Inheriting “the Great Beauty of the Folk”

Colorful and cute cloth tigers, lively clay figurines, gourds carved with delicate texture…Recently, the Graduation Exhibition “The Great Beauty of the Folk” of the advanced training class for national cloth tiger and sculpture technique inheritors was held at the library of Tianjin University, highlighting “the Great Beauty of the Folk” amidst the fragrance of ink, and together inheriting intangible cultural heritage by “Innovation of the New Era”.

Co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the “Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritors Studying and Training Plan” has become a fundamental work of strategic importance in the cause of protecting intangible cultural heritage. Declared by folklorist Ma Zhiyao, Professor of the International Education College of Tianjin University and the academic leader of this subject, the plan has successively organized 6 rounds of training of intangible cultural heritage inheritors since 2018 with nearly 180 renowned handicraftsmen from all corners of China participated in.

This year, Tianjin University undertook two rounds of advanced studying and training courses, namely, sculpture and cloth tiger making. It mainly targeted at representative inheritors who were occupied with superb craftsmanship and the ability to expand effect and promote sales of those intangible cultural heritages. The training courses aimed at helping them strengthen market response and self-development capacity, thereby improving their ability to inherit and further carry forward these intangible cultural heritages. Unlike the former studying and training courses, this year, Tianjin University added multiple classes taught by teams from Alibaba’s Taobao University and Intime live streaming sector under the theme of “e-commerce promoting the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage”, combining intangible cultural heritage with modern Internet selling. Tianjin University also invited 8 national-level masters of art and craft to teach and share their learning and life experiences.

When it comes to the inheritance and protection of intangible cultural heritage in the future, Professor Ma mentioned: “Bringing the subject ‘inheritance’ into classroom and enabling face-to-face communication between intangible cultural heritage works and undergraduates are also ways of popularizing intangible cultural heritage. This is how we can spread the idea of protecting and inheriting intangible cultural heritage to our university, encouraging more youths to join in this plan, thus adding momentum to future protection.”

By: Zhang Zhuoran

Editor: Qin Mian