Jinan to host intangible cultural heritage expo

The sixth China Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo will run from Oct 23 to 27 in Jinan, Shandong province.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism held a news conference on Thursday in Beijing to unveil this year's theme, which combines intangible cultural heritage with xiaokang, a moderately prosperous society.

Both online and offline activities will be held during the expo. Three special exhibitions－intangible cultural heritage programs that President Xi Jinping once inspected, the Yellow River Basin's intangible cultural heritage, and intangible cultural heritage that boost targeted poverty alleviation－will be held at the Jinan International Fashion and Creation Center.

Online exhibitions will showcase intangible cultural heritage across the country. Besides an e-commerce platform with intangible cultural heritage-related goods including clothes, food and daily necessities, internet celebrities will be invited to promote sales via livestreams.

Additionally, viewers will be able to watch documentaries and traditional operas online, and craftspeople can join a contest to compete in skills such as weaving and paper-cutting.

Experts and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage will join a forum to exchange views about issues such as how to shake off poverty through the use of such heritage.

An online conference about how to preserve intangible cultural heritage in the Yellow River Basin will also be held.

"Intangible cultural heritage plays an important role in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. It helps solve the unemployment problem, increase one's income and rejuvenate rural areas," said Zhong Jianbo, deputy director of the ministry's intangible cultural heritage department.

"As an integral part of traditional Chinese culture, intangible cultural heritage helps build the sense of community among Chinese people," he said.

Zhang Rong, deputy secretary-general of Jinan, said Qingdao's pandemic situation won't affect the expo. Rather, it will make the city organize it more carefully.

She said since Qingdao announced new cases of COVID-19 on Oct 11, Jinan has acted quickly and strengthened monitoring of essential places like hospitals, schools, cold-chain product markets and nursing homes. Currently, all of those who have taken nucleic acid tests have had negative results.

In accordance with the pandemic's prevention and control work in autumn and winter, many of the expo's activities will be online.

"We will continue to adopt such a model, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because it fits the current trend," she said.