Heritage hits the tracks

For 18 days in July, a purple-painted train traveled from Jinan, East China's Shandong province, to the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, turning its carriages into a moving exhibition, workshop and stage for traditional arts.

Passengers watched live folk performances, tried their hand at Chinese knots, and encountered traditional opera close up.

"It was quite different from performing on a conventional stage," says Meng Yue, a native Shandong Lyu Opera performer who was on the train. The narrow aisles and swaying carriage required the performer to adjust her movements.

"But the passenger interactions at such close range are something you simply cannot replicate in a theater," she adds.

The organizers say this is the first interprovincial intangible cultural heritage-themed train traveling to Xinjiang. It departed from Jinan on July 14 and returned on July 31.

During the journey, more than 40 exhibitions, performances and exchange activities were held, drawing more than 20,000 participants and generating more than 11.7 million yuan ($1.75 million) in associated consumer spending, according to Jiang Shiqiu, deputy director of the intangible cultural heritage division of the Shandong provincial culture and tourism department.

Jiang says two heritage items on display proved especially popular with passengers: incense sachets from Shandong and enamel-painted fridge magnets from Xinjiang.

Passengers were particularly drawn by the fragrance of the incense sachets, Jiang notes.

For the 13 intangible cultural heritage practitioners from Shandong on board, however, the journey offered more than a new venue for performances and demonstrations. It also created an opportunity to meet practitioners from Xinjiang and explore ways to cooperate.

The train traveled to multiple destinations in Xinjiang, including Hami prefecture, the Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture and Kashgar, where Shandong practitioners met local inheritors for exchanges and joint performances. In Kashgar, when the melody of the traditional Uygur music and dance form Dolan Muqam, a national-level intangible cultural heritage, began, practitioners from the two regions spontaneously joined hands and danced.

For passengers, traditional culture became something to experience without leaving their train seats during an ordinary journey, rather than visiting a museum or performance venue.

Jiang observes that the mobile format allowed heritage to reach people who might never have visited a cultural exhibition, breaking down the barriers between tradition and everyday life.

He says that the project explored four ways to put intangible cultural heritage to work: fostering exchanges between Shandong and Xinjiang, creating new cultural experiences for passengers, showcasing the results of Shandong's support for Xinjiang's heritage programs, and finding new uses for traditional cultural resources.

The train also incorporated heritage elements from both regions into its design. Its purple exterior features the theme "From Mount Tai to Tianshan", a reference to Shandong's sacred mountain and Xinjiang's towering mountain range. The train's interior was divided into functional zones: a heritage products area, a performance space, an interactive experience zone, and a display area showcasing Shandong's heritage assistance projects in Xinjiang.

Jiang says Shandong plans to continue exploring the "heritage plus train" model following this journey, including ways to develop a more regular operating mechanism.

"We want heritage to step out of exhibition halls and reach the public," he says.

Seeking new avenues

For some practitioners, bringing traditional culture closer to contemporary life means taking it beyond exhibitions and performances altogether.

In Nanhua county, Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture in Southwest China's Yunnan province, Yi embroidery has found its way into fashion products, international brand collaborations and, most recently, the FIFA World Cup.

For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, FIFA selected Chuxiong Yi embroidery for its "Intangible Cultural Heritage Meets the World Cup" project. Thirty products, including caps, key rings and embroidered football jerseys, went through FIFA's approval process.

Behind that effort is a long process of experimentation led by practitioners such as Chen Haiyan, a representative inheritor of Yi costume-making.

Chen returned to her hometown after graduating with a design degree from Northwest University in Shaanxi province in 2022. Her decision was closely tied to her family. Her mother returned home after working away from the village and started a business in 2014 with the aim of preserving traditional Yi skills.

Chen now runs the Qicai Yi embroidery workshop, which she took over from her mother after graduating. Chen's grandmother, 76, still works with a sewing machine.

The workshop operates one processing factory and eight workshop branches. It has helped more than 1,870 embroiderers from seven ethnic groups achieve stable incomes, including more than 580 women from low-income households and over 100 people with disabilities.

The workshop provides free training at different levels, supplies materials, and handles orders, quality control and sales, while many embroiderers work from home.

But the workshop also looks beyond traditional craft markets for new uses for Yi embroidery. Its designs have been incorporated into gift packaging, bags and collaborative collections with other traditional crafts and contemporary brands. International collaborations have included Adidas and Nike, while custom Yi embroidery products have also been made for Jaguar Land Rover.

"The development of Yi embroidery should not be confined to Yi embroidery itself. We need to look at it from a broader perspective," Chen says.

That approach has also prompted the workshop to seek cooperation with heritage practitioners in other regions, including through exchanges of training methods, market channels and joint product development.

Going commercial

Yak wool is usually associated with warmth and rugged mountain life. A Shanghai design team, however, has been exploring how to turn the material into something for the fashion runway — and eventually, everyday wardrobes.

Working with practitioners in the Xizang autonomous region, designers from the Public Art Cooperation Center of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts developed a yak wool haute couture collection, combining yak wool with Xinzhuang crochet, a traditional Shanghai needlework technique known for its fine, lacelike quality. The collection has been presented at various fashion events, including the Shanghai Fashion Week.

"The goal at that stage was not sales," says Zhang Chenglong, deputy director of the PACC. "It was to show that yak wool can also be fashionable, artistic and high-end."

The project is part of the PACC's broader effort over the past decade to work with heritage practitioners and designers to find contemporary applications for traditional materials and techniques.

For the yak wool project, the team focused on the material first. Designers traveled to Xizang and worked alongside local practitioners, exploring the fiber's texture and visual qualities before considering how it might become a commercial product.

Next, the team tackled the practical challenges. Yak wool can shed and feel relatively stiff, so the PACC brought in materials and supply-chain specialists to develop new processing techniques while retaining its warmth. Traditional Tibetan patterns were also reworked into contemporary designs for products including socks, scarves and shawls, according to Zhang.

The PACC has explored partnerships with cultural tourism channels, boutique stores and e-commerce platforms, while experimenting with heritage workshops in settings such as homestays, bookstores and cafes.

The idea is to link the experience of learning about or making a traditional craft with the opportunity to take a finished product home, Zhang explains.

For passengers aboard the Shandong-Xinjiang train, these ideas were much less abstract.

Not long after the train left Jinan, Wang, a passenger who regularly travels between Shandong and Xinjiang for his dried-fruit business, was drawn from his seat by the sound of gongs and drums coming from another carriage.

He joined the crowd to watch a performance of Jiaozhou Yangge, a lively traditional folk dance from Shandong known for its energetic rhythms and colorful costumes. He then followed the scent of incense to a nearby workshop where passengers were making sachets. He eventually rolled up his sleeves and joined in.

"Normally I just sleep or scroll on my phone when I take the train," Wang says, laughing as he brushed incense powder from his hands. "But on this train, I've been busier than at a market."