Tourists ride camels at the Mingsha Mountain and Crescent Spring Scenic Area in Dunhuang, Gansu province, last month. The tourist city is renowned for desert landscape as well as Buddhist murals and grottoes. ZHANG XIAOLIANG/FOR CHINA DAILY
Hidden within a village community in Gaoping city, North China's Shanxi province, the Tiefo Temple kept its exquisite 500-year-old painted sculptures low-profile for so long. It wasn't until August that its 72-square-meter main hall was opened to the public.
This move came shortly after the release of the blockbuster AAA video game, Black Myth: Wukong, which brought the ancient architecture that inspired 36 scenes in the game into the limelight. The Tiefo Temple is one of them.
Since August, an unprecedented number of tourists have flooded to Gaoping. During holidays and on the weekends, visitor flow at the temple always reaches its daily cap of 3,000 people. On regular days, there are still 400 to 500 travelers, according to Shen Fei, secretary of the leading Party members group for Gaoping's culture and tourism bureau.
Visitors need to book online in advance and queue for a chance to glimpse the fragile sculptures from a safe distance. Sometimes, they wait in line for hours just to observe the sculptures for a few minutes.
Yet, Shen said, no negative feedback has been received from visitors. "They understand that the safety of the artifacts is the priority. The painted sculptures are so overwhelming that they don't mind waiting."
In recent years, China's cultural tourism boom has driven heritage preservation organizations to continuously reflect on the balance between protection and utilization. Just like the Tiefo Temple, wider public access to cultural heritage sites and museums has been taken into consideration.
During this year's two sessions, the annual gatherings of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Hang Kan, a deputy to the 14th NPC and director of the Yungang Research Institute, which is in charge of the protection, research and administration of the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi, suggested the implementation of a classification and evaluation system of cultural heritage sites.
Lion dancers perform on poles during the Spring Festival holiday in Luoyang, Henan province, on Feb 2. HUANG ZHENGWEI/FOR CHINA DAILY
He said that this aims to examine factors such as preservation conditions, the surrounding environment and tourist capacities, and to assess whether a certain heritage site can be opened as a tourist destination on the premise of protection, determining the reasonable range of public access and identifying necessary adjustments to meet the requirements for opening.
In the case of the Tiefo Temple, public access — based on continuous monitoring to guarantee the safety of the relics — has also benefited the local community of Mixi village, where the temple is located.
The temple was originally built no later than the 12th century and rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The main hall, though sitting obscure in a courtyard dwelling, is home to 28 large statues of vividly depicted deities.
Each of these sculptures, supported and shaped using iron wire, conveys bold and exaggerated body language and facial expressions, complemented by delicately draped clothing and detailed armor and weapons.
Shen said discussions and preparations for the temple's opening to the public actually started at the beginning of last year. They have preserved the original nature of the community that the temple nestled in for centuries and avoided major demolitions and reconstructions.
Usually, visitors enter the main hall in a group of a dozen people and can linger in an area of only about 6 sq m. The entire courtyard can accommodate a maximum of around 50 people.
For those waiting in line, villagers provide them with chairs, parasols, drinks and sometimes performances to kill time, while interpreting the historical and artistic value of the temple.
The villagers are also engaged in tourist services such as guided tours, dining, accommodation and selling cultural products and local specialties. So far, cultural product sales have reached 1.65 million yuan ($228,000), earning more than 150,000 yuan for the village community, Shen said.
Meanwhile, a growing number of visitors are being attracted to Gaoping's other precious but lesser-known cultural heritage sites, significantly boosting the local tourism industry, Shen added.
Lu Yi, director of the Shanxi Academy of Ancient Building, Painted Sculpture and Fresco Preservation, said, "It's thanks to the protection by generations of villagers that the Tiefo Temple has survived."
For example, the family of 78-year-old Wang Gaiying alone has been living in the courtyard dwelling, guarding the temple and keeping it clean for three generations.
"While ensuring the safety of the artifacts, the approach taken by the Tiefo Temple has bestowed dignity upon the artifacts, the visitors, protectors of the artifacts, as well as the local people living in the surrounding areas," Lu said.
Tourists flock to the Tiefo Temple in Gaoping, Shanxi province, in September. Buddhist statues from the temple are featured in the popular video game Black Myth: Wukong. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Greater access
To expand the availability of cultural offerings, it's meaningful to vitalize existing resources.
Yang Chaoming, a deputy to the 14th NPC and a professor at the Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies at Shandong University, called for more free and open access to university museums.
He mentioned that the majority of the universities directly under the Ministry of Education have set up museums or art galleries. Many of these universities, especially those with archaeology or museology departments, have quality collections of cultural relics, solid study into the art and history of the relics, as well as stories brought from archaeological sites.
These museums have the potential in hosting themed exhibitions and bridging exchanges and collaborations between universities, while broadening students' horizons and enhancing the social influence of these universities, he said.
Yang suggested that more public financial support be given to the operation of university museums, the restoration and digitization of their relic collections, and free access. Additionally, he advocated for the involvement of private capital and resources.
Clarence Ling Chun-kit, a member of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC and founding chairman of Hong Kong's Chinese Young Entrepreneurs Association, said that the popularity of the scenes depicted in the hit movie Ne Zha 2 and the game Black Myth: Wukong has increased interest among young people from Hong Kong to explore the Chinese mainland.
"For the young generation of Hong Kong, their engagement and interactions are key for them to deepen their understanding of Chinese culture and their connection with the mainland.
"Therefore, it's of great significance to integrate cultural resources and design for them themed routes that blend humanities, nature and technology — such as the explorations of the Silk Road, the relics of ancient civilizations, winter tours and high-tech hubs," Ling said.
Spanish tourists taste fruit tea in Shanghai in December. CHEN HAOMING/FOR CHINA DAILY
Enhanced understanding
For more than 1,500 years, the Yungang Grottoes have stood as a Buddhist art treasure trove with 59,000 sculptures, and are a testament to East-West cultural exchanges in the 5th century.
Last year, the UNESCO World Heritage Site welcomed 4.5 million tourists. The number of visits was 3.03 million in 2023. Hang said a gratifying change is that the low season is no longer slack — the site is often crowded with young, returning tourists in pursuit of a better visiting experience and a more comprehensive knowledge of the heritage.
Hang noted that this is partly attributed to more convenient transportation, and that Shanxi will continue to improve its road network to better serve the development of cultural tourism.
Apart from improving infrastructure, experts have stressed the importance of research, interpretation and promotion of the historical and artistic value of the cultural heritage.
Hang said that studies for some cultural heritage items are far from sufficient, resulting in tourists, enthusiasts of ancient buildings and cultural relics, as well as social media influencers, sometimes posting inaccurate information and misconceptions online, which may mislead a wider audience.
He said that cultural heritage preservation units need to establish an effective interpretation system and convey these professional explanations to the general public.
Shanxi boasts more than 28,000 ancient buildings and is home to more than 80 percent of China's surviving timber-framed structures from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and earlier, according to the province's cultural heritage administration.
Lu said that many of these destinations are worth visiting more than once. As a professional with 20 years of experience in the cultural heritage preservation sector, he still makes fresh discoveries and finds new angles for interpretation and curation each time he visits places like the Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai.
He added that in the future, the interpretation and utilization of cultural heritage will have to be customized for people with different needs — such as those in the preservation sector, the academic community and the general public — and a mechanism that allows public wisdom to contribute to innovative content and ideas for cultural products is expected to be established.
Contact the writers at fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn
