[Gao Bingzhong] From feudal superstition to cultural heritage

Abstract: Folk culture has been renamed intangible cultural heritage, making the original superstitious label invisible.

This is a trend phenomenon that has occurred in China society in the past two decades, that is, the transformation of folk culture from feudal superstition to intangible cultural heritage.

This change is of great significance.

On the one hand, it has changed the pattern of culture coming from the outside and from the top formed in modern times in China.

On the other hand, it has straightened out the cultural relations among individuals, communities, localities, countries, and the mainstream of the world for the first time in a common recognition manner on a wide scale.

The intangible cultural heritage protection movement participates in and reshapes China's domestic and international social and cultural relations.

Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage; folk culture; superstition

Folk culture has transformed from "feudal superstition to cultural heritage", which is a statement that has gradually gained consensus in recent years.

I started using this expression from an academic lecture at Central China Normal University in July 2006.

At that time, the list of the first batch of representative national-level intangible cultural heritage projects had just been announced.

Projects such as Mazu Faith and Customs, Huangdi Mausoleum Sacrifice, and Genghis Khan Sacrifice were included in the national-level intangible cultural heritage, while a large number of folk belief projects were included in the provincial and municipal intangible cultural heritage.

I participated in the application and review process at this stage.

In the past ten years, I have continued to observe the Fanzhuang Dragon Brand Fair in Hebei.

It's like "seeing" different cases change from superstition to intangible cultural heritage.

The cultural phenomena summarized in this statement were not only seen by me, but also by many scholars from multiple disciplines.

We must not only view this phenomenon from the perspective of cultural work on intangible cultural heritage protection, but also understand its significance from the perspective of China's modern country construction.

1.

Origin

From my perspective, the historical event "from feudal superstition to cultural heritage" is related to my origins in folklore, and also because my perspective is not limited to folklore.

Intangible cultural heritage protection involves many disciplines and majors.

Over the years, in the process of participating in intangible cultural heritage protection activities, exchanges and cooperation with colleagues in many other fields have jointly shaped our thinking framework.

Even if it is limited to Peking University, I am in the Department of Sociology.

My academic circle includes many teachers and friends from the School of Government Administration, the School of Journalism and Communication, the School of Law, the School of Foreign Languages, the Department of Chinese, and the Department of History.

The exchanges with you have gathered into one question in my mind: How can "people" fully occupy their due position in the construction of a modern country in China-how can the overall "people" of the "People's Republic" establish smooth transformation relationships and transition channels with specific "people" as individuals and as community members? In the sense of political accuracy, we emphasize that sovereignty lies with the people, governance for the people, and governance by the people.

However, in practice, the ideological culture of "people" is classified as "folk culture." This is a major issue of right and wrong that China must solve in building a modern country.

To answer this question, I want to start with some of my personal experiences.

I used to study folklore.

In other disciplines, folklore studies some trivial customs, such as spreading accounts and saying good luck during marriage, burning incense and kowtowing during funeral occasions, etc.

These things are particularly simple and unnecessary to many people, but are particularly backward to many city people who think they are educated.

However, it is one thing for them to see others, but it is another thing for them to experience themselves.

When they arrive at certain life stages and ritual sites, when their parents and relatives pass away, they should still kowtow and burn incense.

For a long time, the intellectual community has regarded the folk customs involved here as a marginal phenomenon of marginalized people.

Correspondingly, folklore is a very marginal discipline.

The academic activity of folklore is to go to some remote rural areas to conduct surveys and study those marginalized groups.

This is also a self-established tradition of the discipline of folklore.

After graduating with a doctorate in folklore in 1991, I entered the anthropology discipline of Peking University, and then woven my own knowledge circle and interests in the multidisciplinary network of the Center for Civil Society Research and the Center for World Social Research.

The new exchange of teachers and friends changed my thinking about problems.

The framework, one of the key points is to move from the edge to the center, and from society to the country.

The changes in our way of thinking are accompanied by the changes in folk customs as social phenomena themselves.

These marginal and scattered customs are gradually integrated into the central discourse, mainly after the rise of the intangible cultural heritage protection movement in China.

It was revealed.

The concept of intangible cultural heritage protection entered China around 2000.

In 2005, the Ministry of Culture issued a document to launch the construction of a national-level intangible cultural heritage representative project list nationwide.

