Jan.14,2020 -- Xiangtang County in southwest China’s Sichuan province, known as the“ hometown of Chinese folk art”, has 119 intangible cultural heritages. In recent years, Xiangtang established 47 intangible cultural heritages training centers to protect endangered folk arts such as Tibetan drama, Tibetan medicine and Thangka.

 

Suo Langbeng, from an ordinary rural household, is one of the over 80 trainees of Xiang Ba La Tibetan Pottery Training Center in Xiangtang County, A’Ba prefecture, Sichuan province. After intensive training, Suo has become an inheritor of Tibetan pottery and his works have been sold to the US and Japan.“A problem we are facing is how to innovate in Tibetan pottery making,” said Suo. A number of teachers and students of Tibetan pottery visited Jingde town and Xi’an city as well as Japan this winter to shared ideas with craftsmen there for new solutions.

 

Xiangtang also opened training bases for intangible cultural heritage projects in places like Shanghai and Shenzhen. The county has joined hands with the Palace Museum for Thangka research. Da Erji, deputy Party chief of Xiangtang county, said that more than 3,000 farmers and herdsmen in the county have engaged in the inheritance of intangible cultural heritages. Their incomes have been increased by learning craftsmanship and selling cultural products.