Preserving intangible cultural heritage requires specific policies

(Baonghean) - Along with the restoration and embellishment of tangible cultural heritage, the conservation of intangible cultural heritage in our province has achieved certain results in recent times. However, there are still difficulties and concerns that require long-term, specific policies...

Carving furrows at the Nine-Room Temple Festival. Photo: Tran Hai

Currently, Nghe An has more than 20 different large and small festivals along with intangible cultural heritages such as folk songs, folk dances, folk music, and unique folk games. This type mainly takes place in early spring festivals and festivals of the Muong villages. Not only valuable in knowledge education and personality formation, many tangible and intangible cultural heritages of the province have been promoting their role, potential, and strengths in promoting the image of Nghe An homeland, developing tourism economy, attracting tourists and investors to Nghe An to explore and choose investment opportunities.

One of the intangible cultural heritages that our province has been struggling to preserve and promote recently is folk songs, ho, vi and dam of Nghe An. The evidence is that from 2011 to now, 2 scientific seminars have been organized: "Preserving and promoting the values ​​of folk songs, ho - vi - dam of Nghe An" in March 2011, and the international scientific seminar "Preserving and promoting the values ​​of folk songs in contemporary society (the case of folk songs, vi and dam of Nghe Tinh)" held in May 2014. Both seminars attracted the attention of domestic and international folk researchers to find appropriate solutions for conservation work, policies to attract, motivate and encourage folk artists. In 2009, our province established the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Nghe An Folk Heritage to strengthen the research, identification, promotion and teaching of Vi and Giam folk songs, including bringing folk songs into schools, establishing folk song clubs in localities... Especially from 2012 to now, in May, localities organize the Nghe An Vi and Giam Folk Song Festival in the whole province to arouse the love of folk songs of all classes of people, creating a meaningful playground for working people.

However, the current situation of preserving intangible cultural heritage is much more difficult than preserving tangible cultural heritage. Because artisans are getting older, the young generation is not very interested. There are too few officials doing collection work, not enthusiastic. Besides, the investment in preserving this type of art is still too little, not commensurate: There is no organization to honor artisans; there is no truly attractive and popular work about intangible cultural heritage... Intangible cultural heritage is a symbol of traditional culture, of each locality, each country. When exchanging in the international community, what makes us different from everywhere is the identity that has existed for thousands of years. How can today's youth not be indifferent to traditional values, when they only have a vague knowledge of traditional culture? Mr. Doan Nam - Former Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage - Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that Nghe An is gradually losing intangible cultural heritage, because very few people stand up to do this job. Besides, when a certain art form has been collected, it is only kept in books and documents without finding a way to promote it. The gongs of the Central Highlands, the folk songs of Bac Ninh, the xoan singing of Phu Tho… have resounded throughout the five continents thanks to the people there living with their own art form. Only when people can live with their own regional cultural identity can these intangible cultural heritages be seriously preserved.

For many years, artist Chu Van Ty - Cat Van - Thanh Chuong Folk Song Club has always been attached to Nghe folk songs and always worried about the future existence of Nghe folk songs in the future. Born in 1950 in the countryside of Cat Van, he was raised with lullabies and folk songs from his grandmother and mother since childhood. Therefore, he was famous for singing and singing folk songs well when he was a child. He confided: In his hometown, the young generation now rarely sings and listens to folk songs. How to inspire the young generation to sing those songs is something that he always worries about. As a good singer and a good composer of new melodies, when the Cat Van Commune Folk Song Club was established in 2010, he was the pioneer in mobilizing members to contribute to buy practice props. Without funds, the members used their own money to build the fund with the hope that, in addition to the joy, they could also contribute to preserving the cultural soul of the locality. Thus, with the role of composing and teaching folk songs to the younger generation, he has so far composed over 20 new folk songs. But to train the younger generation to sing folk songs well and correctly is very difficult. The current generation of folk singers is very small, only a handful. Therefore, what he wishes is that relevant levels should have an incentive mechanism; train, discover and nurture folk singing talents right from the grassroots.

Talking with People's Artist Hong Luu - Deputy Director of the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Nghe An Folk Heritage, she said: Like in other localities across the country, the issue of preserving and promoting intangible cultural heritage in Nghe An was raised late, the collection, preservation and promotion of intangible cultural heritage is not commensurate with the existing potential; research and collection work is still scattered and one-sided, many intangible cultural heritages have been collected but have not been exploited and used in life. Many cultural lifestyles are no longer suitable for current life. To preserve and maintain, we need specific solutions such as: Strengthening propaganda work so that people understand the great values ​​of intangible cultural heritage; conducting collection, research, preservation in books, discs, taking photos, recording, filming... for documentation. Like tangible cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage must be returned to the community, it must live and survive in today's modern life. For example, from folk material, over time we have developed new songs with modern breath and life through the creativity of musicians, through the staging of plays by the Center for Preservation and Promotion of Nghe An Folk Heritage... Strengthening the understanding of the younger generation about the precious heritage left by their ancestors. To do that, localities need to bring heritage into teaching and introducing it in schools as folk songs have done. Organizing competitions to compose new lyrics and new melodies among the people and students, creating a mass composition movement. Further developing folk song, folk music, folk dance clubs and localities need to have policies to encourage and motivate the clubs to operate. Each locality must identify its most unique intangible cultural heritage in order to have a specific direction for conservation, preservation and promotion, not a general one. Localities with tourism potential can combine conservation and promotion of intangible cultural heritage to serve tourists. For example, tourists coming to Nam Dan will hear the singing of the fabric guild, coming to Hang Bua - Quy Chau will hear Thai folk songs, coming to Yen Thanh will enjoy Ke Gam opera...

The first thing is still the mechanism and policy to maintain the operation of intangible cultural heritage. Unlike tangible cultural heritage, when restored, renovated, and embellished, it can sustain itself, but folk music, folk dance clubs are different. To preserve and promote is not simple at all. Like folk songs, we have come to this day to submit to UNESCO for recognition, which is a whole journey. However, the concern is that after UNESCO recognizes folk songs as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, how do we promote and preserve them so that the title returns to its true meaning, so that folk songs exist forever in the lives of working people.

Thanh Thuy