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FOCUS ON
INTANGIBLE CULTURAL HERITAGEIn this second issue of China Heritage Newsletter we address issues raised by China's embrace of the notion of intangible cultural heritage, a category of heritage work that still awaits definition by international convention, although this should happen in November 2005. The People's Republic of China has a surprisingly sound tradition of documenting the nation's cultural heritage, although ironically, prior to the 1980s, it developed at the same time that PRC politics gave license to the wide-scale destruction of that very heritage, both tangible and intangible. This schizophrenic situation mirrors, perhaps, the perennial cultural dichotomy between, for instance, the vaunted obligation to collect folk songs that reflect popular sentiment, as Confucius did, and the concomitant steely determination to outlaw "lascivious music", the dangers of which Confucius spoke about in relation to the corrupting songs of the State of Zheng ("Zheng sheng yin"). In this issue we look at the Chinese interpretation of the concept of intangible cultural heritage, as well as at the threat to that heritage which today is posed by rapid commercialisation, rather than by politics. The manner in which items of cultural heritage are determined and processed is also of extreme interest, providing as it does a veritable 'case-book study' of the Chinese approach to the politics of lobbying. We leave discussion of this topic to future issues of our newsletter. We also include here a link to Geremie R. Barmé's recent essay cum manifesto, On New Sinology. |
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