New year sees revival of old customs

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 30, 2004

New year sees revival of old customs

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They are at least 30 kilometers apart, but the Temple of Earth in downtown Beijing and a newly opened holiday resort on the city's outskirts have both drawn large crowds of visitors over the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

The imperial temple known as "Ditan Park," where Chinese emperors used to worship the "God of Earth," has staged at its annual temple fair a grand religious ceremony at 1 p.m. every day over the holiday.

The ancient ritual has been applauded by visitors of all ages, though its organizers say they are doing it "just for fun" and do not intend to uphold any superstitious beliefs.

While youngsters find it mysterious and interesting to catch a glimpse of what happened inside the Forbidden City centuries ago, older folk are happy to see China's cultural heritage still thrives.

Likewise, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace also revived scenes of the past by staging a religious performance and an imperial temple fair respectively.

But to most city people, saunas, discos, hikes and skiing in the suburbs were equally ideal pastimes over the holiday.

"I visited two temple fairs and worshipped the 'God of Earth' before I drove my family to a resort in the western suburbs for a sauna, karaoke and swimming," said Zhang Min, a professional Beijing woman.

Hers was a typical way to celebrate the week-long holiday amongurbanites who maintained traditional customs while enjoying modernlife.

As sleeping in, short messages and sports dominated the holiday,a group of Beijingers launched a seminar Monday at Beijing Folk Customs Museum to discuss ways to preserve the heritage of the centuries-old service sector, including tablets, title deeds and account books of old shops, as well as carrying poles and percussion instruments used by barbers and street peddlers as theywandered about Beijing streets soliciting customers.

"Beijing had a booming commercial sector historically and boasted more than 1,000 time-honored stores, but very few pieces of their heritage have been collected by the museum," said one of the organizers, an avid collector who spends most of his spare time hunting for relics at an antique market in eastern Beijing.

By proudly wearing Chinese-style jackets and decorating their houses with auspicious red lanterns, paper-cuts and hand-tied Chinese knots, the better off Chinese are showing a revived love for traditional culture, say sociologists.

"This mirrors social progress and national cohesion," said ZhaoShu, a specialist in folk customs.

"We should sustain our folk cultural heritage in order to avoidlosing our own identity in a modern and globalized society," said Feng Jicai, a renowned writer who upholds folk customs.

Folk cultural heritage embraces three major categories -- customs, literature and arts -- which are seen as significant carriers of the national spirit and emotions of China, said Feng.

In Beijing, the 300-odd varieties of folk arts and crafts in the mid 1960s had dropped drastically to about 30 at the end of the 20th century.

South China's Guangdong Province used to have around 1,200 folkart genres, but now only 600 or so remain, according to the local folk artists association.

"Many ancient art forms are on the verge of extinction, as the older generation of artists has passed away and few young people are qualified to take over," said Feng. "If no action is taken to rescue the cultural heritage, nearly half of it will disappear forever in the next two decades," he warned.

In addition to support from government and enthusiasts, expertssay folk artists need to adapt to the market economy to survive.

Shi Chenglin, a famous shadow play entertainer in the northwestern province of Gansu, said he feared the traditional artform would die out soon because he had few apprentices.

"That's because we work too hard and earn too little," said Shi."We can make about 20 yuan (2.4 US dollars) each for one show, which normally lasts two to three hours."

Shadow play originated in China over 2,000 years ago. In a performance that blends painting, sculpture, music, singing and drama, light is cast on to puppets made from leather or paper and moving shadows controlled by players are seen on a screen.

When Shi and his colleagues gave performances around Europe in the 1980s, the French praised shadow play as the earliest form of film. But today, Shi could not even afford to stage routine performances in his village.

"We should go beyond the confines of our village and put the folk art in the market," said Shi. "I know some folk art promotioncompanies are selling dainty puppets as artwork for hundreds or thousands of yuan each -- we might as well cooperate with them."

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