Writer/painter-turned cultural heritage preserver behind Spring Festival’s UNESCO heritage status success

Global Times: Feng Jicai leads efforts to preserve China's cultural heritage through art, literature, and education.

/EIN News/ -- Beijing, China, April 20, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Feng Jicai, a towering figure in Chinese literature, painting, and cultural preservation, has been a staunch advocate for protecting the roots of Chinese tradition. From engaging in the Chinese folk cultural heritage rescue project to playing a pivotal role in securing UNESCO recognition for the Spring Festival as an Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity, his work bridges the past and future, local and global efforts.

In an exclusive interview with the Global Times, Feng talked about his "four pillars" - literature, painting, cultural preservation, and education - and his belief that ICH is not just a relic, but a great treasure of all humanity.

In the reception hall of the Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art at Tianjin University, a poem written by Mo Yan, China's Nobel laureate in literature, hangs like a banner of reverence: "Big Feng stands like a big tree; each meeting leaves me gazing up in awe. A man of true character; a friend with a warm heart…"

The poem not only gives a nod to Feng's towering physical stature - he stands over 1.92 meters tall - but also captures the essence of a man who devoted himself to safeguarding China's intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

Feng's connection to "a big tree" is no mere metaphor. He told the Global Times that his ancestor, Feng Yi, was an Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) general famed for humility and nicknamed the "Big Tree General."

Born in North China's Tianjin Municipality in 1942, Feng rose to prominence as a contemporary Chinese writer, painter and cultural scholar.

Covering a wide range of subjects and forms and winning numerous awards both in China and abroad, his works have been translated into more than 20 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Arabic, with more than 60 translated editions published overseas.

In addition to his literary achievements, Feng is also a celebrated painter. In the 1960s, he studied traditional Chinese painting at a local studio and developed a fascination for folk art. His works are considered representative of modern literati painting, blending traditional Chinese artistic techniques with contemporary themes. He has studied and collected local folk art, reflecting his deep connection to China's cultural roots.

While Feng's literary and artistic fame has secured his place in the artistic history, it is his quieter crusade that defines him. Since the 1990s, he has been a leading advocate for the protection of ICH.

"A grand tree thrives in two directions: Roots grow deep into the soil, and branches stretch toward the sun. My mission is to pool all my energy into this land so that our ICH protection work grows strong - like fertile soil nurturing big trees with lush leaves and ripe fruit," he explains.

For over four decades, Feng has raced against time to preserve the vanishing tapestry of China's rural traditions, festivals, and folk arts.

Though he is now 83 years old, Feng has never ceased his efforts to protect the roots of Chinese culture.

The Feng Jicai Museum will open its door at Tianjin University in the autumn of 2025.

Housed within the Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, which will mark its 20th anniversary in 2025, the museum will showcase the extensive collection of ICH that Feng has dedicated his enthusiasm to preserving and safeguarding.

Lead advocate of the Spring Festival

Amid a busy career in ICH protection, no project embodies Feng's passion more than his role in securing UNESCO's recognition of the Chinese New Year as ICH in late 2024.

In December 2024, UNESCO added "Spring Festival, social practices of the Chinese people in celebration of the traditional New Year" to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity at the 19th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

As one of the main team members responsible for the application, Feng spent years crafting the proposal which was later included as an important recommendation by UNESCO and was published on its official website.

His influence also extends to policy. As a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Feng's proposal to designate the Chinese New Year's Eve a public holiday was adopted by the State Council in 2024.

The 2025 Spring Festival - the first as a UNESCO heritage event - sparked nationwide pride. Families were reunited, red lanterns were lit up, and social media was buzzing with "#ICHSpringFestival."

The successful inscription of the Spring Festival on the UNESCO heritage list marked a "historic moment and milestone," Feng said.

He added that like tangible world heritage sites, ICH also represents irreplaceable pinnacles of human creativity.

The Spring Festival's inclusion further strengthened it as a shared global cultural treasure. This shift demands heightened cultural consciousness: People should now emphasize its heritage attributes - the accumulated wisdom, values, and spiritual resonance forged over centuries, he emphasized.

