literature often leads to difficulties in inheritance due to the lack of effective listeners in the community.
In some places, one of the main tasks of inheritors is to record their own stories on the tape recorder.
[2]It is important to record folk literature in various ways,[3] but in my opinion, it still fails to promote the effective circulation of folk literature in daily life, and folk literature is still preserved as endangered knowledge.
This kind of preservation can be called "negative inheritance."
So, how to protect intangible cultural heritage such as folk literature (hereinafter referred to as "folk literature intangible cultural heritage ") in today's society? I believe that "positive inheritance"-that is, promoting its continuous spread and circulation in daily life-is the key! Only by continuously spreading in real life and flowing in the process of face-to-face narrating and listening can folk literature not become a rigid and useless relic in modern society, and can it maintain its vivid vitality.
In this regard, heritage tourism may be an effective communication channel that can be utilized.
There is no denying that tourism has become a necessary part of today's public daily life.
As one popular type, heritage tourism mainly refers to a form of tourism that uses "heritage"-a cherished and selective past-as a consumer good.
The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines "heritage tourism" as "tourism that has in-depth contact with the natural landscapes, human heritage, art, philosophy and customs of other countries or regions." [4]Although researchers have different opinions on the scope of heritage and the definition of heritage tourism, it is an accepted fact that "heritage" is inclusive and can include immovable material heritage (such as ancient buildings, rivers, natural landscapes, etc.), movable material heritage (such as exhibits in museums, documents in archives, etc.) and intangible heritage (such as values, customs, etiquette, lifestyles, festivals and cultural and artistic activities, etc.).
[5]Compared with "folk tourism" or "ethnic tourism" familiar to the folklore community, heritage tourism obviously covers a wider range of areas.
For a long time, tourism has often borne the reputation of corroding and tarnishing traditional culture, and has often been regarded as the chief culprit in destroying and destroying the authentic traditional culture.
Many scholars have refuted this.
[6]In my opinion, a more important practical question is: how to promote heritage tourism to further become a useful way for the "active inheritance" of folk literature, rather than allowing it to be blindly commercialized or even become a killer that corrodes and destroys folk literature? Out of consideration of the above issues, this paper selects three cases from China, Germany, and the United States, trying to examine the experiences worth learning from in relevant tourism practices around the world, and then extract the six elements of heritage tourism as a successful way to protect folk literature intangible cultural heritage, and summarize them into a concise "one, two, three models." The purpose of writing this article is to provide a reference model for the protection and development work of governments at all levels and relevant institutions from the perspective of Public Folklore,[7] and promote the relationship between heritage tourism and intangible cultural heritage protection.
Positive interaction, further deepen the social practice of intangible cultural heritage protection.
Before starting the following description, an important concept needs to be clarified-"folk literature intangible cultural heritage".
Generally speaking, folk literature is intangible cultural heritage.
However, what needs to be noted and warned is that with the vigorous movement to identify and protect intangible cultural heritage,"intangible cultural heritage" has actually been divided into two categories: one is "cognitive heritage" heritage in perception), which refers to those in contemporary heritage.
Under the framework of standards, heritage that has been "recognized" by various authoritative knowledge, such as "World Heritage" and "National Intangible Cultural Heritage"; The other category is "heritage in essence", that is, cultural property that has inherent historical and artistic value.
[8]Due to the different recognition and treatment they receive, the living conditions of the two types of "heritage" in today's society will be vastly different.
The meeting entrusted by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Department of the Ministry of Culture to convene by the Central University for Nationalities was obviously mainly aimed at the former.
However, it should be noted that folk literature intangible cultural heritage is an organic system with intrinsic relevance.
Protection policies should not only consider cognitive heritage, but should protect both.
The protection methods explored should also be applicable to both.
The term "folk literature intangible cultural heritage" in this article is used in a broad sense, including both cognitive heritage and essential heritage.
1.
Heritage tourism in Wa Palace Scenic Area in She County, Hebei Province and the spread of Wa Wa myth [9]
She County is located in the southwest of Hebei Province, at the eastern foot of the Taihang Mountains and the junction of Shanxi, Hebei and Henan provinces.
