Prof. Feng Jicai Honored as Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival Promotion Ambassador

As was announced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas on May 19, Professor Feng Jicai, Dean of Tianjin University’s Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art became one of the six nominees for Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival Promotion Ambassadors. Other nominees include academician Yuan Longping, father of hybrid rice in China and other social celebrities like Shen Jilan, Feng Gong, Hai Xia and Li Ziqi.

For thirty years, Prof. Feng, also a renowned writer and cultural scholar, has been dedicated to the rescue and preservation of folk arts in China. Thanks to the protection project he initiated, 1372 cultural heritage items have entered the national intangible cultural heritage list after a thorough and comprehensive research about the cultural heritages of the 56 ethnic groups of China was carried out across the country. At his proposal as a CPPCC (Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference) member, four traditional Chinese festivals including the Spring Festival, the Tomb-sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Day were prescribed as national legal holidays. Prof. Feng also took great pains to preserve traditional villages, deeming them as important cultural assets, and helped 6819 villages included in the protection list of traditional villages in China.

It is reported that it is the first time that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Areas has decided to appoint Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival Promotion Ambassadors. Selected by the Chinese Farmers’ Harvest Festival Steering Committee, the ambassadors are all social elites who have positive and profound influences in areas relative to agriculture. They are supposed to perform public services promoting the Harvest Festival and agriculture from the aspects of folk customs, culture, science and technology and tourism.

By Eva Yin