Free public cultural services on the way

Jilin people will be able to enrich their lives with more free cultural services, including performances, museum tickets and history lectures, in the coming year.

Jin Xudong, deputy director of the Jilin Province Department of Culture, shared his views on culturally beneficial services during the Jilin province's two sessions.

Constructing a modern public culture service system has been listed among the key missions of the Jilin government in recent years.

"According to the government's requirements, we plan to offer more free cultural performances and activities to the public and build a digital museum and a digital library which can provide culture information," Jin said.

"We will also open two festivals -- a farmer cultural festival and a citizen cultural festival -- to enrich people's lives; the promotion of intangible cultural heritage is also an important part."

Jin added that besides activities for the public, some new films and operas about China's traditional festivals and the Northeastern Asia Expo will be produced in 2018.

In terms of culture inheritance, Jin said neither preservation of cultural relics nor intangible cultural inheritances can be neglected.

"To date, there are more than 9,000 immovable cultural heritage sites in Jilin province such as the ancient tombs of emperors and other examples of old architecture, in which are preserved over 770,000 antiques including calligraphy and Chinese ink pictures," Jin added.

He also suggested that the history and information of traditional activities in Jilin province like winter fishing and Manchu paper-cutting could be displayed in museums and taught in class.

In this way, more people, both from Jilin province and other parts of the world, would be able to learn about the province's history and its traditional culture.