It covers an area of 1509 square kilometers and governs 17 towns, 308 administrative villages, and 464 natural villages, with a population of 400,000.
[10]Wa Palace is built on the mountainside of Huangshan in the west of Shixian County.
It is the Nuwa Temple with the longest historical record and the largest architectural scale in the area.
During the temple fair from the first to the 18th day of the third month of the lunar calendar every year, pilgrims from hundreds of miles around and from Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places come to visit the temple.
In 2006, the China Folk Literary and Art Association awarded Shexian the title of "Hometown of Nuwa Culture in China." In the same year, the "Nuwa Festival" here was also announced by the State Council as the first batch of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage."
As a popular phenomenon, heritage tourism of Wa Palace emerged after the reform and opening up.
In 1979, a management office was set up here, which was under the management of the Cultural Relics Preservation Office.
The main task was to repair and protect cultural relics, but at the same time, it also tried its best to expand the number of pilgrims and attract more pilgrims.
In 2001, the Cultural Relics Preservation Office and the Tourism Bureau merged to establish the She County Cultural Relics Tourism Bureau, marking that heritage tourism has become a cultural industry that the She County government attaches increasing importance to.
According to Wang Yanru, head of the Wa Palace Management Office, the management office has been training tour guides since its establishment, but the requirements are relatively low, and Mandarin is enough.
In August 2001, the county publicly recruited the first batch of 10 professional tour guides.
Since then, five batches of tour guides have been recruited successively in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010, and the requirements for tour guides have also increased day by day.
Nowadays, the recruitment of tour guides is divided into two stages: written examination and interview.
The basic requirements for tour guides are that they must have a college degree or above, a height of more than 1.6 meters, standard Mandarin, beautiful sound quality, and good temperament.
Priority is given to learning tourism, Chinese, history and other majors.
In addition to providing explanations in the scenic spot, tour guides are also responsible for the task of excavating, researching, and sorting out the history and culture of the scenic spot.
Today, there are a total of 18 tour guides on duty.
The guide fee is RMB 80 per visit.
[11]
Before they officially take up their posts to explain, tour guides will get a copy of the tour guide's words, which can be called the "guide's words base book".
The base book plays a very important role: it provides tour guides with relevant basic knowledge that they need to master, provides examples for their explanations, and is the foundation and basis for tour guide work.
The base book is generally written by local cultural experts or public folklorists who understand the situation to ensure the accuracy and depth of the knowledge disseminated.
For many years, Wang Yanru has written the guide lyrics of the Wa Palace Scenic Area.
According to her own statement and the author's textual analysis of the guide lyrics she wrote, it can be found that the base book is based on three main sources: the first is the local oral tradition, which in Wang Yanru's words is "word-of-mouth narratives passed down by the elderly"; the second is relevant ancient documentary records, such as "Huainanzi" and "Customs Tongyi"; the third is the writings of experts and scholars.
The presentation of the myth of Nuwa in the guide's lyrics is generally relatively stable, and closely follows the basic plot type of the myth without excessive interpretation.
I compared the three copies written by Wang Yanru and distributed to tour guides over the past three years, and found that the most changes were the interpretation of myths and the introduction of scenic spots, while the myth of Nuwa remained largely unchanged.
As she herself said: "We do not modify or extend myths.
The myths we talk about are either records in ancient documents or local folklore, and they are all original versions!!" The following are the myths of Nuwa creating humans and mending the sky told in the Creation Pavilion and Butian Pavilion of Wa Palace in three manuscripts:
2010 edition
Speaking of the story of Nuwa kneading soil to create humans, it is natural to first understand Nuwa's life experience.
It is recorded in ancient books that Nuwa and Fuxi were brothers and sisters with the head of a human and the body of a snake.
Their mother was a goddess named Huaxu in ancient mythology.
Shortly after the brothers and sisters were born, a flood rarely seen in the world occurred in the world, and all living beings were poisoned, leaving only Nuwa and Fuxi brothers who survived the disaster, so they married and had children to reproduce.