In 2006, it began to be held in early June every year.

Cultural Heritage Day was later changed to Cultural and Natural Heritage Day.

The establishment of Cultural Heritage Day and its arrangement for centralized display of intangible cultural heritage have brought many scattered local cultural events together to be displayed in the concept of intangible cultural heritage.

Coupled with concentrated media reporting, long-standing marginalized folk culture suddenly appeared in the public domain in the name of intangible cultural heritage, giving the public an unprecedented positive impression.

The setting of Cultural Heritage Day has given these originally fragmented and marginal cultures high visibility, and people have provided them with a beautiful performance stage to show their value.

Many cultural events that originally disappeared from people's vision have entered the public's vision, bringing people many unique and shocking experiences.

There is also a major influencing factor in the change in perception of folk culture, that is, traditional folk festivals have become national public holidays.

Traditional festivals such as Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, and New Year's Eve have become national legal holidays thanks to the power of the intangible cultural heritage protection movement.

In ethnic autonomous areas, there are also many local ethnic festivals that have become local holidays.

In 2004, as the secretary-general of China Folklore Society, I, together with the president, Mr.

Liu Kuili, and many colleagues of the Society, and with the support of the Central Civilization Office, conducted a survey on the domestic holiday situation at that time, discussed the contemporary value of traditional festivals, and put forward countermeasures and suggestions for the reform of the holiday system from a professional perspective.

In 2005, I compiled my understanding of this process into a document and published the article "Time Management in Nation-States-Problems of China's Holiday System and Their Solutions" in Open Times magazine [1].

Later, more and more people participated and began to pay attention to the reform of my country's holiday system.

In 2006, the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects was released, and these traditional festivals were successfully selected.

On December 14, 2007, the State Council issued the "Decision of the State Council on Amending the Measures for Holidays on National New Year and Memorial Days", which officially included Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year's Eve as legal public holidays for all, reshaping the national holiday system., turning a public holiday system dominated by modern commemorative days into a new holiday system that absorbs major traditional folk festivals.

Once these traditional festivals were included in public holidays, they changed from the folk customs of some citizens to the public cultural life of the people of the country.

No matter what specific people initially have about these traditional festivals, they must treat these days as days of special significance.

On the surface, what we see is the Qingming Festival to pay homage to ancestors, the Dragon Boat Festival to eat rice dumplings, and the Mid-Autumn Festival to eat mooncakes and New Year's Eve reunion.

What we experience deeply is the collective action of the people and the value connection between the country and the people.

The new holiday system has been consolidated as a new time system, and various conceptual systems and institutional systems associated with traditional festivals are changing.

Public holidays in a community should be days that are considered important by the government and the private sector, the country and society.

Now, traditional festivals no longer have superstitious problems in the name of intangible cultural heritage, so they can once again become public holidays of the country.

I have the opportunity to participate in this process and be able to regard the phenomenon "from superstition to cultural heritage" I see as the object of academic expression and reflection.

2.

Topic

What we see at the level of phenomenon of intangible cultural heritage protection is that specific projects of folk culture have been included in the list of representative projects of human intangible cultural heritage (UNESCO), national intangible cultural heritage and provincial and municipal intangible cultural heritage, and thus obtained.

With a legitimate status in the public sphere and strong support from public finances, we have entered the house on almost all important occasions with a completely positive identity and become the protagonist of public life.

Therefore, intangible cultural heritage protection actually represents some projects of folk culture, provides comprehensive support, and changes the situation of folk culture in the country's political and social life.

Folk culture constitutes the basic content of the daily life and life meaning of ordinary people.

The changes in folk culture in the name of intangible cultural heritage have turned the country's modern construction to be based on the life culture of ordinary people.

I have the opportunity to participate in Expert Service work on intangible cultural heritage protection, specifically participating in the research and review of folk intangible cultural heritage.

The folk customs group mainly reviews folk customs projects of various ethnic groups in various places.

These projects cover a wide range of areas, have high participation, and are widely representative.

Almost all folk customs projects contain folk beliefs, and some projects are folk beliefs themselves.

Whether it is a general folk custom project or a special folk belief project, a major change has quietly occurred in the process of selecting intangible cultural heritage projects.

That is, the superstitious label of folk custom has disappeared, and what the public sees is intangible cultural heritage projects accepted by all parties.

Here is another example of Qingming Festival.

