By Qiang Yuwen, People’s Daily
Yunmeng county in central China’s Hubei province is leveraging its rich historical and cultural resources to boost the development of cultural tourism.
The local authorities have explored a new path to drive cultural tourism with cultural heritage, with concrete measures such as establishing a research station for cultural relic protection, promoting innovations in preserving and carrying forward traditional arts like shadow puppetry, and developing cultural tourism projects.
Although Yunmeng county is the smallest county in Hubei province, it is home to over 5,000 pieces of cultural relics, including those recognized as Chinese national treasures.
At the end of 1975, 12 tombs dating from the late Warring States Period (475 B.C. – 221 B.C.) to the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C. – 207 B.C.) were unexpectedly unearthed during the excavation of a water channel in Shuihudi, Yunmeng county.
In Tomb No. 11, several piles of bamboo slips caught the attention of archaeologists, who then meticulously collected, numbered, and cleaned over 1,000 bamboo slips from the tomb.
Soon after, experts identified these bamboo slips as historical records of the period when the seven states during the Warring States Period were unified under the Qin Dynasty, meticulously recorded by an official named Xi in over 40,000 neatly written Qin characters.
A major part of the records, in particular, is eighteen categories of Qin laws, which is considered the earliest and most complete legal code discovered in China to date, indicating that over 2,200 years ago, ancient China’s legal system had already been systematically established.
So far, a total of 36 Chinese national first-class cultural relics have been unearthed in Yunmeng, making it a favored destination for archaeologists.
In addition to the bamboo slips, the other cultural relics unearthed in the county include numerous precious wood carvings, wooden lacquerware, and two family letters inscribed on wooden tablets, which were written by brothers Heifu and Jing to their brother in “Zhong” during the end of the Warring States Period, believed to be the world’s oldest family letter.
The Yunmeng County Museum houses over 5,000 pieces of cultural relics, including 18 Chinese national first-class artifacts, making it a prominent one among county-level museums in China.
The raw lacquer for wooden lacquerware is highly valuable, involving intricate crafting processes. The large quantity of lacquerware unearthed in Yunmeng county attests to its past prosperity.
Li Lan, a researcher with the Hubei Provincial Museum, has been designated to dehydrate and reinforce the newly unearthed lacquerware, as well as mending any existing damages.
The task is extremely complex. The dehydration process alone takes at least one to two years, and for larger pieces in better condition, it may even take over five years.
Previously, the Yunmeng County Museum, due to inadequate facilities, had to transport restoration-required artifacts to cities like Wuhan and Jingzhou in Hubei province.
The long-distance journey risked inflicting damage on the cultural relics, with even a slight mishap possibly causing significant harm.
The establishment of the Yunmeng workstation, a major research center for the protection of unearthed lacquerware under China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration, has notably improved the conservation and restoration efforts in Yunmeng county.
Now, Li spends much of her time training local technicians in artifact restoration techniques.
To better preserve and inherit traditional culture, Yunmeng has consistently worked on innovating both the methods and content of cultural presentation.
Inspired by the story of the Qin Dynasty official Xi, Li Shenghua, president of the sports association of a residential community in Chengguan township, Yunmeng county, has led the local dance team in creating a show named “ink dance of Qin bamboo slips.”
In the performance, dancers dressed in traditional Chinese attire hold bamboo slips and use water sleeves to imitate the scene of historians recording events on bamboo slips with a brush.
The show won an award at a municipal-level competition during its first performance, and the team was even invited to perform it overseas.
In a shadow play theater in Chengguan township of Yunmeng county, innovative shadow puppet shows are staged to bring the audience closer to China’s history and cultural heritage.
One of the shadow puppet shows, created based on eighteen categories of Qin laws, is particularly popular.
In the show, an official in charge of law enforcement earnestly persuades his father not to burn straw, and brings the “village bully” harming the ecological environment to justice, eliciting frequent laughter from the audience with witty lines.
The show reveals to the audience that the culture contained in the Qin bamboo slips, spanning thousands of years, remains relevant to the daily lives of people today.
Out of a passion for the arts and a desire to preserve culture through shadow puppetry, Liu Junming, a member of the Yunmeng county committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, has teamed up with local intangible cultural heritage inheritor Fang Dingmin and shadow puppet artist Qin Ligang to create a shadow puppet skit called “play within a play about Qin law.”
Qin Ligang is a Chinese national-level inheritor of Yunmeng shadow puppetry dedicated to the innovative development of this traditional art form.
Not confined to fixed music scores, Qin excels at incorporating current events into his performances.
“We must not only learn the old plays but also create new ones that capture the attention of young people,” Qin said.
The protection of traditional arts is like a rescue mission against “forgetting”, according to Qin, who noted that the more novel and relatable the art, the more likely it is able to impress the audience.
“Only by being remembered can it be passed down through generations,” he said.
A few years ago, Qin took on a “steel apprentice” – an intelligent robot equipped with sensors all over its body.
In 2017, Qin and the robot performed the classic play “Wu Song Fights the Tiger” in the Palace Museum in Beijing. During the performance, the robot led a shadow puppet tiger with its mechanical hand, executing lifelike movements programmed into it, capturing the attention of young audience.
“With the combination of artificial intelligence and our innovation, we won’t have to worry about traditional craftsmanship being lost,” Qin remarked.
Extracting unique cultural traits from its historical heritage, Yunmeng is exploring better ways to coordinate the relationships between cultural relic preservation, tourism, and commercial operations.
In recent years, the county has established an intangible cultural heritage exhibition hall, built a Qin bamboo slip memorial park, and improved its libraries and cultural centers, earning the title of the “hometown of folk culture and arts in Hubei province.”
Delving into its profound cultural heritage, this thousand-year-old small county is now radiating new charm.
