Weifang, a city in central Shandong province, is renowned for its abundant culture and folklore resources. Local authorities have been striving to protect and inherit the city's intangible cultural heritages, aiming to boost the development of the cultural industry.

Weifang used to be a city renowned for handicrafts and was honored as "Small Suzhou" (Suzhou is a famous cultural city in Jiangsu province). The traditional industrial arts, such as embroidery, kite making, antique bronze casting, fruit pit carving and New Year wood-cut prints, came into vogue in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties and were passed down to today, becoming the "name card" of Weifang.

Importance attached to local culture

Authorities of Shouguang, a county-level city of Weifang, designated 2018 as the "year to boost rural culture" and arranged the Fisrt Rural Culture Art Festival, which included activities of competitions, exchanges, exhibitions and performances, in an effort to promote the city's folk culture and art.

The Fisrt Rural Culture Art Festival of Shouguang. [Photo/Cultural Shandong]

To highlight the characteristics of local culture, Weifang called for social forces to support the construction of venues where one can exhibit, perform, study, exchange and teach intangible cultural heritages. As of now, the city has established 17 high-standard specialized museums for intangible cultural heritages and more than 300 training sites. It opened 14 inheritance demonstration bases and eight campus inheritance and education bases. The city also plans to set up 30 comprehensive training centers and a batch of demonstration halls in towns and villages.