Another breakthrough in Qingdao’s efforts to conserve intangible cultural heritage has recently been made. 15 inheritors in Qingdao, such as Li Shucai, are included among the list of Shandong Province’s intangible cultural heritage inheritors. The intangible cultural heritage they have inherited consists of Liuqiang Opera, Maoqiang Opera, Jiaozhou Wind and Percussion Ensemble, Laixi Puppet Show, Mantis Boxing, Laoshan Mountain Taoist Martial Arts, Sanpu Dragon Style Boxing, Jiaozhou Paper Cutting, Finger Painting, Marine Product Processing Techniques, Traditional Wine-making Techniques, Clunny Lace, Jiaozhou Classical Furniture Making Techniques and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and covers traditional music, arts, opera, medicine, sport recreation and competition, and techniques, highlighting cultural diversity in Qingdao.

The representative inheritors, who have acquired a wealth of knowledge and exquisite skills about intangible cultural heritage, not only inherit, but also carry forward in a flexible manner different forms of cultural heritage. Qingdao currently boasts 16 China national intangible cultural heritage projects, 74 Shandong provincial ones and 207 Qingdao municipal ones; as well as 6 China national representative intangible cultural heritage inheritors, 38 Shandong provincial ones and 113 Qingdao municipal ones.

Since the beginning of this year, Qingdao continues to step up efforts to promote intangible cultural heritage at community level and has held more than 100 activities, with the participation of over 50,000 people. The “Power of Inheritance—Qingdao Children Handcraft Competition” has facilitated the promotion of intangible cultural heritage on campus. The experience and achievements in Qingdao’s three pilot communities for intangible cultural heritage have been included among China’s typical cases of practice for spreading intangible cultural heritage at community level. Wanggezhuang Neighborhood in Laoshan District and Yuhuangshan Road Community in the West Coast New Area have been chosen among Shandong provincially famous towns and villages for cultural ecology, respectively.

(Ma Xiaoting)

Jiang Yutao (the first one on the right), the Shandong provincial intangible cultural heritage inheritor of Laixi Puppet Show, is showing foreign friends the charming heritage. By Wang Lei