After they got married, they lived a sweet and happy life, but not long after Nuwa began to worry.
She said: "With me alone, pregnant for ten months and giving birth once, when can I breed those beautiful beings to manage this world?" Nuwa suddenly saw her own shadow in the river.
She had an inspiration and began the great project of kneading soil to create humans: she used yellow mud to make small clay figurines and placed them all over the Qingzhang River.
With a gentle blow, the little clay figurines became lively real people.
After a long time, Nuwa became tired from pinching it, so she dipped a willow branch in the mud and threw it on the ground.
The mud and mud spots that were thrown out turned into real people.
Nu Wa accidentally pinched and shook it, but it was added to the content of class differentiation by later generations: the people who were carefully squeezed were rich people, while the people who were thrown out of the mud were poor and humble people.
This also shows that the Taoist thought that "man's destiny is destiny" has been deeply rooted in the hearts of ancient China people...
This is the highest floor called Butian Pavilion.
It is said that Nuwa refined stones here to mend the sky...
Legend has it that Shennong accidentally pierced the sky while painting the Eight Trigrams, so "the four poles are ruined, and the nine continents are split; the sky is not covered, and the earth is not supported." The world is in dire straits and people are in ruins.
It was against this historical background that Nuwa calmly fought the battle, took the five-color divine stones (the colors were blue, white, red, blue, and purple), exhausted all her energy, and spent 49 days filling the hole in the sky...
2011 edition
Speaking of the story of Nuwa kneading soil to create humans, it is natural to first understand Nuwa's life experience.
It is recorded in ancient books that Nuwa and Fuxi were brothers and sisters with the head of a human and the body of a snake.
Their mother was a goddess named Huaxu in ancient mythology.
Shortly after the brothers and sisters were born, a flood rarely seen in the world occurred in the world, and all living beings were poisoned, leaving only Nuwa and Fuxi brothers who survived the disaster, so they married and had children to reproduce.
After they married, they lived a sweet and happy life, but not long after, Nuwa began to worry, she said: "I rely on a person pregnant in October, once born, when can I conceive that all living beings to manage this world?" Nuwa suddenly saw her own shadow in the river.
She had an inspiration and began the great project of kneading soil to create humans: she used yellow mud to make small clay figurines and placed them all over the Qingzhang River.
With a gentle blow, the little clay figurines became lively real people.
After a long time, Nuwa became tired from pinching it, so she dipped a willow branch in the mud and threw it on the ground.
The mud and mud spots that were thrown out turned into real people.
Nuwa accidentally pinched and shook this way, but later generations added the content of class differentiation: those who were carefully squeezed were rich people, while those who were thrown out of mud were poor and humble people.
I can see that everyone should have squeezed it out.
There are relevant records in "Customs Tongyi" written by Ying Shao of the Eastern Han Dynasty: The custom says that heaven and earth were created and there were no people.
Nuwa kneaded loess and became a human being.
Theater work (labor is very hard) and there is no way to supply (supply), so we draw ropes in the mud and treat them as people.
Therefore, the rich are people of loess; the poor and humble are people who draw ropes (ropes, thick ropes).
……
This is the highest floor called Butian Pavilion.
Legend has it that Nuwa refined stones here to mend the sky...
Legend has it that Zhuanxu, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor tribe, worked together with descendants of the Yan Emperor tribe, and fought hard to safeguard their respective interests.
As a result, Gong Gong was defeated and in his anger, he crashed into Buzhou Mountain, breaking Buzhou Mountain, the pillar supporting the sky, in two.
A big hole appeared in the sky, resulting in "the four poles are ruined, and the nine continents are cracked; the sky does not cover, and the earth does not support it." The world was a tragedy of people being devastated.
Against this background, Nuwa calmly responded, took the five-color divine stones (the colors are green, red, white, black, and yellow), exhausted all her energy, and took forty-nine days to fill the hole in the sky...
2012 edition
Speaking of the story of Nuwa kneading soil to create humans, it is natural to first understand Nuwa's life experience.
