Can the soon-to-be-disappeared "boat-shaped house" get out of the circle on the "express train" of applying for World Heritage?
The excellent traditional culture of the Li nationality, "raised in a boudoir and unknown to others", is in urgent need of rescue restoration intervention
▲The boat-shaped house in Chubao Village, Wuzhishan City, Hainan Province.
Photo by our reporter Liu Deng
Our reporters Liu Changlin, Zhao Yeping, Liu Deng
With thatched roof and grass-mud paste walls, it looks like an upside-down wooden boat. Such a "boat-shaped house" is a house where the Li people in Hainan have lived for generations and has a history of thousands of years.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, nearly 160,000 households and 800,000 people of the Li nationality lived in boat-shaped houses and villages composed of them.
Since 1992, Hainan Province has implemented the thatched cottage renovation project to help the Li people move out of the low and dark boat-shaped houses.
By the end of 2010, the compatriots of ethnic minorities in the province "did not live in a single household", completely saying goodbye to the history of living in thatched houses.
At present, only Chubao Village, Maoyang Town, Wuzhishan City, and Baicha Village, Jiangbian Township, Dongfang City, which are listed as provincial cultural relics protection units, can retain their ancient appearance.
The ancient boat-shaped houses are about to disappear, and the unique traditional culture of the Li nationality, such as singing and dancing, sports, medicine, etc., is also slightly sluggish.
How to let the world know more about Hainan?
How to correctly understand, better inherit and develop the traditional culture of the Li nationality represented by boat-shaped houses?
Let's walk into the area where the Li people live together, and find answers from the people of the Li people, provincial, city and county cadres, and heritage research experts.
"It's hard to live in a thatched house!"
Starting from the urban area of Wuzhishan, Hainan, take the national road, cross the Atuoling Mountain for more than 10 kilometers to reach Maoyang Town, and then drive a section of the village road to reach Chubao Village.
This is a village built on a hillside, surrounded by mountains and rivers, with beautiful scenery.
The stone carvings of the village name, the thatched barn and the stele of "Hainan Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit" at the entrance of the village are very eye-catching.
Walking along the village road, there are several green paddy fields on the left, and mountain springs and streams flow past the village.
On the slope on the right, the thatched houses in the style of Li nationality dwellings in the dry-lane style are next to each other. No one lives in the village. The thatched roofs of some roofs have been replaced with iron sheets, and some houses are used to raise poultry such as chickens and ducks.
Looking in from the door, the house is low and dark, with earthy floors, wooden walls, three-stone stoves... There is an ancient atmosphere everywhere.
In 2010, the local government built a new village near the old village. All 76 households with about 400 people in the village were relocated to two-story buildings in the new village. There are sofas, TVs, independent toilets and bathrooms in the house, and the living conditions of the villagers have been greatly improved.
Wang Shiqi, a villager who returned from working in the betel nut forest on the mountain on a trendy motorcycle, said that the old village is relatively close to the fields, so everyone will put farm tools in the old house, and occasionally rest in the old village at noon.
Talking about his attitude towards the old village, the post-80s who was the leader of the villager group said: "Everyone must have feelings for the old village. After all, it is the place where the ancestors have lived. In terms of living, the thatched house is cool in summer, but everywhere in winter. It's uncomfortable to have the air leak, and it's hard to live there again!"
A single young man in his twenties in the new village said bluntly that they did not want to go back to live in thatched houses, but wanted to use the homestead of the old houses in the old villages to build new houses to improve living conditions. It is no longer enough for the younger generation to get married.
However, the old village is a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit, and the old houses cannot be demolished, nor can the homestead be used.
In order to ease the mood of the villagers and to make the old house "popular", the villagers are allowed to take a lunch break or raise poultry in the thatched house.
In Hainan, there are traditional Li villages that maintain their original appearance like Chubao Village, and Baicha Village in Jiangbian Township, Dongfang City.
Both Baicha Village and Chubao Village are thatched houses in the style of traditional Li people's dwellings with dry columns, but each has its own characteristics.
Chubao Village has wooden walls, while Baicha Village has yellow mud mixed with straw on the wooden boards, which is more airtight.
