China has established an initial database for intangible cultural heritage (ICH) across the country in a bid to better protect them from declining due to urbanization and globalization challenges.

Fourteen provinces or autonomous regions have already established province-level ICH lists, said Zhou Heping, Vice Minister of Culture, at a training program on ICH survey and application held in Quanzhou, east China's Fujian Province.

The province-level ICH listing is under way in 11 other provinces or regions, and another six are also preparing to do this, according to Zhou.

Meanwhile, significant progress has been made regarding a national survey on varieties, distribution, status-quo of ICH, which was launched in June last year, said Zhou.

The survey has been almost completed in southwest China's Yunnan Province and east China's Zhejiang Province.

About 19,000 workers have been mobilized to conduct the survey in Yunnan, with a cost of more than 10 million yuan (1.28 million U.S. dollars).

The national survey will be completed at the end of 2008.

According to the UNESCO, "intangible cultural heritage" refers to practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.

As a member of the UNESCO 18-member inter-governmental committee to safeguard ICH, China has been strengthening efforts in ICH protection in the past few years.

Since 2001, Kun Qu, one of the oldest forms of opera still existing in the country, Chinese zither, or the Guqin, a 3,000-year-old solo musical instrument, Xinjiang Uygur Muqam, a composite of songs, dances, folk and classical music, and Long Song, a lyrical chant mode of Mongolian, have been proclaimed by UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

The Chinese State Council published in June its first batch of state-level intangible heritages, including the Spring Festival, Peking Opera, acupuncture, the Legend of Madame White Snake and Shaolin Kungfu.

Source: Xinhua