Tsinghua University is one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the country. (Photo : www.tsinghua.edu.cn)
The Ministry of Culture launched a training program this year to improve and expand the education of cultural inheritors in order to ensure the continuation of China's traditional intangible cultural heritage (ICH).
The training program was held at 23 participating universities and colleges across the country, including Tsinghua University and Shanghai University.
The 21 courses trained over 1,300 individuals from July to August in more than 10 ICH elements, including paper-cutting, embroidery, knitting, thangka painting and porcelain making.
According to the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines ICH as "traditions or living expressions inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants, such as oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe or the knowledge and skills to produce traditional crafts."
Ma Shengde, director for the Ministry of Culture Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage, said at a press conference on Wednesday that 250 national-level inheritors have passed away in the last few years. Ma fears this may lead to problems when it comes to passing on ICH.
An additional challenge is the length of time and great deal of dedication it takes to learn ICH elements, said Ma.
However, Ma is hopeful that efforts like the government's training program can help groom younger inheritors and help solve current issues regarding the inheritance of ICH.
The Ministry of Culture is also discussing expanding these programs further to 50 select universities and cultural companies with the help of the Ministry of Education, Ma added.
This is not the first effort by the government to protect ICH. The Beijing government announced early in August that it is building a National Intangible Cultural Heritage Exposition District in Qianmen to keep ICH elements alive, with part of the district opening in October of this year and the rest by 2016.
China has the most ICH elements inscribed by UNESCO, with 38 elements accounting for 9.2 percent of the world's ICH elements. Some of these include Chinese shadow puppetry, wooden movable-type printing and the Peking Opera.
The press conference also mentioned the digital library project of the government, which started in 2011, with the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance connecting national and local libraries via the Internet, as well as establishing a digital database that these libraries could access.
This year, 40 national-level libraries and 479 local libraries are already part of the program.
At present, over 140 terabytes of digital resources are available at the database, including 1.6 million domestic and foreign books, more than 1,000 journals, 500 Chinese newspapers and 2,500 videos.
