Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in Hong Kong: a lesson to learn from Cantonese opera

Abstract

Intangible cultural heritage (henceforth ICH), a living expression of indigenous culture and traditions, have been orally transmitted through generations. As the heritage bearers are usually aged and have mere opportunities to pass on their knowledge to young practitioners, ICH are disappearing at a rapid pace. Safeguarding ICH is a battle against time.

Since the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (henceforth the Convention) was adopted in 2003, China has been proactive in participating in the Convention and safeguarding its ICH. Ratified the Convention on 2 December 2004, China was the sixth out of the 143 State Members deposited the Convention1. China’s prompt response to the Convention could show how determined she was in safeguarding its ICH. Hong Kong agreed to apply the Convention in December 2004 but the early adoption of the Convention did not help Hong Kong to keep its pace on safeguarding ICH. During the 6 years practice of safeguarding ICH since 2006, China had already built its ICH inventory through announcing 3 batches of National ICH List and inscribing 2500 plus elements, established a ICH Transmitters List with 1400 plus transmitters, and most importantly, adopted the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law (henceforth the China ICH Law). In contrast, Hong Kong has not even completed its territory-wide survey until now for its first batch of inventory, not to mention setting up a safeguarding ICH policy. Hong Kong’s achievement in safeguarding ICH so far is inscribing Cantonese Opera onto The Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (henceforth the UNESCO Representative List) with joint effort from Macao and Guangdong in 2009; inscribing Cantonese Opera and Chinese Herbal Tea onto the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List (henceforth the National ICH List) with joint effort from Macao and Guangdong in 2006. However, the first time Hong Kong successfully inscribe ICH elements onto the National ICH List with its own effort was in 2011, five years after its ICH safeguarding ICH work kicked off. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has paid a lot more effort in safeguarding Cantonese Opera. There have been research to preserve scripts and masterpieces; there is an advisory committee and a fund set up to dedicatedly support Cantonese Opera; new Cantonese Opera venues are developing by the Government; a programme developing young troupe for inheriting the skills from Cantonese Opera masters is set up. In this dissertation, I will study the safeguarding ICH progress made in UNESCO, China, Hong Kong and safeguarding Cantonese Opera progress in Hong Kong in terms of different safeguarding measures as defined by UNESCO. From the comparison between the safeguarding progress of Hong Kong on ICH and Cantonese Opera respectively, answers can be found to improve the safeguarding ICH situation in Hong Kong.