It is recorded in ancient books that Nuwa and Fuxi were brothers and sisters with the head of a human and the body of a snake.
Their mother was a goddess named Huaxu in ancient mythology.
Shortly after the brothers and sisters were born, a flood rarely seen in the world occurred in the world, and all living beings were poisoned, leaving only Nuwa and Fuxi brothers who survived the disaster, so they married and had children to reproduce.
After they got married, they lived a sweet and happy life, but not long after Nuwa began to worry.
She said: "With me alone, pregnant for ten months and giving birth once, when can I breed those beautiful beings to manage this world?" Nuwa suddenly saw her own shadow in the river.
She had an inspiration and began the great project of kneading soil to create humans: she used yellow mud to make small clay figurines and placed them all over the Qingzhang River.
With a gentle blow, the little clay figurines became lively real people.
After a long time, Nuwa became tired from pinching it, so she dipped a willow branch in the mud and threw it on the ground.
The mud and mud spots that were thrown out turned into real people.Nuwa accidentally pinched and shook this way, but later generations added the content of class differentiation: those who were carefully squeezed were rich people, while those who were thrown out of mud were poor and humble people.
I can see that everyone should have squeezed it out.
……
This is the highest floor called Butian Pavilion.
Legend has it that Nuwa refined stones here to mend the sky...
Legend has it that Zhuanxu, a descendant of the Yellow Emperor tribe, worked together with descendants of the Yan Emperor tribe, and fought hard to safeguard their respective interests.
As a result, Gong Gong was defeated and in his anger, he crashed into Buzhou Mountain, breaking Buzhou Mountain, the pillar supporting the sky, in two.
A large hole appeared in the sky, resulting in "the four poles being ruined and the nine continents being split; the sky cannot cover both sides, and the earth cannot carry it." The world was a tragedy of suffering.
Against this background, Nuwa calmly responded and took the five-color divine stones (colors are green, red, white, black, and yellow).
She exhausted all her energy and took forty-nine days to fill the hole in the sky.
……
The myths of Nuwa making humans and mending the sky presented in the above three versions all have the following two obvious things in common: First, the basic plot types of Nuwa making humans and mending the sky are fully presented and stably passed down.
The myth of Nuwa kneading earth to be a person and refining stones to mend the sky is widely circulated throughout China.
There are many different texts, but the basic plot types are relatively stable:
The myth of being a person
1.
In ancient times, no one smoked.
Or for some reason, humans became extinct.
2.
The ancestor kneaded people out of clay.
3.
Human beings first existed on earth.
[12]
The myth of refining stones and repairing the sky
1.
In ancient times, for some reason, the sky was damaged.
2.
Cultural heroes refine stones and repair the sky.
3.
Make up the sky.
Or left permanent natural features behind.
Compared with the above types, it can be seen that the three editions completely maintain the basic type of myth, with full details and vivid narratives.
This is crucial to the spread of the Nuwa myth in the Wa Palace Scenic Area: tour guides interpret the Nuwa myth based on the original script, so that the main theme of the Nuwa myth can be maintained and it will not get out of shape in the spread.
Second, the organic integration of oral tradition and written tradition.
The mythological plot in the base book not only directly uses or quotes the myth of Nuwa making humans in the article "Customs Tongyi" and the myth of Nuwa mending the sky in "Huainanzi·Lan Mingxun", but also integrates and embezzles the local oral tradition.
According to the saying that Nuwa created humans along the Zhanghe River in the Qing Dynasty, and that Shennong's paintings broke the sky.
Oral and written traditions are connected and blended into new myths and variants of Nuwa.
A question that comes with it is: Will the guide's lyrics rigidize the inheritance of folk literature? During the investigation, the author found that although tour guides each have a copy of the copy, and they use it as the basis in the actual explanation process, the copy has not become a constraint that restricts the creativity of tour guides.
In fact, in the actual work process, individual tour guides will not completely copy the original copy, but will innovate.