But recognition, Feng warns, is merely the first step.

"Heritage status is not a tourism slogan - it is a covenant with humanity."

The Spring Festival's elevation demands a cultural awakening: Its wisdom, values, and spiritual resonance - forged over centuries - must be honored as living heritage, not commodified nostalgia.

The responsibility, Feng pointed out, lies with all citizens, but two groups should lead this cultural renaissance.

First, intellectuals, cultural workers, and media professionals should excavate, interpret, and promote the festival's essence.

Feng's rush to compile The Book of Chinese New Year within a month of the UNESCO announcement serves precisely this purpose - to provide scholarly frameworks for public understanding.

Second, government authorities should exercise cultural judgement.

While the UNESCO status may boost tourism and commerce, reducing the festival to a revenue-generating "product" risks irreversible damage.

He cited how Dashuhua, a 500-year-old ritual in North China's Hebei Province in which molten iron is splashed against walls to create fiery "blossoms," is now being superficially replicated in southern water towns to attract tourists, which is a violation of ICH's core principle of geographic uniqueness.

To combat this, Feng has mobilized dual fronts: scholars to document regional practices - from northern dumpling rituals to southern lion dances, and policymakers to regulate heritage branding.

Preserving this mosaic requires urgent documentation and classification of all festival customs nationwide. Only by understanding their distinctiveness can we protect them from homogenization, the "silent killer of cultural vitality," Feng said.

Innovation, he concedes, is possible but must be organic.

"Each custom is an organic creation inseparable from its native soil. Change must spring from the community, not be imposed by commerce," he said, adding that as inheritors of a living legacy, the task is twofold: to honor roots while nurturing growth. Only then can the Spring Festival remain both an anchor for identity and a dynamic force for future generations.

Decades of preserving folk art

As a pioneer in the protection of ICH, Feng's life has been closely connected with the times.

Since the 1980s, Feng transitioned from the study of the ICH field to leading the initiative to preserve China's folk cultural heritage.

Feng launched the Chinese Folk Cultural Heritage Rescue Project, a nationwide campaign that laid the groundwork for a four-tiered protection system - national, provincial, municipal, and county-level - to catalog and safeguard traditions.

With his efforts, thousands of volumes of cultural archives, from woodblock New Year prints to folk art compendiums, were meticulously compiled, mapping the DNA of Chinese civilization.

However, Feng understood that a record alone was not enough to help the craftsmen withstand the impact of commercialization.

In 2012, he spearheaded a national effort to identify and protect traditional villages, a collaboration among four ministries.

By 2021, 6,819 such villages - accounting for a third of the world's agrarian heritage - had been documented, their tiled roofs and temple fairs preserved.

What sets Feng apart is his willingness to turn art into action. He once auctioned his paintings to fund cultural preservation efforts.

Feng often refers to "literature, painting, cultural heritage preservation, and education" as his "four pillars."

"Literature and painting have been with me for over half a century and have become a way of life - I cannot imagine being without them. Cultural heritage preservation and education, on the other hand, are a social responsibility I cannot shirk. I throw myself wholeheartedly into each one," he once told the Xinhua News Agency.

During his long-term practice of heritage protection, Feng gradually conceived the idea of establishing a national scientific system for the protection of ICH.

Having moved from emergency rescue to systematic preservation, he champions "scientific protection," a framework aligning tradition with modern governance.

The establishment of an academic system for ICH studies and the systematic cultivation of professionals have thus opened a new chapter in promoting the scientific protection of ICH.

In 2021, the State Council approved the application of Tianjin University to establish China's first interdisciplinary master's degree in ICH studies.

The next year, the Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art at Tianjin University enrolled its first batch of master students in the ICH studies discipline. To his inaugural class, he offered a gentle charge: "I hope to see you across this land, working with vitality to tend our nation's living heritage."

As Mo Yan's poem foresaw, Feng has indeed become a sheltering tree with roots deep into the soil and branches embracing the times.

This article first appeared in the Global Times:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202504/1332103.shtml

Company: Global Times

Contact Person: Anna Li

Email: editor@globaltimes.com.cn

Website: https://globaltimes.cn

City: Beijing

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