Protecting Traditional Villages Also Means Safeguarding Our Spiritual Homeland

The protection of China's traditional villages is drawing great attention from the state. A reporter recently learned from the Ministry of Finance that the central government will invest more than 10 billion yuan over a period of 3 years to advance the protection of traditional villages.

The diversity of our Chinese nation's culture lies in the countryside, the roots of that culture lie in the countryside, intangible cultural heritage is mainly in the countryside, and the culture of ethnic minorities is entirely in the countryside. Whether in terms of scale, substance or value, traditional villages are ancient and profound; they are the root and lifeblood of Chinese national culture, and the “spiritual homeland” of the Chinese nation!

Most traditional villages date back to distant times, are scattered across relatively remote, poor and backward areas, and are severely dilapidated. For a long time, some places have lacked sufficient understanding of the scarcity and non-renewable nature of traditional villages. Apart from a very small number of traditional villages that have been listed as famous historical and cultural villages and thereby well protected, most traditional villages are still left to fend for themselves and cannot be effectively protected. The layout and appearance and the ecological environment of traditional villages are constantly being destroyed, some folk customs and cultures are on the verge of dying out, and many traditional skills and folk arts have no successors and face the danger of being lost.

Therefore, protecting traditional villages is already urgent. Fortunately, China has already launched work on the protection of traditional villages, established a national list of traditional villages, and the central government has also allocated special subsidy funds for environmental improvement and infrastructure construction and for protecting the cultural relics and cultural heritage of these villages. In reality, however, worrisome chaos has emerged in the process of protecting traditional villages.

With the adjustment of China's economic growth model and the intensifying wave of urbanization, the vast countryside is undergoing integrated urban-rural transformation and construction, and against this historical backdrop the protection of traditional villages faces enormous difficulties. Some places, seeking political achievements, rush for quick results and are eager to carry out image projects that make “a thousand villages look alike”, arbitrarily demolishing and rebuilding or blindly carrying out large-scale demolition and construction, and even vigorously pursuing “urbanized village construction” along the lines of the urban model; some, without considering the protection and inheritance of the cultural heritage of traditional villages, simply put forward the slogan of “old village renovation”; some vigorously carry out village appearance rectification, blindly aiming for a high starting point and high standards, and vigorously pursue uniform high-rise residential models, so that the original ecological environment and historical layout of the vernacular architecture of some traditional villages are dismembered and destroyed, and even the buildings themselves cannot escape the fate of being demolished or relocated; some carry out “superficial showpiece” construction, giving the walls of ancient buildings a fresh coat of paint during repair and renovation, so that genuine cultural relics are forcibly turned into fake ones; some “covet the grand and seek the foreign, building new small Western-style houses”, demolishing and replanning some villages that nestle against hills and rivers and are quaint and tranquil, and building row upon row of uniform European-style villas, so that the layout, appearance and vernacular architecture of traditional villages suffer “devastating destruction”…… All these kinds of chaos leave the intangible cultural heritage in traditional villages with nowhere to settle, and the rich and diverse folk culture will also disappear with the disappearance of traditional villages, which is a huge loss to the work of protecting intangible cultural heritage.

So how should we, while ensuring that traditional villages are protected, safeguard the spiritual homeland of the Chinese nation and pass on the root and lifeblood of national culture from generation to generation? The author believes that, on the one hand, genuine protection of traditional villages should mean repairing the old as the old, constantly reinforcing them to prevent collapse and further destruction, not creating fake antiques, fake villages or fake history. On the other hand, sound protection of ancient villages should not focus only on the material level of protecting and restoring ancient buildings, but should also fully display and reasonably pass on the traditional culture closely related to those ancient buildings.

⟦NL> First, a set of regulations and provisions specifically targeting the development and protection of ancient villages should be issued, the protection management system should be improved, and the scientific management of traditional village heritage should be strengthened; second, the protection of traditional villages should be included in fiscal budgets, policy support should be strengthened, and funds for protection and management should be raised in a variety of ways; third, the effective protection and use of traditional villages should be combined with “reasonable rectification, moderate development and tourism development”; finally, the protection and use of traditional villages must be people-centered, respect the rights and interests of villagers, fully mobilize the enthusiasm of villagers, and enable villagers to take the initiative to participate in village protection and cultural inheritance.