Preserving Culture in the Face of Globalization

Preserving Culture in the Face of Globalization

The effects of globalization on traditional Chinese and world culture generated heated debate at a symposium on intangible cultural heritage at Chinese universities which was held last week.
Educators, scholars, officials and artists discussed their concerns at "The First Symposium on the Education of Non-material Cultural Heritage in Chinese Universities" at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Culture, as heritage, includes both material or "built" aspects of culture such as sites, buildings, landscapes, monuments, and objects, as well as non-material or "living" heritage embodied in social practices, community life, values, beliefs, and expressive forms such as language, arts and handicrafts, music, dance and poetry.
Non-material cultural heritage is characteristic of certain nationalities and is passed from generation to generation, said Qiao Xiaoguang, professor and director of the newly established Non-material Cultural Heritage Research Center at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
The subject has drawn growing attention nationwide after Chinese Kunqu Opera was listed as an intangible cultural heritage by the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) in 2001.
"A nation rich in cultural resources, China has an ocean of non-material cultural heritage including folk art, literature, opera and dance. But many of these precious traditions are under the threat of extinction with the modernization of the country," Qiao stressed.
"There is not enough awareness of what these cultural heritages are, let alone the necessary personnel, funding and legislative efforts to rescue and protect them. What's more worrying is that random tourism development in many local areas have misled people's understanding of aboriginal culture and have proved to be destructive to the maintenance of the original cultural ecology," he said.
Qiao said the Central Academy of Fine Arts has taken the lead in establishing the Non-material Cultural Heritage Research Center to advocate research and education of non-material cultural heritage at Chinese universities. A leading base of folk art research and education, the central academy plans to establish a Cultural Heritage Planning and Management Program and collaborate with the China Folk Papercut Society in including Chinese paper-cutting as a world non-material cultural heritage, Qiao revealed.
Yuan Li, a researcher from the China Academy of Social Sciences, emphasized that it is important to develop the traditional cultures of ethnic groups and respect their cultural diversity.
"Modernization does not mean Westernization or turning everything into Han culture," Yuan said. "Although the development of cultural industry can help with the economy in ethnic areas, it is certainly not everything. We need to protect the traditional cultural heritage of these areas." Yuan said there are many bad examples such as at many folklore attractions where local tourism departments have equipped diaojiaolou, a wood structure for living with natural ventilation, with air-conditioners or paved earth roads over with cement.
"They seem to have no idea about the geographic and cultural background of these places," Yuan criticized.
Zhu Bing, an official from the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, said the nation's legislative protection of cultural heritage has expanded to non-material cultural heritage only in recent years.
"It is necessary to establish a comprehensive legal system as soon as possible," Zhu noted.
(China Daily October 30, 2002)

Url: http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/47161.htm Date retrieved April 7, 2007

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My comments

China as a huge country with a five thousand years history certainly has a wide range of both material and non-material cultural heritages. However, many of these precious traditions are under the threat of extinction due to globalization. To preserve and market these unique and wonderful cultural heritages become extremely important to China.
In my opinion, Chinese culture has been facing severe destructions both due to modernization and the Chinese ourselves.
Though it is fairly clear that modernization does not equal to westernization, it contributes greatly to westernization due to the relationship between modernization and globalization. Modernization eventually leads to globalization, and globalization eventually helps the modernization. However, as effects of globalization, China also faces westernization.
More and more Chinese have lost their faith in their own culture, but put a lot of effort to learn from westerners and copy from westerners sightlessly. They believe no matter what the thing is, if it is from western countries, it is better than that in China. A popular saying goes like this: “Even the moon seen in western countries are rounder than that seen in China.” You may ask them why the flag of the United States of America consists of 13 equal horizontal stripes or red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing 50 white five-pointed stars. They will be able to tell you that the fifty stars represent the 50 U.S. states and the 13 stripes represent the original Thirteen Colonies that rebelled against the British crown and became the first states in the Union. But if you ask them what is the traditional costume for the Han Chinese, most probably they will open their eyes widely and stare at you. “What? You mean we Han Chinese actually have traditional costume?” From this, we can see how Chinese traditional culture has diminished due to the effects of globalization and the unawareness of some Chinese of their own culture. This is indeed the sorrow of the nation.
To preserve culture in the face of globalization, besides the necessary personnel, funding and legislative efforts to rescue and protect them mentioned in the passage, effort must be made to increase the awareness of the people and educate the public with the general knowledge of their own culture and the ethnic cultures in China as well. The popularity of western festivals increases dramatically after the open policy, however, more and more traditional Chinese festivals are forgotten. For instance, Duanwu Festival, a traditional Chinese festival originally to commemorate the death of Qu Yuan, was applied as a world cultural heritage, not by China, but by South Korea. Duanwu Festival is not a public holiday in China, but it is a public holiday in South Korea. Chinese are dependent on others to help them remember their own culture. Thus to increase the awareness, Chinese government probably can value more about different traditional Chinese festivals, organize a wide variety of events to celebrate these festivals and educate the public about the common facts of these festivals.
While more and more Confucius school are set up all over the world, many Chinese know nearly nothing about Confucianism, and publicly announce that Confucianism is useless and will lead China into ignorance. This is another great sorrow of China. Confucius, as one of the greatest philologists in China, even in the world, is being discriminated two thousand years after his death by those people in his own country who benefit from him throughout the thousands of years in history. And this not only happens to Confucius. This is due to the lack of basic understanding of Chinese philosophies. Chinese government should add in more about different Chinese philosophies in the textbooks of Chinese students to give them a basic understanding thus to ultimately prevent the extinction of culture.

Cultural Expert

Lai Yunru

(The photo is a picture of traditional Han Chinese costume which may be used as the clothes worn by the volenteers in 2008 Olympic Games.)