Is also the character for “earth” (tu 􀹲), a rather derogatory word often used to describe an

uncouth country bumpkin. In this context, it is unabashedly celebrated as a novel or even

sensational aspect of Mianzhu nianhua. Yet even while praising the rustic, the painted

murals and gold calligraphy are not rustic at all but rather sophisticated creations of an

urban advertising team.

Unlike Chen, Li Fangfu refused the offer to join the village although he was under

pressure to do so. In resisting, Li has distanced himself from both the museum and

government projects, including all nianhua promotional activities as well as offers to

collaborate with other workshops and storefronts. During our interviews, he was eager to

explain his reasons, including his determination to maintain full control over his

workshop as well a desire to stay in the urban center of Mianzhu, which he thinks is the

best place for selling his works. The street sign in front of his shop reads: “Self-made,

212

self-distributing, unique talent of Chinese Folk Art”􁈱􀓁􁈱􀽧􀄒􁇏􀝓􀫶􀡗􁁜􀶌􁁂􀤧 and

deliberately markets his independent status (fig. 78). Li’s defiant stance of autonomy

serves as a powerful foil to the Nianhua Village’s claim on authority. In keeping his

urban workshop, Li offers a competing perspective on what constitutes an authentic

Mianzhu nianhua workshop. In advertising his workshop as a “self-made” and “selfdistributing”

entity, he suggests the absence of an intervening power, such as a

middleman who might take a cut of the profit or a censoring critic who might influence

the creative process.

The Nianhua Village has thus respatialized the politics of the industry and

introduced new rifts and tensions in the nianhua marketplace. The distant location of the

village draws people out of the city, potentially leading people to bypass urban nianhua

shops like Li’s studio, which is nestled away in a non-descript urban neighborhood near

the Mianzhu Nianhua Museum. At the same time, the businesses in the Nianhua Village

enjoy the added advantage of the state’s economic incentives and its official marketing

campaigns that draw clients from near and far. In relocating to the Nianhua Village, the

Chen family workshop is now included in all the official promotional material, which has

boosted his workshop’s fame nationwide. At the same time, his workshop’s presence

offers direct and legitimizing evidence that the building of the Nianhua Village has

indeed supported the preservation of ICH in Mianzhu.

213

Racing for the Intangible: the Nianhua Festival as Performative Statecraft

For its Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003),

UNESCO released a revised definition of ICH that marked a shift in discourse towards

recognizing the changing nature of ICH:

The practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills - as well as the

instruments, objects, artifacts, and cultural spaces associated therewith - that

communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their

cultural heritage. This intangible heritage, transmitted from generation to

generation, is constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their

environment, their interaction with nature and their history, and provides them

with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural

diversity and human creativity.322

In this reformulation, ICH is both “transmitted from generation to generation” and

“constantly recreated” in response to the present. In stressing the evolving and

contemporary nature of ICH, the revised definition offers a response to critiques

concerned with the “fossilization” of ICH as a result of heritage protection activities that

privilege certain traditional practices at the expense of emerging innovations. The

Convention also explicitly addresses the responsibility of the signatory states to deal with

the issue by safeguarding ICH in an inclusive rather than exclusive manner: “Each State

Party shall endeavor to ensure the widest possible participation of communities, groups,

and, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain, and transmit such heritage, and

to involve them actively in its management.”323 In establishing these new guidelines,

322 “UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Article 2, October 17,

2003,” accessed October 15, 2011,

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.phpURL_ID=17716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

323 Ibid., Article 15.

214

UNESCO also launched a new round of list making, inviting submissions from around

the world to be officially recognized by UNESCO as a protected form of ICH. Eager to

gain as many spots as possible, the Chinese heritage bureaucracy leaped into action by

hosting heritage festivals, performances, conventions, and media campaigns to promote

various forms of ICH that embodied UNESCO’s definition. The notion of “cultural

diversity” 􀻓􀟄􀘟􁀢􀾟 became a key buzzword for promoting ICH in China, as it

highlighted both the inclusive stance of the state as well as the rich wealth of ICH within

Chinese territory.

Jumping into the game in 2002, Mianzhu’s Cultural Affairs Bureau inaugurated a

twenty-day Nianhua Festival 􀭍􀟂􀢫, an annual state-sponsored event that hires thousands

of performers to bring to life the theatrical imagery of historic nianhua works.324 The

annual festival repackages nianhua as a form of ICH with ties to the performing arts such

as regional theater, music, and dance. It also demonstrates the state’s efforts towards

embracing cultural diversity by drawing together many different cultural groups and

traditional performances. Despite its best efforts to present an image of a benevolent and

inclusive state, the Nianhua Festival’s tightly controlled stagecraft also betrays its

ideological statecraft.

