Liu Jieyu, Freshman, Boston University

I was home in Shenzhen for my summer vacation and just in time for the ICIF (China International Cultural Industries Fair) held in town between May 16 and 20.

The visit prompted me to start thinking about the trade-off of cultural traditions for technological advancement.

With limited time, I visited just one hall out of many. One thing I noticed during the fair was that the visitors, rather than carefully observing the precious exhibits with rich historical backgrounds, seemed to be taking greater joy in the food items at certain stalls and trying out a flying simulation device in the hall.

The food was indeed unique and smelled great. The flying simulation machine was cool. People cannot be accused for enjoying the food and entertainment on the occasion. But this was not the main purpose why I visited the ICIF that day, nor should it be the reason for those visitors who took time to go.

Perhaps the visitors were primarily supposed to take the rare opportunity to admire the cultural relics, intangible cultural heritages, and music and art pieces on display? The ICIF was a great occasion to showcase those precious cultural gems.

Obviously, people loved easily accessed pleasure more than the sophisticated art pieces.

The progress of technology has drastically changed our lives, bringing great convenience to modern life, but also at the cost of a lot of handmade crafts and time-consuming forms of art — both in making them and appreciating them — fading into history.

Then, it’s also a paradox that the obscure cultural traditions could use the help of technologies, like live streaming, to help them gain exposure and popularity.

It’s impossible to force everyone to embrace our cultural traditions, just like it’s difficult to convince a hip-hop fan that Bach and Beethoven are great.

Fortunately, the ICIF was firm proof that traditional culture is still thriving among us.

I talked with Qin Guoren, a calligrapher displaying his works at the fair. He has published dozens of books on calligraphy. Hailing from Inner Mongolia, he has a dream of educating the public.

With such passionate fans of Chinese culture, I am sure our traditions will be carried on and thrive, no matter how technology will progress in the future.