Discover China

Chinese experts started a restoration project to save a rock carving statue in Southwest China on World Heritage Day, reports CNTV in the news story Restoration of ancient Buddha statue starts. After three years of experiments, a special fibre has been chosen as the perfect element to reconnect the fallen hands of the 1,000 armed Goddess of Mercy Bodhasattva, one of the 4,600 rock carving statues in Dazu county near Chongqing Municipality.

The Shenzhen Daily article World Heritage tour in China profiles a three-day train trip from Shenzhen to Fujian Province to experience Hakka culture including the ancient Hakka Tulou community houses.

China has passed the country’s first law for intangible cultural heritage (ICH) to better preserve the nation’s traditions of historic, literary, artistic and scientific value.  To find out more visit the CNTV News item China adopts first law for intangible cultural heritage protection.

Jinggang Mountain, regarded as the Red Army’s birthplace and the cradle of China’s revolution, would be the subject of an application for UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage status this year, with the Jiangxi Provincial Government including the application in a list of nine major tasks for 2011. Read more in the Shenzhen Daily article Jinggang Mountain vies for World Heritage listing.

Yunnan province’s Chengjiang fossils site and the site of Inner Mongolia’s Yuan Dynasty Upper Capital have both made application to UNESCO to make the coveted World Heritage list in 2012. Find out what makes these sites so special in the CNTV Culture Express story Two new applications for UNESCO World Heritage list. Last year’s two applications, the Hangzhou Westlake and Five Linked Lakes in Heilongjiang province, will be reviewed at the World Heritage Conference this June.