This is because the first and base books only provide basic explanatory texts and do not include all local knowledge, which leaves room for the creation of tour guides.
Second, the relationship between the base book and the actual narration is the relationship between the "written text" and the "performance text".
Tour guides will not mechanically recite the mythological text written in the base book.
In the actual explanation process, they will use their own expressions to perform myths, and they will also actively adjust the narrative content and strategies at any time according to the situation and the needs of tourists, reflecting the performance characteristics of "situational and tourist-centered".
For example, on March 9, 2013, I took two graduate students to inspect the Wa Palace Scenic Area.
The young tour guide Qi Jiajia guided us throughout the journey.
We stated in advance that we were studying Nuwa culture, so it is obvious that her subsequent narration added a lot of content to adapt to our interests.
For example, the myth of Nuwa brothers and sisters rolling and marrying to reproduce humans, and the myth of Nuwa making Sheng reed, which are all missing in the original book.
However, her narration also contains many details differences while keeping the basic type unchanged.
[13]Therefore, the original guide words will not be fixed, rigid and vivid folk literature tradition.
What can we learn from the experience of Emperor Wa Palace? In my opinion, the heritage tourism practice here highlights the importance of at least two elements, which are worthy of reference for relevant protection and development work: first, keep the basic plot type of folk literature narrative unchanged.
For jokes and folk songs, the basic literary features should be kept unchanged.
This is crucial and forms the core of the protection of intangible cultural heritage of folk literature.
It is precisely because of this that intangible cultural heritage of folk literature can maintain the continuous inheritance of its basic connotation, form and characteristics in heritage tourism.
Second, a guide's lyrics written by local cultural experts or public folklorists.
This basic book follows and implements the core principle of "the basic type or cultural category characteristics remain unchanged".
During the training and actual explanation process, tour guides gradually become familiar with the basic book and use it as the basic basis.
However, they will also adjust the explanation content and performance strategies in a timely manner according to the situation and the needs of tourists, so as to maintain the mobility and vitality of folk literature inheritance.
2.
Germany's "Fairy Tales Avenue" and the protection and development of "Grimm's Fairy Tales"
Germany has not only won the reputation of the "Fairy Tale Kingdom" because of the widespread dissemination of "Grimm's Fairy Tale" around the world, but is also one of the countries that have developed and operated fairy tales most successfully.
In Germany, based on the life of the brothers Grimm and the footsteps of collecting fairy tales, there is a 600-kilometer-long "German Fairy Tale Route"(or Märchenstrasse).
This is a themed auto route built with "Grimm's Fairy Tales" as cultural capital.
It was built in 1975 and has a history of nearly 40 years.
It starts from Hanau, the city where the brothers Grimm were born, and ends at the ancient city of Bremen near the North Sea.
It runs through the place where the brothers Grimm lived and worked and the scenes where many famous stories in "Grimm's Fairy Tales" take place.
It attracts fairy tale fans from all over the world to come and experience the charm of German fairy tales for themselves.
So far, nearly 60 towns and cities have become members of the Fairy Tale Avenue tourist route.
[14]
The various towns that join Fairy Tales Avenue have many similarities in the way fairy tales and legends are displayed, as the advertisement on the official website of "Fairy Tales Avenue" promotes: "Fairy tales, saga and legends are all alive: open-air theaters, puppet show festivals, theater performances, and special Fairy Tales Week! In many places, tourists will be welcomed by real fairy tale characters; some places will offer 'package deals' to make it easier for men, women and old to come and 'experience fairy tales.' For those who want to feast on it, Fairy Tale Avenue also offers fairy tale dishes, barn festivals, royal banquets and popular medieval feasts in a charming atmosphere!" [15]Among the most common methods are street sculptures, exhibition halls and outdoor themed performances.
However, in specific practice, each fairy tale village has its own focus.
For example, Alsfeld is said to be the place where the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" takes place.
There is a Little Red Riding Hood fountain in the village, and a sculpture of Little Red Riding Hood stands in the center of the fountain.
It looks only 1 meter high and is not very eye-catching.
