VARIOUS highlighted activities promoting intangible cultural heritages will be held nationwide for the upcoming Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which falls on June 12.

A key exhibition displaying over 1,500 intangible cultural heritage-related artifacts will open in Shanghai on that day to review the beauty of traditional craftsmanship in China, according to a press conference of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Beijing on May 27.

The artifacts, including furniture, stationary, embroidery, costumes, paper-cut, porcelains, lacquer wares, and many other varieties, are created by 1,200 inheritors of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) items across the country. The one-month exhibition, which will be held in six venues all over Shanghai, will review the protection of ICH in China and how the protection work benefited the campaign alleviating poverty in recent years.

China’s homegrown e-commerce giants will join hands to promote ICH products. Eight major online video platforms in China — Tencent, Douyin, Kuaishou, iQiyi, Youku, Bilibili, Kugou, and Sina Weibo — will launch an online project promoting intangible cultural heritage through short-video clips, documentaries, and other formats.

Major e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Vip.com as well as video-sharing platform Douyin, will roll out online sales promotions, such as livestreaming sales, flash sales and group buying.

The shopping festival aims to help lock in the gains in the country’s poverty alleviation campaign, boost consumption and promote traditional culture.

Intangible cultural heritage has played an important role in China’s poverty alleviation efforts. More than 2,200 ICH workshops have been built nationwide since 2018, generating nearly half a million jobs.

The online shopping festival in 2020 has proved successful in helping restore business and boost consumption in the post-COVID-19 era in addition to preserving the ICH resources, according to a statement of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of China’s first national law on intangible cultural heritage. According to the ministry’s figures, China now has 1,372 national-level ICH items and 3,068 people have been registered as national-level inheritors. In the past decade, 7.76 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) has been allocated from the fiscal expenditure of the central government for ICH protection.

Forty-two items from China have been included in the list of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, more than any other nation in the world. (Xinhua-China Daily)