Disappearing treasures

Lu Baogang is the deputy head of Beijing Shadow Show Troupe.

As a branch of thousands of years old traditional shadow show, Beijing shadow show has gone through a history of 600 years in the region. As the major successor of the Beijing shadow show, Lu's family was once famous all over the city during an earlier era.

The group is made up of only six staff. Many classic plays have disappeared from the list, since those usually require over 10 people to take part in.

"Everyone must be responsible for at least one role. If anyone fails to come, the show will be canceled," says Hou Yongsheng, who was originally a shadow puppet craftsman but also a major actor now. Lu said that the salary offered to puppeteers is too small to attract new young performers and insufficient for current performers to live on it full time. 

Similar situations also happen to other intangible cultural heritage sites in China and many are facing extinction.

"The biggest problem for ICH protection is lack of successors," says Wang Zuoji.

Wang said that many intangible cultural heritage items fail to enable its successors to live on it. In addition, most crafts or skills require years of tough efforts to learn, and young people usually show no interest in age-old culture.

But intangible cultural heritage, usually passed down by oral teaching, must be carried by human beings. Without successors, the culture cannot survive.

Moreover, closely related to people's way of life, intangible cultural heritage also diminishes with the development of the society, as lifestyles change dramatically. For example, labor songs, sung by boat trackers in the olden days, disappeared with technological advances.

Meanwhile, China's minority ethnic groups are often located in economically backward regions. Culture heritage is being eroded by urbanization and modern civilization.

According to research, 35 percentage of China's traditional theater died out in the past 60 years. The number for traditional dance is 37 percent during the past 20 years, and in some provinces, the proportion reaches two thirds.