On the day of the reporter's interview, a "migratory bird" living in the local area was visiting the village with a few friends, posing and taking pictures in front of the thatched cottage.
"The shape of the house is like an overturned boat, made of thatch, or covered with sunflower or rattan leaves. The door is opened against the ridge, and the hole is next to the squat. The wooden frame in the house is used as a fence, and the bamboo and wood are spread across it. Women, chickens and pigs.” More than 100 years ago, American missionary Xiang Bianwen visited Hainan Island, and later stated in his book Journey to Hainan that the spacious and ventilated houseboats where the Li people lived was the reason for their health. one.
Li Jilong, deputy director of the Cultural Relics Department of the Hainan Provincial Department of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports, introduced that the site selection, spatial layout, house building style and technology of the Li traditional villages fully demonstrate the Li people's reverence for nature and the wisdom of making good use of nature, reflecting the Li nationality's pioneering The values and social outlook of the people reflect the symbiotic relationship between man and nature in a detailed and extensive manner.
"But with the development of the times, it is impossible for ordinary people to live in thatched houses. They can be protected as cultural relics to keep a memory, so that future generations can know that their ancestors once lived in such boat-shaped houses." Curator of Oriental City Cultural Center Chen Rongchuan said that traditional villages have become "living fossils" like cultural relics, and Dongfang City plans to introduce a company that plans to turn it into a tourist attraction for tourists to visit.
The traditional culture of the Li nationality is unique and wonderful
The Li nationality is an ancient ethnic group unique to Hainan, with a population of more than 1.5 million, accounting for more than 15% of the province's total population and 91% of the province's minority population.
Li compatriots have contributed special skills such as Li brocade, Li Tao, Li song, and Li dance in the long course of development. They have their own dialect system, clothing system and very prominent textile technology, creating a natural environment suitable for tropical islands. A distinctive culture.
The primitive boat-shaped house, the ingenious Li brocade, the enthusiastic bamboo dance, the mysterious old man with tattooed faces... Walking in the mountainous area of central Hainan, the richness and ancient mystery of the traditional culture of the Li people are shocking.
The research believes that the boat-shaped house is the material witness of the transition stage of human civilization development from primitive society to agricultural society; Li brocade, which has existed for more than 3,000 years, is the earliest cotton textile in China, and is known as the "living fossil of Chinese textile history"; The tradition of "face tattooing" is a sign of sacredness and purity...
In recent years, many traditional skills unique to the Li people have been listed as intangible cultural heritage for protection.
"Among the 82 intangible cultural heritage projects above the provincial level in Hainan, there are 28 of the Li nationality, accounting for more than one-third." said Chen Pei, director of the intangible cultural heritage protection department of the Hainan Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center.
In 2009, "the traditional spinning, dyeing, weaving and embroidery skills of the Li nationality" was included in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage catalogues in urgent need of protection by UNESCO.
For more than ten years, the central government and Hainan Province have invested more than 100 million yuan in it to improve the protection system and mechanism, build a training hall, a training center, and cultivate inheritors. , is currently the best protected intangible cultural heritage project in Hainan.
Thanks to government investment, some other intangible cultural heritage items of the Li nationality have also been protected to varying degrees.
In the past five years, the relevant departments of cities and counties in the province have held nearly 600 training courses on various intangible cultural heritage projects, and actively cultivated inheritors for the intangible cultural heritage projects.
When the reporter interviewed in Baicha Village, the village was carrying out the construction skills training of Li nationality's dry fence.
Chen Rongchuan said that the cultural center holds training activities every year, and the trainees are subsidized. The training class buys construction materials such as thatch from the villagers, which can allow the villagers to obtain certain benefits, and the villagers are also motivated.
Some ethnic minority tourist attractions represented by the 5A-level tourist scenic spot "Binglang Valley" and Yanoda Rainforest Cultural Tourism Area have become good places to show tourists the original ecological and natural features of Li villages.