Before the Qingming Festival became a national-level intangible cultural heritage and was included in national public holidays, local governments, especially in the north, had to do one thing before and after the Qingming Festival, which was fire prevention.

Because at this time, everyone has to go to the mountains to burn paper and incense, which can easily cause a fire.

At this time of the year, the media reports on transportation inconvenience, environmental pollution and a series of other problems caused by citizens visiting tombs.

After the Qingming Festival became a national statutory public holiday, the government guided people to switch from on-site ignition to centralized dedicated incineration points, thereby facilitating fire source control and environmental protection.

At the same time, to promote off-peak travel to the public, ancestor worship does not have to be on the Ching Ming Festival, but can also be a few days in advance.

What the municipal government needs to do is to increase the number of public buses on main road sections, which will greatly alleviate the safety issues of ancestor worship during the Ching Ming Festival., environmental issues and transportation issues.

Superstition has become intangible cultural heritage, and what is solved here is the issue of legitimacy.

Public behavior in modern society must have sufficient legitimacy, including social and cultural, administrative, ideological, political and legal legitimacy.

Among them, the fundamental is the legitimacy of social culture.

Superstition becomes intangible cultural heritage, and what is difficult to move becomes unobstructed.

In the external environment, everything is almost the same.

After the intangible cultural heritage discourse is established, those original superstitious words will be silent.

When such things, including superstitions, are fixed on intangible cultural heritage protection projects, when we engage in these activities, whether it is ancestral worship during the Qingming Festival or other folk belief activities, no one anymore says that we are engaging in superstitions.

Instead, it is recognized as intangible cultural heritage, and personal activities even have a public welfare nature.

This means that for the same object, speaking in different words under different situations, different situations will be formed.

Therefore, for folk beliefs, the transformation from superstitious discourse to intangible cultural heritage discourse is a process that no one has designed but actually occurs quietly.

Over the past few decades, academia has defended superstitions enough.

Through the transformation of discourse, intangible cultural heritage transforms things that were previously recognized as superstitious by people into legitimate culture that can be accepted and recognized by society.

Although such a process seems silent on the surface, it is a thrilling change for folk beliefs themselves and the cultural activities involved.

Activities that are taken for granted by people's modern common sense as superstitious are re-presented to people in the name of intangible cultural heritage projects.

This transformation process does not occur overnight.

The Mazu belief was included in the list of the first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage representative projects, and later became a world intangible cultural heritage recognized by UNESCO.

Why can projects like the Mazu Faith be included in the list, but not projects like the Fengdu Temple Fair? Because the Mazu belief has its own particularity, it is undoubtedly the cultural link connecting the mainland and Taiwan.

The Mazu belief has extensive influence not only in southern Fujian and the entire coastal areas of China, but is also a common belief in Taiwan.

However, the Fengdu Temple Fair is different.

Many people say that the Fengdu Temple Fair is a typical superstition.

The image of this temple fair is mainly one of the netherworld and the gods of cattle and snakes that have long been resolutely criticized.

If it can enter the national intangible cultural heritage list, there will be almost no superstition in China.

After becoming a local-level intangible cultural heritage, organizers of Fengdu Temple Fair persevered in applying to be included in the list of national-level intangible cultural heritage representative projects.

Fengdu Temple Fair was finally included in the fourth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage representative project list, which is a common choice that everyone enjoys.

In this process, the second batch of similar projects with huge impact such as the Baosheng Great Emperor Faith, the Dongyue Temple Fair and the Miaofeng Mountain Temple Fair entered the national list.

These temple fairs are major local events held every year and are operated by local governments as important public cultural activities.

Under the specific political and economic discourse, people have put forward the slogan of "culture sets the stage, economy sings opera", focusing on economic construction.

These activities can bring people and demand, and are conducive to the development of the local economy, so they are regarded as an excellent carrier for economic development.

During the Fengdu Temple Fair, people patrolling the streets did dress up like cows, ghosts and snakes.

Let's think differently.

Black and white impermanence are the most familiar cultural symbols people are.

No matter what the source of these symbols is or what specific meaning they represent in the past, the most fundamental thing is that local people express a collective psychology and a social cohesion through these symbols.

It is a cultural symbol that represents public consciousness and is essentially no different from other symbols.

3.

Process

Before folk beliefs changed from superstition to intangible cultural heritage, there was a transformation from daily life to superstition.

