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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Culture -> 
Chinese youth fall in love with cultural 'treasure hunt'
    2018-02-13  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

DOCUMENTARY director Xu Huan did not think her cultural relics videos would become a hit among Chinese youth.

“When I first started, it was a personal interest project telling the history of the objects on camera. But now public interest in such films is growing,” she said.

Xu, 49, has been filming relics and museums for the last 13 years and her latest work “If National Treasures Could Talk” debuted on China Central Television (CCTV) in January and soon went viral online, with a single episode attracting over 500,000 viewers. “I noticed that many post-90s youth followed the program. But I didn’t intend to make a program tailored for them,” said Xu.

Xu’s idea to make five-minute episodes came during her travels abroad. In 2012, she visited the British Museum and bought a DVD which had short videos about its treasures.

Xu started selecting artifacts and featuring their stories for a documentary about the Palace Museum which received excellent ratings. “This inspired me a lot. A slow pace and serious tone are not required for a quality documentary. Bite-size vivid storytelling can enable people to understand and appreciate the object more easily and quickly,” she said.

“Let the relic do all the talking” is Xu’s philosophy, and this has been well-received by young audiences. Since it first aired, the program has received tens of thousands of supportive “danmu,” the live viewers’ comments that fly across the screen on video-sharing platform bilibili.com, popular with China’s post-90s generation.

“People take it for granted that millennials get bored easily with shows focused on culture and traditions. Actually we are just as interested as our parents,” said Wang Ying, a student who studies ancient history in Beijing Normal University.

A report by CSM, a leading Chinese media research company, said young Chinese previously preferred TV shows with pop idol guests, but a growing number are turning to cultural TV programs.

Antiques are often seen as a witness to history, yet the documentaries have helped unearth the human stories behind them.

On bilibili.com, many viewers said they wanted to visit museums and have a closer look at the artifacts after watching the program.

Wang Ying said it is like a treasure hunt. “When you are told what these treasures are like, where they are, and how they are related to you, you definitely want to see them,” he said.

Such feelings have enticed many young people into museums. Wang even became a volunteer guide at the Capital Museum in Beijing.

“We are used to learning dry facts from textbooks. But now I want to use my knowledge to help young children participate in engaging activities,” said Wang.

In recent years, museums across China have been improving the way they present ancient artifacts to the public, underlining their educational value.

“Museums have to transform their role from simply displaying objects into promoting the audience’s active learning with interactive activities,” said Fang Qin, curator of Hubei Provincial Museum.

The Capital Museum holds many interactive activities, such as workshops that are designed to teach children how to recreate artifacts.

(Xinhua)

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