China News Service, Wuhan, February 1 (Reporter Ma Furong) "Intangible cultural heritage is the essence of China's excellent traditional culture and a common treasure for compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits." At the Hubei Two Sessions, Tong Yanting, a member of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, called for the adoption of intangible cultural heritage. It connects more compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and promotes mutual exchanges and cooperation.
On January 29, Tong Yanting participated in the Hubei Two Sessions. (Photo provided by interviewee)
Tong Yanting’s ancestral home is Taipei. During her college years, she majored in art and design and frequently came into contact with intangible cultural heritage, which aroused her strong interest. After graduating from Nagoya University in Japan with a PhD, she became a teacher at the School of Art and Design of Wuhan University of Technology in 2013.
In addition to teaching, Tong Yanting often goes to Hubei cities and villages to conduct field surveys, interview traditional craftsmen, and conduct research on intangible cultural heritage. At the same time, we visited Taiwanese businessmen in the cultural and creative field in Hubei to find the integration point of cross-strait intangible cultural heritage.
Through Tong Yanting's matchmaking, the National Taiwan Federation and Cross-Strait Intangible Cultural Inheritance and Development Exchange Base was settled at Wuhan University of Technology in 2019. In the past five years, the base has successively held seminars on cross-Strait intangible cultural heritage and cultural creative products, Inheriting Intangible Cultural Heritage and Celebrating the Double Ninth Festival, Dragon Boat Festival Folk Customs, "Thoughts on Intangible Cultural Heritage" Cross-Strait Intangible Cultural Heritage Carnival, China Award·Cross-Strait Intangible Cultural Heritage Design competition and other cross-strait exchange activities.
At the Huanggang Yingshan Intangible Cultural Heritage Project Base, she and Tai Qing used multi-colored silk threads to create entangled flower artworks such as birds, beasts, insects, fish, flowers, and fruits; During the event, she led compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to "travel" intangible cultural heritage skills such as wood carving, oil-paper umbrellas, and embroidery, attracting more than 10,000 people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait to participate online.
What Tong Yanting is most proud of is the China Award Cross-Strait Intangible Cultural Heritage Design Competition. This competition created by her team received more than 1,000 entries in the first session, and the number increased to more than 4,100 in the second session. With the help of the competition platform, teachers and students from universities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, and craftsmen can exchange ideas, collide with inspiration, and produce a number of excellent intangible cultural heritage derivatives.
“Most of the contestants for the China Award are young people.” Tong Yanting said that young people have injected vitality into the innovative development of intangible cultural heritage.
Participating in the Hubei Two Sessions this year, she called for strengthening connections with Taiwanese universities and non-governmental organizations to increase the popularity and participation of the competition in Taiwan; promote the incubation and development of outstanding intangible cultural heritage works, and stimulate the innovation and entrepreneurship vitality of young people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. She also suggested forming a "Cross-Strait University Intangible Cultural and Creative Design Education Research Alliance" to exchange experience in designing intangible cultural and creative courses and improve the level of intangible cultural and creative education on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. (over)