Tai'an strives to preserve cultural, natural heritage

Tai'an in Shandong province recently hosts an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) shopping festival in celebration of National Cultural and Natural Heritage Day. [Photo by Zhang Rui/for chinadaily.com.cn]

Tai'an in Shandong province recently hosted an intangible cultural heritage (ICH) shopping festival in celebration of National Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which fell on June 8 this year.

The festival featured over 20 ICH items, showcasing traditional crafts, arts, and music. Visitors enjoyed performances and exhibits including Taishan lion dance, tofu-making, plant-dyeing, weaving, and jade-carving.

They not only tasted ICH delicacies, but also had immersive experiences with traditional crafts, getting an up-close look of these ICH skills and integrating ICH into modern life.

The theme of this year's National Cultural and Natural Heritage Day is "protect ICH, continue historical legacy, and write a new chapter for the era". To raise public awareness and engagement in ICH protection, Tai'an will host over 20 related events.

Currently, Tai'an boasts one item on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity - Mount Tai, as well as 12 national-level ICH items, 59 provincial-level items, and 586 municipal-level items. The city is also home to four national-level, 34 provincial-level, and 237 municipal-level ICH inheritors.

A booth at the ICH shopping festival held in Tai'an showcases various provincial-level ICH items. [Photo by Zhang Rui/for chinadaily.com.cn]