There is also a local museum in the village with more than 20 exhibition halls, each of which is full of fun.
The exhibition hall on the fourth floor displays various materials related to Little Red Riding Hood, including a map of the entire town during the popular era of the story of Little Red Riding Hood, as well as real-sized figures.
Carrying a cake blue little red hat, a hunter wearing handsome long boots and a hand-held shotgun, a grandma waiting for Little Red Hat, and a big gray wolf captured by the hunter...
The facial features on the face and the traditional costumes on the body are all made Exquisite and beautiful, making visitors linger.
[16]
Hamelin is a small town, but it is world-famous for the story of "The Pied Piper" in "Grimm's Fairy Tales": It is said that a long time ago, there was a rat plague in Hamelin, and a stranger wearing a flower suit came to the city and said that he could solve the rat problem, but asked the citizens to pay him a considerable amount of money.
The citizens agreed.
The stranger played the flute, and in an instant, the mice ran into the street as if they were possessed, followed the man in flower clothes, until they finally reached the river and were all drowned.
The rat epidemic was eliminated, but the citizens were reluctant to pay.
The colorful piper was very angry and took advantage of the opportunity of adults attending church to perform worship to blow the magic flute again, luring all the children in the city to the outside of the city and disappeared together.
This story, which has been told for centuries, is now staged in the open air in Hamelin every summer Sunday afternoon, attracting tourists from all over the world.
It is reported that more than 1 million tourists make a special trip to Hamelin every year to listen to stories.
The mousetraps here are the busiest mousetraps in the world, preparing more than 600 performances every year.
[17]The performance closely follows the story, is compact, refined, and vivid.
The original organizer of the performance was a high school teacher.
In 1955, he accepted the task of organizing the performance and teamed up with a group of amateur actors and school students to perform "The Pied Piper", thus personalizing the story.
In the future, his students continued to play the role of Pied Piper out of their interest in the role, their responsibility to their hometown, and their respect for their teachers.
[18]In addition to open-air themed performances, Hamelin pays great attention to creating an image associated with mice and mouse-traps.
There are various souvenirs shaped like mice everywhere on the street: the marks of mice are engraved on the bluestone road; the dessert shop is full of mice shaped candies, biscuits, and chocolates; in front of the restaurant is a statue of a mouse with a white high hat inviting guests to eat; in the center of the City Hall Square is a fountain statue of the mouse-trap...
Bremen is a large port city, but the city enjoys world reputation because of one of the fairy tales in "Grimm's Fairy Tales":"The Bremen Band"(a translation of "The Musicians of Bremen").
Sculptures related to this fairy tale can be seen everywhere on the streets of the city: donkeys, dogs, roosters and cats.
These sculptures are not big, but they attract the attention of many tourists.
The most attractive local area is also the themed performance every Sunday afternoon in the summer.
South Korean travel photographer Lee Jiong-jun was attracted by the performance poster of "Bremen" and temporarily changed his travel route and went to the performance twice.
The following is his description of Bremen's streetscape and fairy tale performance scenes.
These descriptions are vivid and provide valuable first-hand information for understanding the status of fairy tale tourism and the protection of folk literature in Germany:
Walking on the streets of Bremen, you can see interesting sculptures everywhere: the trumpeter, the family of pigs, the family of wooden people, the family of dwarfs, etc.
Bremen's sculptures are not big, which is quite out of proportion to their world-famous popularity, but it is still crowded with people and lively: the children tried their best to climb onto the sculptures, and they were so tired that they were sweating profusely; Grandpa and grandma grabbed the legs of the donkey sculpture and posed in handsome poses to take photos; tourists from all over the world pricked up their ears to listen to the tour guide's explanation...
The next day, we went to the small fountain square next to the City Hall to watch the outdoor performance.
Although there are still more than thirty minutes before the start of the performance, the more than 200 seats in the square are already packed, and many people are still standing around the fountain.
Toddlers, children running and playing, energetic young people, white-haired grandparents...
men, women and old all gathered here to wait to watch the performance.
