(Photo : Part of the Great Wall of China, a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

August 26^th, yesterday, Chen Ping, area Chairman of China in the International Organization of Folk Art of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), attended a forum in China. Chen Ping gave a lecture on "Inheritance and Protection of World Cultural Heritage". During the lecture, she disclosed that in order to enter the world heritage list, every year, China spends a total of around 300 million yuan to popularize Chinese Heritage Sites.

Like Us on Facebook

Chen Ping suggests some places in China should take a calm and dispassionate view of applying for the World Heritage Sites, instead of trying to enter the world heritage list blindly. Why are those Chinese places so eager to join in the world heritage list? The local governments just want to boost their tourism in despite of whether their places are qualified to enter the list.

Chen Ping explains that she gets to know the statistics from Chinese related department taking charge of the application of World Heritage Sites. Many Chinese local governments don't know how to shoot promotional videos to apply for World Heritage Sites. So they just dump millions of money in useless propaganda. There are also many places that are unclear about how to write a correct text to describe their places in order to apply for World Heritage Sites, which cause large amounts of money to be wasted. In Chen Ping's opinion, these activities are blind. And they won't help in developing the local heritage sites.  

Chen ping suggests if Chinese local governments want to inherit and protect their cultural heritages, they should let the public participate in the activities. In this way, the public and the officials can form an interaction in inheriting and protecting the cultural heritages.