While UNESCO’s push to recognize ICH was intended as a corrective to the

privileging of historic objects over embodied forms of cultural activity, the Nianhua

Festival continues to privilege the historic prints and paintings as the dominant themes

for the annual festival. In the same way that the Nianhua Village promotes the state

collection in its murals, the Nianhua Festival showcases the same pieces through

324 Wang Bing􀀁􀺦􀑢, "Mianzhu nianhua jie ji" 􀫥􁇰􀭍􀟂􀢫􀠺 [A record of Mianzhu's nianhua festival], in

Zhongguo Mianzhu nianhua 􁇏􀝓􀫥􁇰􀭍􀟂􀊦China's Mianzhu nianhua􀀾, ed. Yu Jundao 􁂿􀤮􀖡 (Beijing:

Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 2007), 208-211.

215

costumes, props, and performances based those historic works. For instance, in 2004 the

festival planners selected the painting Greeting Spring as the festival’s guiding theme.

The festival played a powerful role in publicizing (and authorizing) the painting’s status

as a form of tangible nianhua heritage as well as a record of its intangible heritage. In this

section, I will critique the festival’s selective approach to narrating the details of the

painting. In particular, the religious undertones of the lichun festival are omitted,

including the scenes of the magistrate receiving the spring deities or making offerings to

them before an altar. These activities still bear the taboo of feudal superstition in official

discourse although they clearly play a prominent role in the painting itself.325 While

censoring these scenes, the festival greatly amplifies the theatrical acts in the procession

scene of the painting, which includes music, theater, and acrobatics.

While the painting depicts a rather small-scale procession with less than fifty

people, the Nianhua Festival has expanded the procession to include several hundred

performers. For example, the painting depicts a small dragon-dance troupe according to

precise ritual protocol, including the auspicious number eight as embodied by eight

performers, the sculpted paper dragon effigy, and the masked performer who leads the

team (fig. 79). In the festival, however, most of these ritual markers are omitted. Instead

of an eight-person team, a much larger troupe was hired to carry a giant fabric dragon. In

restaging the procession scene in Greeting Spring, the Nianhua Festival downplays the

lichun festival’s ritual meaning and recasts the street performances as secular

325 The festival’s selective approach can be understood as part of the province’s long-standing policy to

strip cultural activities (such as printmaking, painting, theater, music, and other crafts) of their ritual

significance by recasting these industries in wholly secular terms as “art” or “live entertainment.” For a

discussion of theater reform in Sichuan and in China as a whole see Colin Mackerras, "Theatre in China’s

Sichuan Province," Asian Theatre Journal 14, no. 2 (1987) and —, "Tradition, Change, and Continuity in

Chinese Theater in the Last Hundred Years: In Commemoration of the Spoken Drama Centenary," Asian

Theatre Journal 25, no. 1 (2008).

216

entertainment. The historic two-day festival revolved around its proper timing with the

first day of spring on the traditional calendar and was closely tied to agricultural rites that

marked the beginning of the planting season. In contrast, the Nianhua Festival is a

twenty-day event that is scheduled to take place well in advance of this date, during one

of the busiest shopping seasons of the year in the run-up to the Spring Festival. Although

the festival claims to revive a historic practice, it in fact erases connections to the past by

producing a secularized and spectacularized entertainment-based heritage festival.

The selection of the Greeting Spring painting as a central theme for this highprofile

event also speaks to the painting’s potential as an ideological platform for the

festival’s political aims. In particular, the festival producers selected aspects of the

painting to perform and to narrativize its ideological message of “social harmony,” a

Confucian notion that has been gaining powerful traction in official discourse since the

early 2000s.326 The painting itself is a highly constructed image of an ideal Confucian

society. It can be historically situated within a trend of genre-paintings of prosperous

cities that circulated during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the most famous being

Qingming Shanghetu 􀱢􀫼􀴈􀞊􀹭 by the Northern Song painter Zhang Zeduan 􁅦􁄴􀘊. A

common feature of these paintings is the detailed depiction of urban spaces where people

of different class backgrounds are amicably engaged in diligent labor, exchange, travel,

and festive activities. These scenes of societal accord in urban life are in turn part of a

broader Confucian discourse among the elite that values harmonious hierarchy, loyalty,

and filial piety.

326 For a critique of the revival of Confucian ideals in national discourse and heritage programs, see

Sebastien Billioud and Joel Thoraval, "Lijiao: The Return of Ceremonies Honouring Confucius in

Mainland China," China Perspectives 4 (2009): 82-100; —, "Jiaohua: The Confucian Revival in China as

an Educative Project," China Perspectives 4 (2007): 4-20.

217

In Greeting Spring, the sense of congenial hierarchy is conveyed through the

dominant role of the magistrate in relation to the procession and its onlookers. The

exaggerated size of the magistrate’s figure underscores his authority as a benevolent

patriarch. He is also depicted with various accoutrements of status, such as his court robe,

cap, and glasses. His portly body shape, which is reminiscent of the wide and squat door

deity figures seen in Mianzhu, also calls up abundance and moral strength. Carried forth

by the procession and its various auspicious performances, the magistrate’s imperial

authority is paraded and glorified before a welcoming public. Every figure in the painting