There was also a family sitting on the ground, reading fairy tales and discussing the upcoming performance.
Parents read fairy tales carefully, and the children listened carefully.
The warm scene reminds people of the warm touch in their hearts when they first closed the fairy tale book.
The host appeared in gorgeous medieval costumes, and the outdoor performance officially began! The "cock" dressed in red and yellow, the "donkey" dressed in gray, the "dog" decorated in green, and the bright "cat" dressed in gray and blue.
The colorful costumes attract people's attention.
The adults and children in the square all focused and held their breath.
In the forest hut, the thieves struggled to steal the rich food and went through many twists and turns; the animals turned up their voices and played music, which scared the thieves out of their wits and fled...
The actors and the audience shared these interesting scenes together.
It was fun.
People from all over the world, regardless of language, race, age and gender, watch and laugh together.
This is the true meaning of fairy tales across time and space.
[19]
According to Li Jiongjun, the outdoor performance of "Bremen Band" was volunteered by full-time actors from the Bremen Music Theater to perform for tourists.
After the performance, the actors are often surrounded by children, answering children's questions, and signing autographs and taking photos with them.
They are very busy.
Such a lively face-to-face inheritance scene provides vivid footnotes and best examples for the "positive inheritance" mentioned in this article, and also forms a sharp contrast with the lonely figures of some inheritors recording their own stories on the tape recorder! Seeing such a scene, will we still worry about the inheritance of the story of Bremen?!
The experience of operating Fairytale Avenue in Germany reminds us of two other elements that successful heritage tourism usually has: the first and a themed performance that directly demonstrates the heritage.
The performance can be performed by local professionals or amateur performances by citizens or villagers.
The performance time can be long or short, but it should be closely organized around the folk literature work, such as performing the story of "The Pied Piper" or "The Band of Bremen", rather than adding plays such as "Cinderella" or "The Troubles of Young Werther" to avoid unclear priorities and overtaking the lead.
The performance venue is best in an open-air public place to facilitate local people and tourists to watch, so as to better communicate.
Second, a number of thematic tourism attractions.
Including themed exhibitions built around the heritage, street sculptures, temples, former residences, venues where the events described in the story occurred, and various other relics.
3.
CD Tour of Cultural Heritage in Washington State, USA
Willie Smyth is one of many public folklorists in the United States who are actively involved in the planning of community cultural heritage tourism.
As director of the folk art program at The Washington State Arts Commission, he has directed the planning of multiple CD tours of Washington State's cultural heritage.
These tourist routes are specially designed for self-driving tourists.
When tourists drive along a certain route, by playing the corresponding CD and passing through the relevant towns, they can hear the local history, natural scenery, geology, geography, industry and agricultural production conditions.
They can also hear folk stories, folk songs, personal narratives, origin of place names, descriptions of local or ethnic handicrafts, as well as personal professional practices, historical testimony, etc.
[20]
There are also two experiences that are worth learning from in the development of CD tours in Huazhou-I think they are also the direction of heritage tourism construction and development in the future: First, heritage inheritors have stood from the secret "backstage" to the "front desk" of performances, from the aphasic "speaker" to the main body of narration who speaks directly to the audience.For example, in a CD about a heritage tour of Whidbey Island, 24 local residents talked about their relationship with the local community in various forms and genres.
Many of them talked about the origin of their skills (wood carving, shipbuilding, weaving, bagpipe playing, etc.) and family or ethnic traditions, or the origin of the community, major community events that they or their families had experienced, and life on the Indian reservation.
Some also sang folk songs rich in ethnic traditions.
Traditional music and narrative are the most prominent forms of expression on this CD.
[21]Listening to such CDs, visitors can directly share the history and cultural traditions of local residents and appreciate the cultural diversity of local communities.
Second, the participation and guidance of public folklorists.
Cooperation between well-trained public folklorists and communities is one of the key elements for successful intangible cultural heritage protection.
Unknowledgeable guidance often leads to half the effort, and even causes serious adverse consequences for intangible cultural heritage and the communities where they are located.
