This week, China and Mongolia again agreed to work together to preserve an item of common cultural heritage, known as the long-song. Songs and rituals are known as intangible cultural heritage–unlike an archeological site or preserved document, they rely upon performance or behavior (“expressive culture”) in order to survive.
The preservation effort:
UNESCO began documenting world heritage in about 1998. In 2003, the UN passed the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which came into force in April of 2006. Part of the work of the Convention was to documenting folkways and arts of this nature and prove their value as part of world heritage.
In order to make its case internationally, China began to document its own list of precious cultural artifacts in earnest. In March of 2006, Vice-Minister of Culture Zhou Heping said Chinese experts had chosen 501 examples from more than 1,300 contenders throughout the country, including crafts and festival rituals, to be entered into a State-level protection list. Domestic protection does much to protect such heritage, but it does not allow the rest of the world to access this knowledge as readily. China's state support included investigation, but also social security for elders who knew these important traditions, encouraging artistic troupes, and making them part of school curriculums.
China's list of cultural (non-tangible) artifacts included China's Kunqu Opera (included in 2002) and the art of guqin music (2003). The Uighur Muqam, a genre of music from Xinjiang, was included in 2005. The Twelve Muqam is a collection of 120 songs and interludes. Here is a promotional video, with a little glitter added, but not too much, about 7 minutes (you need sound, but maybe a little low):
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9u4olVq2PmM" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
China and Mongolia also teamed up in 2005 to have Mongolian long-tune folk songs included on the list. Mongolia and China succeeded in having the long-songs, or pastoral poems, of China and Mongolia included. Here is a performance at the Art Institute of Chicago. This particular performance, even by video, conveyed emotion and a sense of timelessness when I listened to it:
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zip54HvtE2w" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
There is still a lot of work to be done to preserve this important heritage, suddenly made particularly ephemeral by cultural globalization. For China and Mongolia, with a long history, a large territorial expanse, and numerous cultures, four traditions does not seem sufficient, does it?
Have a great weekend, enjoying your cultural rituals! See you next week!
