New Zealanders experience Chinese intangible cultural heritages in Wellington

How to make sugar into an art masterpiece? Artists from Liaoning, China gave New Zealanders a unique opportunity to get a closer experience of Chinese intangible cultural heritage in the Te Papa, kiwi's national museum in Wellington on Saturday.

Susan, a 63-year old Wellington resident, found a new teacher in the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop. Although they could not communicate by a same language, Susan and Zhang Bin, the master of Jinzhou Dough Modeling, successfully made a rose by a small piece of dough.

Dough modeling is done by kneading, squeezing and cutting a glutinous rice-based material into different lifelike shapes such as animals, flowers and birds. It is a folk art that has roots in the worship customs of China's ancient agricultural society.

On the other side of the room, girls gathered around the sugar art master Li Fengyan, attracted by an edible handicraft. Li used a spoon as a "brush" and malt sugar as "ink" to make colorful patterns such as flowers, birds, fishes and insects. That is a magic skill to cast boiled syrup on a stone into art pieces by back-and-forth motions.

The traditional Chinese sugar art quickly became the new modern fashion for kiwi kids. They ran across the room, holding beautiful and delicious new toys, showing to their parents.

The workshop also invited other three masters of Liaoning intangible cultural heritage. During the interactive exhibition, they showed local people some unforgettable skills, such as Yiwulushan Manchu paper-cutting, Manchu Knots of Western Liaoning and Amber Carving.

Qu Guangzhou, the Chargé d'affaires of Chinese embassy to New Zealand, said in the workshop launching ceremony that the artists may not as popular as the pop stars in China, but they are real masters and heroes. The strong and dynamic relation between China and New Zealand is supported by people-to-people relations and cultural links of the two countries, said Qu.

The workshop is co-organized by the China Cultural Centre in New Zealand and the Department of Culture in Liaoning province. The organizers aimed to give New Zealanders a great insight of the culture diversity of China and how the heritage in art forms passed down from old to young.

Xu Hongying the deputy director general of Liaoning province department of culture, said in the launching ceremony that Liaoning province has cooperation with New Zealand in a wide range of areas and the workshop is about to give people in Aotearoa an experience with great Liaoning local characteristics.

Guo Zongguang, the director of the China Cultural Center in New Zealand, told the audience in Te Papa that China is a country with rich resources of intangible cultural heritage, with 39 items in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage.

Apart from Te Papa, the Liaoning Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop scheduled to have several activities in schools and libraries in Wellington in the following week. Endit