Li Jinghan mentioned in his "Social Survey of Dingxian County" that temples in Dingxian County were severely damaged before and after the Revolution of 1911.

In the context of the times, people advocated the construction of new schools.

One of the essentials of new schools was that there should be new public places in the new era, and new public places must have new public buildings.

Before there was no money to build new buildings, the convenient way to obtain new public places was to take advantage of the original temple.

In some places, the original statues in temples were destroyed and emptied and new schools were set up; in others, the temples were still left, the statues still existed, and the people could still worship, but the open space next to it was used to build new schools.

Li Jinghan's investigation report devoted a lot of space to statistics and descriptions of the distribution of local temples, the demolished plaques, and the later newly built temples.

From the perspective of people's lives, these phenomena are directly integrated with their lives, so it is good to accept them naturally.

When our parents and relatives pass away, we must face and solve this problem so that the traditional culture of the past can play a role and help us get through the crises of life and family.

Gu Jiegang and his colleagues conducted a survey of the Miaofengshan Temple Fair and found that the temple fair was actually very popular.

They felt that it would be good for the people to organize themselves well.

In the suburbs of Beijing, we can still see various non-governmental organizations.

These non-governmental organizations used to go to Miaofeng Mountain to worship Empress Bixia Yuanjun during the temple fair every year.

After 1949, those activities were no longer suitable to continue, and these non-governmental organizations temporarily lost their original functions.

After the reform and opening up, the Miaofengshan Temple Fair was restored, and all of a sudden they had to worship Bixia Yuanjun and other gods.

Everyone needed to organize and establish incense fairs and various belief organizations.Under the impact of modernization, some of these cultural forms gradually disappeared, and some made appropriate changes to adapt to the changed situation and the social needs of the time, so that they could continue to exist and play a role.

These social organizations have risen and fallen in the changes of the times and witnessed the changes of China society.

This is the case with the Fanzhuang Dragon Card Club, which was interrupted for more than 20 years in a specific era.

I bring it out here to talk about how the people themselves respond to this external discourse change.

In the early days, when we went down to conduct surveys and interviewed villagers, they had to first explain to us that it was superstition, and then say other things, basically forming a discourse pattern.

He must say that he knows this is superstition, which shows that he is conscious, but awareness must be there and life must also be, so they all have clever ways to deal with it.

This is actually a survival technique.

After Fan Zhuanglong's brand was rated as an intangible cultural heritage project, he no longer needed to use "correct words" to cover it up to avoid possible dangers.

The key point is that the cultural heritage envoys, which were originally identified as superstitious, have undergone a complete transformation in their identity.

Fanzhuang Dragon Medal Club mainly serves dragon medals, which local people call "Dragon Medal Lord".

On both sides and behind the dragon medal, there are also divine medals from other gods, such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, Shakyamuni, Guan Gong, Three Emperors and Five Emperors.

In short, basically all kinds of belief objects that can be associated with are found.

During the Dragon Medal Festival, there were several houses in the greenhouses where god tablets and statues were placed.

Local people went to the greenhouses to worship these gods.

What is held inside the greenhouse is folk belief worship activities, and outside are various propaganda about scientific farming and good people.

For example, propaganda slogans that emphasize public morality and civilization, knowledge about scientific pear planting and pest control, and some calligraphy competitions.

Activities, folk art performances.

The local people built a temple for Master Long Pai, but they called it a museum and used the dual-name strategy described in my article to achieve their goals.

When the temple was attached with a museum sign, some people thought that this practice was nondescript.

However, when the temple fair was named as an intangible cultural heritage, if you look at the behavior of burning incense and worshiping gods in this building, you will feel that the cultural inheritance here is very dynamic because it is life itself.

This is simply an example of the native protection of cultural heritage.

There is a concept in museology called "living museums", which advocates making things in museums "alive" and vibrant.

This is a cultural protection concept that has brought about many changes.

When we defined the Longpai Club as a living museum and looked at this place according to the standards of a living museum, we would find that it is precisely because the Longpai Club is a temple that it is a living museum.

It turned out that calling a temple a museum was ridiculous, but now when we change our concepts and examine it, we discover new possibilities.

4.

Situation

First, when folk culture enters the intangible cultural heritage list, specific folk culture becomes the national legal and public culture.

