Getting close to intangible heritages with volunteers from Tianjin Normal University

Dong Jing, 69 years old, the fifth inheritor of Dongfengtai wooden paintings, lives in Fengtai town in Tianjin. Volunteers from Tianjing Normal University visited Dong and lots of other intangible heritage inheritors on the second China Culture and Natural Heritage Day.

Dong Jing introduces the techniques of creating wooden paintings to volunteers. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

Wooden paintings originated in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), and flourished in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). They mainly have auspicious themes. Dongfengtai wooden painting is an intangible heritage at the city level that combines traditional painting techniques and characteristics of southeastern China and northern Hebei province.

Dong Jing introduces Dongfengtai wooden paintings to volunteers and shows how to make one.[Photo/enorth.com.cn]

Dong Jing, the fifth inheritor of Dongfengtai wooden paintings, demonstrates the creation process. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

Dong Jing introduces the key points of creating a wooden painting to volunteers. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

The volunteers were fascinated by the time-honored techniques, and wanted to learn the "old craftsmanship". Dong Jing will choose some volunteers to be the next inheritors of this intangible heritage. "The goal of art is inheritance," he said.

The walking intangible heritage is a service project from Tianjin Normal University. Song Yuqian, one of the volunteers, said, "When I was a voluntary teacher in a village in Tianjin, I found a lot of 'old craftsmanship' might be lost, so we opened this project." The volunteers found that there are 33 intangible heritages at the national level in Tianjin, and 250 intangible heritages at city level. They want to encourage young people to understand and inherit them to give intangible heritages a brighter future.

A paper-cut artist showing the technique to volunteers.[Photo/enorth.com.cn]

A wood carving inheritor introducing the technique of wood carving to volunteers. [Photo/enorth.com.cn]

The walking intangible heritage project will inherit and promote the heritages in three stages. The first one is to attract more young volunteers who are fond of intangible heritages and encourage them to learn. Then, volunteers will transfer all the data they collected about intangible heritages to digital resources to protect and promote them more easily; finally a sale platform will be built by e-commerce to create an "intangible plus e-commerce" model to help them survive in the age of plenty.

"Intangible heritages are an excellent but lonely culture; we hope they will be better known by volunteers' support. The best way to solve intangible heritages endangerment is to make more young people like them," Dong Jing said.