Traditional Village Protection Shows Results, Development Still Needs to Break New Ground

"Traditional dwellings are frozen history, the wisdom of a people's survival, and a concentrated expression of traditional cultural elements such as construction techniques, social ethics and aesthetic concepts; they are precious cultural heritage that cannot be regenerated." Ni Hong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on the 28th that traditional villages urgently need protection.

Ni Hong introduced that since 2012, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, together with the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and the Ministry of Finance (referred to as the "four ministries and bureaus"), has announced two batches of 1,561 villages listed in the Chinese Traditional Villages Directory, of which 327 villages were included in the first batch of central financial support in 2014. Soon, on the basis of the four ministries and bureaus, together with the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Tourism Administration, a third batch of 994 villages to be listed in the Chinese Traditional Villages Directory will be announced, bringing the total of the three batches to 2,555.

In December 2013, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development launched a survey of traditional Chinese dwellings. This survey covered 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government, as well as the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions of China, lasted 9 months, and completed a county-by-county survey of traditional dwelling types, representative buildings, and traditional architectural craftsmen. Based on the survey results, 599 types of traditional dwellings were sorted out, and the "Complete Collection of Traditional Chinese Dwelling Types" was compiled, representing a major survey, record, inheritance, and promotion of our traditional Chinese dwellings.

"After this protection work was launched, it played a fundamental role in reversing the further disappearance of traditional villages; awareness has generally increased in all places, and protection efforts have been strengthened. At the same time, because traditional villages are not allowed to be relocated or demolished, the phenomenon of traditional villages disappearing has been brought under control," Zhao Hui, director of the Village and Town Department of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said at the press conference.

Bringing disappearance under control is only the first step. How should traditional villages be further protected?

The protection of traditional villages faces the contradiction between protection and the improvement of villagers' lives. "The functions of dwellings in traditional villages are indeed quite backward in a considerable number of cases. The biggest difficulty is that ordinary people want to improve their lives, while the government requires them to protect them," Zhao Hui said. "In some places these problems are very acute."

Zhao Hui said that as long as effort is put into renovating any dwelling, it can achieve relatively complete modern living functions and also meet seismic requirements.

He introduced that the next step is to organize experts to study "one type at a time" how to add living functions and disaster prevention functions on the basis of the original structure. At the same time, for some dwellings that are too small, consideration will also be given to coordinating new homestead land outside the village for farmers to build houses, without demolishing the traditional dwellings in the village.

If traditional villages do not develop, then for some relatively remote and poor villages, protection will lose its support. Therefore, traditional villages must be protected through development.

Zhao Hui said that, first, every village is required to prepare a protection plan. A core content of the plan is to avoid excessive development, control the area and scale of commercial development, and at the same time not allow the blocks where ordinary people originally lived to be turned into commercial streets, let alone allow all villagers to be moved out for museum-style development. Efforts must be made to find a development model that both protects traditional villages and helps villagers become better off. But the prominent problem at present is excessive development, so "control" is still the theme.

The hollowing out of traditional villages is also a relatively common problem at present. Many traditional villages are located in poor areas, and young people leave the mountain villages to seek prosperity, causing a gradual loss of population in traditional villages and forming "hollow villages." Zhao Hui said that these traditional villages are still very valuable and cannot be demolished just because they are hollowed out. For these "hollow villages," judging from the experience of various countries, support is generally continuously strengthened. This is not only a matter of economic and cultural inheritance, but also a matter of regional social inheritance, and this should be the government's due concept and practice.