Among them, Betellang Valley is a national-level intangible cultural heritage protection demonstration base. It consists of four major sections: Intangible Cultural Heritage Village, Ganshili Village, Rainforest Miao Village, and Dreamland. It displays ten national-level intangible cultural heritage products of the Li nationality. It is full of cultural charm and is known as The "living fossil" of Hainan's national culture.
Large-scale performances with the theme of Li culture are often praised in national minority performances.
In September last year, the song and dance poem "Homeland of the Li Nationality", which showed the life of the children of the Li nationality living in harmony with nature and working hard to build a homeland, won the "Gold Award for Plays" in the 5th National Ethnic Minority Art Festival. After three performances, there was a "most dazzling Li nationality style" in Shanghai.
▲Aerial view of part of the boat-shaped house in Baicha Village, Dongfang City.
Photo by our reporter Li Duojiang
Can the application for the World Heritage List make the traditional culture of the Li nationality "out of the circle"?
It is undeniable that the traditional culture of the Li nationality still has a taste of "raised in a boudoir and unknown to people", and the "sense of existence" at home and abroad is not strong.
The Li nationality has its own language, but not its own writing, and its cultural form has been passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and behavior, and has continued to this day.
Zhang Zhengjin, director of the Cultural and Educational Propaganda Department of the Hainan Provincial Ethnic and Religious Committee, said that the research, arrangement and presentation of the traditional culture of the Li nationality are relatively weak.
"Especially with the development of economy and society, many living customs and cultural customs of the Li people have also 'declined' with the demise of traditional Li villages." Chen Pei said that nowadays, in the eyes of young Li people, many ancient Li traditions Skills, such as drilling wood to make fire, bark cloth making, primitive pottery making, bone tool making, dry fence construction, and Li medicine, have been covered with a mysterious and distant veil.
Regarding the rich and unique traditional culture of the Li nationality, Liu Baodang, deputy secretary general of the World Heritage Expert Committee of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration and member of the IUCN Green List, believes that "it is very valuable. There are only two traditional villages left in the province, which are already endangered. The state should not only be well protected, but also be 'lived' and exploited. I'm actually quite anxious, because those engaged in the protection of world heritage have a sense of mission."
"It's not ancient or backward." Liu Baodang believes that for thousands of years, how did the Li people survive in the tropical rainforest with high temperature and insects?
To find the answer, we have to go back to the simple survival wisdom of the aborigines. The people who are best at dealing with tropical rain forests are the Li people living in Hainan. Their simple survival wisdom contains a big system, and the traditional culture of the Li people is a rich source. Cultural Center.
At present, Hainan is stepping up the construction of a free trade port with Chinese characteristics. In addition to the rapid economic and social development, there is also an urgent need to enhance cultural soft power.
Kang Baiying, executive vice minister of the United Front Work Department of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee, believes that a free trade port with Chinese characteristics should be an important window and position with a unique culture that can display and export world-class cultural values to the world.
Since March 2021, Hainan has actively promoted the application of the "Hainan Tropical Rainforest and Traditional Li Nationality Settlement" project to declare the world's natural and cultural heritage.
The interviewed cadres and experts believe that, referring to the cases of tourism and local economic development in similar regions in China after the successful application to the World Heritage List, Hainan's successful application to the World Heritage List will greatly enhance its international reputation and fully promote the Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park and surrounding areas. The development of tourism has benefited the people of the Li nationality.
Experts believe that the process of applying for the World Heritage is also a process of excavating and promoting value. With the help of the application, the excellent traditional culture of Hainan can be excavated, sorted out and refined, especially the unique traditional ecological wisdom and ecological culture of the Li people in Hainan with the characteristics of tropical islands. Organized and presented, and recognized by the world, will greatly enhance cultural self-confidence.
Of course, the road to the World Heritage List is not an easy one.
Liu Baodang said that in order for international experts from the World Heritage Committee, the International Council on Monuments and Sites and other institutions to fully understand the value of the traditional settlements of the Li nationality, the most important thing at present is to compare the criteria for applying for heritage, from the customs of the Li nationality, the sorting of intangible cultural heritage, Start with village environmental improvement, village form and building restoration, etc., and carry out rescue restoration interventions in a timely manner.