Eco-sites, Song Traditions and Cultural Heritage in the Lower Yangzi Delta

Abstract This study explores the struggle to preserve both the cultural heritage and the eco-sites associated with heritage in one of the most affluent and economically developed regions in China. In the twenty-first century, the introduction of global norms deriving from UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage and World Heritage Sites has led to a series of measures at the local level to preserve items of cultural heritage that are likely to vanish due to the accelerated pace of development in the lower Yangzi delta. This study focuses particularly on Wu Songs, the traditional songs of delta populations, now entered into the national register for Intangible Cultural Heritage. Wu Songs were associated with labour in the rice paddies and travel along the waterways. The rice paddies and waterways were both essential elements of the traditional ecosystem, but are now imperilled in various ways by the impact of modernisation and globalisation. Issues of heritage value arise in different forms in the more affluent regions of China. As argued here, contention between ethnographers, land developers and municipal authorities, as well as commercial land use imperatives, dominate the conservation of eco-sites and Intangible Cultural Heritage in the delta region. Keywords: Chinalower Yangzi deltaIntangible Cultural Heritageeco-sitesfolk songsWu Songs Notes 1. This project was funded by the Australian Research Council project DP 987640 'Ethnoecology and the State in Regional China' (2009–11). 2. You-tien Hsing estimates that 250 million people were added to China's urban population from 1980 to 2002. She describes "a frenzy of land conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural uses" during the same period that led to the reduction of arable land by about one-tenth (Hsing, Citation2010, p. 2). 3. On the motivations of local communities in the Yangzi delta to build an ever higher standard of housing stock see Sargeson (Citation2002). Cheng Li provides illuminating case studies of the impact of the industrialisation and globalisation of the delta region in the mid-1990s (Li, Citation1997). 4. The wealthiest sector of the lower Yangzi delta is the region known as Sunan – the hinterland of Shanghai encompassing the cities of Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou. According to Chen Wen et al., this growth corridor of more than 13 million people is "the most developed region of China" (2006, p. 252). 5. China Digital Times, 11 May 2010. Outbreaks of algae have continued since 2007. 6. Ministry of Environmental Protection of the PRC (Citation2010). 7. Patricia B. Ebrey has demonstrated the importance of the adoption of Chinese family names, patrilineal kinship and common ancestry to the historical expansion of the group now known as Han Chinese (1996). The masking of subethnic differences allows the Han Chinese to regard themselves as a single Han civilisation and thus justify their political and cultural dominance. See Melissa Brown (Citation2004, p. 7). 8. Issues of Han identity were explored in the Critical Han Studies Conference organised by Thomas Mullaney and James Leibold at Stanford University in April 2008. I am indebted to Jim Leibold for information about the major findings of this conference. 9. Since the 1980s, a large number of studies have appeared in Chinese on what is now termed "Wu Culture" or sometimes "Wu-Yue Culture". Wu and Yue refer to two ancient kingdoms that used to occupy the proximate contemporary locations of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. For major studies on traditional folk culture and beliefs see Jiang Bin (1992 and 1996). The Wu language area covers modern day Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces with the exception of such areas as Nanjing and Chongming Island. For more detail see Norman (Citation1988, pp. 199–204). 10. One mu approximates one-sixth of an acre or one-fifteenth of a hectare. 11. Huang Shulin and Li Jialin (2006) report that the older generation still goes to the shrine of Mistress Huang at the time of the (Chinese) New Year festivities. 12. I have written about this process in more detail in McLaren (Citation2010b). 13. The Chinese title is Fei wuzhi wenhua yichan yanjiu jikan. 14. The term shange refers to songs sung in the open air. The term is used in many regions of China. 15. I thank Chen Qinjian, professor of popular culture and performance studies at East China Normal University, Shanghai, for organising this trip to Yacheng and the Wuxi Culture Bureau to interview song practitioners and local ethnographers. 16. In 1985, Dongting, located to the east of the city of Wuxi, had 23,075 mu of arable land, mostly used for rice paddy, according to Wuxi xian zhi (Wu Xi County Gazetteer, 1994, p. 98). Over the past two decades, the Wuxi region has been the target of substantial foreign direct investment and is now known for its "electronic, machinery and fine chemical industries". However, according to Chen et al. (Citation2006, pp. 260–62), the major beneficiaries are the foreign companies, not the local people. 17. I discuss 'Shen Qige' in more detail in McLaren (Citationforthcoming). 18. For studies on Taoism as it relates to cultural ecology see N.J. Girardot et al. (Citation2001). 19. The legends associated with Taibo find their locus classicus in an account in the famous historical work, Shiji, by court historian, Sima Qian (145–87?BC). For translation and discussion, see Wagner (Citation1990, p. 162). 20. A number of scholars contest the historical existence of Taibo, and archaeological remains point to many different possibilities for a Wu town. The fullest account is by Wang Mingke (1997), who argues that the tale of Taibo is a legend accounting for the assimilation of different ethnic groups into the ancient Chinese polity. Border group elites sought ancestry from the prestigious Huaxia culture (of the north) and Huaxia culture in turn offered the status of lineal descent, and hence legitimacy, to borderland rulers. 21. Discussed in more detail in McLaren (Citationforthcoming). 22. Exhibition viewed by the author in the Shanghai Municipal Planning Center, downtown Shanghai, in May 2008. For an update on the latter projects see also Allen (Citation2010).