Folk culture may turn out to be something that specific people enjoy and practice, and it may be some specific families and ethnic groups carrying out specific activities.

For example, during the Dragon Boat Festival, people from Hubei row in Hubei and people from Jiangxi row in Jiangxi.

People in different regions have their own special habits, and various activity categories have their own specific areas.

Organizing such collective behaviors is convenient for local people because they are formed over a long period of time and are integrated into their daily lives.

However, turning it into intangible cultural heritage will be different.

The state identifies intangible cultural heritage through legal procedures.

The identification of intangible cultural heritage cannot be made by just a few experts making opinions and making decisions.

It must be effective through the state's formal procedures.

Second, after these projects entered the intangible cultural heritage list system, the attitude of all sectors of society towards them has undergone important changes.

The inherent requirement for intangible cultural heritage protection is to do our best to remain unchanged as it is now.

If you change it at will, it is called destroying cultural heritage.

If you destroy some projects, you will violate the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" and relevant laws and regulations, and you will be prosecuted.

A core issue is that to become intangible cultural heritage means that it must be itself.

The intangible cultural heritage project itself has unquestionable value.

It no longer needs to use the guise of charity, public welfare, economic development, etc.

to keep the intangible cultural heritage as itself.

This is not only a matter for intangible cultural heritage holders, but the government must grant a certain amount of funds for protection projects every year and provide related services.

In the value and logic of intangible cultural heritage protection, you are yourself and the best.

5.

Implications

China is the country in the world that attaches the most importance to intangible cultural heritage protection.

No country, whether large or small, has invested so much in intangible cultural heritage protection as China, and has established supporting systems from towns, counties, cities, provinces to countries.

In China, intangible cultural heritage protection is not an existing system that is doing a cultural project, but this cultural project has created a system that exists specifically for it.

The path of China's modernization comes from the choice of the New Culture Movement.

From the Westernization Movement to the Revolution of 1911 and then to the New Culture Movement, the mainstream of the ideological world no longer places its hopes on China's modern development within its own society, but places its hopes on external inputs.

The root cause of building a modern country is to cultivate new citizens and a new society.

However, how is new possible and where does it come from? The answer at that time was to come from the outside, and intellectuals as prophets took it from the outside and instilled it from the top down, that is, from the top.

The modern construction of the country must rebuild the value consistency and cultural homogeneity between the people and the country.

It must return to the roots of culture, understand the values of the people, and clarify their demands.

An overall culture not only comes from above, from the outside, but also from within and from below.

The establishment of intangible cultural heritage protection implements such a path of confirming culture from within and from below.

Over the years, the country has attached great importance to traditional culture and cultural heritage and established national public culture.

What the nation state is most concerned about is its relationship with the outside world and whether its actions can be recognized by the outside world.

For modern countries, it is not easy to recognize each other culturally.

Intangible cultural heritage protection can establish connections at the individual, community, local, national, international and other levels, so that all parties can form a mutually recognized relationship.

Through intangible cultural heritage, we can string together these levels mentioned above to form an organic cultural whole.

The Intangible Cultural Heritage List shapes the system of intangible cultural heritage protection, making the entire intangible cultural heritage protection an orderly, systematic and continuously advancing human undertaking.

Many of our national-level projects have eventually become world-wide intangible cultural heritage projects, with individuals, communities, localities, countries, and international communities connected through mutual cultural recognition.

6.

Conclusion

The word "feudalism" is actually quite interesting when studied in detail.

Mr.

Feng Tianyi published an article under the name of "Research on 'feudalism'" and later published a major book on this theme.

In the concept of progressivism, feudalism is both a historical past and a "shouldn't" in truth.

It loses its historical legitimacy, which is a natural expression of "no future."

We add the word "feudal" before "superstition" in the title and pair it with the word "cultural heritage" to express the contrast between "superstition without future" and "culture that guarantees the future." Feudal superstition is doomed to have no future.

Folk culture is given the status of intangible cultural heritage, which means that scholars, the government and the public jointly agree to ensure that these projects have a foreseeable future.

Intangible cultural heritage means what it is and what it does not mean.

One of the most important connotations is serious expectations for the future.

Intangible cultural heritage is of course the present in the past, but it must also be the present with a future.

(This article is published in the Journal of Yangtze University (Social Science Edition), No.

5,2021.

The annotations are omitted.

See the original issue for details)