China's cultural revival
struggles By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - A cultural campaign aimed at
reviving the zest of China's national folk
festivals has failed to generate the enthusiastic
response government officials had hoped for - this
despite an unusual apology issued by the culture
minister for half a century of persistent
destruction of the nation's heritage.
Celebrations of Qi Xi, the native version
of Valentine's Day, created little ripple among
young couples on July 31, beyond the matchmaking
parties organized in a few big cities. Cultural
officials encouraged couples to dress in
traditional Chinese costumes and demonstrate
sewing and weaving skills in the ancient way. Qi
Xi, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month,
is
a
festival that, in Chinese traditional folklore,
celebrates the reunion in heaven of two ill-fated
lovers, a cowherd and a weaver girl.
"China's Lovers' Day needs more lovers,"
complained the official Xinhua News Agency, noting
that young people still preferred Valentine's Day
with its ubiquitous chocolate hearts and flowers
as expressions of their affections.
About
half of 6,000 young people surveyed over the
country's Internet portal Sohu said they do not
celebrate Qi Xi, while many said not enough was
being done to get them in the mood.
Last
year, China lost to South Korea in a bid to enlist
the traditional Dragon Boat Festival on the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization's (UNESCO's) Representative List of
the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
South Korea, which celebrates the festival in a
more ritualized way, succeeded in claiming it as
part of its own cultural heritage.
In both
countries the festival occurs in the beginning of
summer, in the fifth lunar month, and features
similar festivities such as boat-racing. South
Korea also performs ancestor-worshipping rituals
and organizes dance and song shows.
China,
however, claims the origins of the festival, which
go back 2,500 years to the period of "Warring
States" when one of the country's most revered
poets, Qu Yuan, ended his life by throwing himself
in a river as a gesture of protest against the
disintegration of his native land.
China's
defeat in the bid for the UNESCO listing provoked
a barrage of soul-searching articles by the
intelligentsia. Academics and writers lamented the
country's fading traditions and deplored the
encroachment of globalization into culture.
The decline of traditional culture, which
started in the beginning of the 20th century with
China's attempts to shed its feudal past and
transform itself into a modern state, was
exacerbated during the years of communist rule.
Mao Zedong believed that the old had to be swept
away before the new could be built, and rallied
people to destroy the "four olds" - everything
from old customs and festivals to beliefs and
traditions.
Even the most resilient
customs that withstood the onslaught of years of
political campaigns are now disappearing or being
transformed as the country rapidly modernizes and
embraces Western ways of celebrations. The Western
Valentine's Day is now among the most celebrated
festivals in China, and one with a great
commercial pull.
Culture Minister Sun
Jiazheng admitted during a May news conference
that not enough had been done to protect the
country's cultural heritage in China's headlong
rush to modernization. "There are things that I
should have done and did not do, meetings that I
should have attended and did not attend."
Officials responded by embarking on an
anxious counter-offensive to boost the
preservation and popularity of China's old folk
customs and festivals. They compiled a list of six
traditional festivals to be placed under state
protection, including the Spring Festival, or the
Lunar New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival, and Qi
Xi.
The State Council, China's cabinet,
established a new Cultural Heritage Day, devoted
to promoting and preserving China's intangible
cultural heritage. A list of "endangered" cultural
traditions to be protected, including old
craftsmanship and festival rituals, has been drawn
up, and a new law on the preservation of China's
cultural heritage is in the works.
All
these indicate the emerging of new ways of
governance, said Qin Xiaoying, a researcher with
the China Foundation for International and
Strategic Studies.
"Chinese leaders
believe that the development of 'hard power', such
as economic strength and military power, is not
enough," he said. "They believe that 'soft power',
which includes culture and ethics, should also be
fostered."
But the first celebrations of
Qi Xi disappointed cultural officials and
businessmen alike.
Businesses selling
flowers and romantic candle-lit dinners for
couples reported only a slight increase in sales,
according to Xinhua. For many in the big cities,
the festival went almost unnoticed.
More
should be done to celebrate Qi Xi and other
traditional festivals, said renowned writer Feng
Jicai, one of the main advocates for the revival
of China's vanishing cultural traditions.
"We should write about it [the festival]
in school primary textbooks and organize more
activities," he said. "We should design more gifts
and toys for people to know it."
Even the
most widely celebrated event, Spring Festival, is
nowadays losing its traditional appeal. Once spent
in family reunions at home, when people prepared
dumplings and offered sacrifices to the ancestors,
it is now often lavishly celebrated over banquets
in five-star hotels.
"Koreans have
succeeded in claiming the Dragon Boat Festival as
a world heritage item," China Daily columnist Liu
Shinan wrote. "If we continue ignoring the
weakening of our traditions, the Vietnamese will
probably end up claiming Spring Festival as their
own."
Spring Festival is the only one
among the more than 10 major traditional festivals
in China when people have days off from work.
Instead, in recent years, Beijing has instituted
two additional week-long holidays marking October
1, the birth of the communist republic, and May 1,
Labor Day, hoping to stimulate economic growth by
boosting consumption and enticing people to spend
on travel.