In the case of Washington State, the professional guidance of public folklorists was warmly welcomed by the community, and their efforts and decisions directly determined the quality of the project.
For example, planning a travel guide for a 150-mile route requires public folklorists to spend months in advance conducting field research.
Although the final CD may be only 90 to 120 minutes long, folklore scholars interview, record, take photos or videotape 70 to 80 local artists and inheritors of traditional culture.
In addition, the decisions of public folklorists play a crucial role in several aspects: 1.
Identifying and discovering authentic practitioners of local folk traditions and reflecting their work in travel guides;2.
Demonstrating true local traditions; and 3.
Treating cultural misappropriation with caution Appropriation, which protects the bearers of traditions from harm when their heritage is shared with the wider public;4.
Strive to showcase the cultural diversity of the community, sometimes including the complexity and cultural conflicts within the community;5.
Maintain a balance between obtaining economic benefits and protecting cultural heritage;6.
Protect the privacy of local artists; 7.
Explore how to use new technologies (such as digital online mapping, smartphones and handheld tools such as iPad) to better disseminate heritage tourism information.
[22]Conclusion:
When talking about the changes and protection of intangible cultural heritage, UNESCO inevitably talks about tourism again and again, and believes that tourism is a "double-edged sword":
The economic value of a heritage, like its cultural value, contributes to the heritage's continuity over time.
New forms of economic value can be introduced-it is acceptable when it plays a role in protecting the heritage in a way that is welcomed by local communities and groups...
For example, tourism and the production of handicrafts can encourage and realize the performance and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, and even occur simultaneously with the performance and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.
However, when introducing new audiences, markets and new products becomes the goal, it has a potentially opposite effect on intangible cultural heritage protection in the community context.
We call this 'commercial'.
[23]
The "double-edged sword" view is undoubtedly correct.
However, no matter how cautious one is towards tourism, tourism and commercialization are both social realities that must be faced in the protection of intangible cultural heritage of folk literature today.
Therefore, a more useful direction of thinking is: how to regulate and promote heritage tourism to become an effective way to "actively inherit" folk literature, rather than allowing it to be blindly commercialized or completely becoming a killer who destroys folk literature.
In this regard, the three cases reviewed above provide many experiences worth learning from.
The author abstracts six elements that have made heritage tourism a successful way to protect the intangible cultural heritage of folk literature, and divides these six elements into different levels according to their importance, and finally summarizes them into a concise "One, two, three, three
"One" represents a core principle that the basic plot types of folk literature narratives (whether myth, legend, story or epic) should remain unchanged.
As for the intangible cultural heritage of jokes and folk songs, their basic cultural characteristics should remain unchanged.
This core principle is crucial and is the basis for all other elements and should be implemented throughout the tourism development process.
"Two" represents the other two elements: 1.
A guide's lyrics base book written by local cultural experts or public folklorists.
This basic book follows and implements the core principle of "the basic type or cultural category characteristics remain unchanged".
2.
Several thematic tourism attractions.
Including themed exhibitions built around the heritage, street sculptures, temples, former residences, venues where the events described in the story occurred, and various other relics.
"Three" represents three other elements: 1.
a themed performance that directly demonstrates the heritage;2.
inheritors recognized by several communities and experts; and 3.
guidance from public folklorists.
Each element in this "one, two, three model" is of great significance in promoting heritage tourism as an important way to protect the intangible cultural heritage of folk literature.
Among them,"one" has a core position and cannot be missed, and the importance of other elements is decreasing from "two" to "three"(as shown in the figure, from the core to the edge, the color becomes lighter, and the importance becomes weaker).
A heritage tourist site does not have to have these six elements at the same time, but it generally needs to have three elements in the "one" and "two".
Adding one or all of the "three" elements will have a better protection effect.
The application of this model emphasizes flexibility.
Various localities can adapt to local conditions and select and adjust other elements that are matched with each other based on their own resources.
This model is also applicable to the protection of other types of intangible cultural heritage.
(This article was published in the first issue of Folk Culture Forum in 2014.
See the original text for annotations and references)