2002 — Building a Cultural Zhangjiajie (Part 1)
Building a Cultural Zhangjiajie. 1. Building a cultural Zhangjiajie is imperative. Entering the 21st century, industrialization and urbanization have become the main strategies for our province's economic development. Provincial Party and Government leaders, assessing the situation, clearly proposed "building a strong province through culture." This is a product of careful deliberation based on our province's conditions and tested through practice. Strengthening the province through the power of culture means
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Building a Cultural Zhangjiajie
I. Building a cultural Zhangjiajie is imperative.
Entering the 21st century, industrialization and urbanization have become the main strategy of our province's economic development. The provincial Party committee and provincial government leaders, sizing up the situation, clearly proposed 'strengthening the province through culture.' This is a product of deep deliberation based on our province's conditions and tested through practice. Strengthening the province through the power of culture means giving play to culture's guiding and elevating role for the economy, so as to advance our province's industrialization and urbanization. Proceeding from our city's actual conditions, building a cultural Zhangjiajie is likewise imperative.
(I) Building a cultural Zhangjiajie is a need of tourism industry development and an urgent call from the broad masses of tourists and citizens.
The so-called 'cultural Zhangjiajie' is the overall image of the city formed by virtue of cultural individuality and characteristics, which can generate cohesion and radiation for economic and social development and play a guiding and elevating role for the economy. Today, when cities are judged by culture, determining a city's cultural development strategy is equivalent to determining the city's development direction. Over the past decade or so, our city's urban construction has achieved great results, but it is very mismatched with General Secretary Jiang's requirement to 'build Zhangjiajie into a world-renowned tourist destination,' stands in stark contrast to the world-class natural scenery, and is far from the goal of urban landscapeization. The city has grown larger and 'taller,' yet, as Premier Zhu Rongji said, 'no ingenuity in any aspect can be seen,' so much so that many tourists, upon reaching the city center, still ask: 'How much farther to the urban area?' It can be said that the city we live and dwell in is still in a state of cultural hunger. The urban space dominated by 'matchbox' buildings has no characteristics to speak of, nor any architectural culture to speak of; the cultural consumption that can often be enjoyed in many cities—watching performances by Chinese and foreign art troupes, viewing various art exhibitions, watching sports events, and visiting libraries, museums, cultural parks, and so on—for residents of this urban area can for now only be a thirst quenched by gazing at plums; citizens have no good place even for a walk after tea and meals, so they can only while away the time with 'San Da Ha' and 'building the Great Wall.' Among those engaged in urban planning, design, construction, and management, those who consciously operate this city with cultural awareness and a cultural eye are probably not too many at present...
Culture is the soul of a city, and the city is the vessel of culture. After tourists have seen the world-class natural landscape in the Wulingyuan core scenic area, during their stay in the urban area they obviously want even more to gain experiences and knowledge about history, life, culture, production, ethnicity, folk customs, and art, so as to feel the unique heritage of regional culture. Yet we cannot satisfy their demands. Tourists generally report that in Zhangjiajie it is 'scenery by day, screen by night'—dull and monotonous, not a place for a long stay.
(II) Our city's cultural resources are sufficient for building a cultural Zhangjiajie.
Building a cultural Zhangjiajie is the call of the times. And our city happens to possess considerable cultural resources, namely historical and humanistic resources, ethnic and folk cultural resources, and modern cultural resources.
1. Historical and humanistic resources.
The vicissitudes of time, the shifting of winds and clouds. The "Furong Dragon" unearthed in Sangzhi in the 1970s astonished the entire national archaeological community with its exceptional value. The Paleolithic site at Jintai Village in Cili and the Paleolithic site at Zhujiatai in Sangzhi, unearthed in the 1980s, let people know that as early as 50,000 to 200,000 years ago, human activity already existed under this sky. Taking the Yongding urban area alone, there is the Neolithic site of Baihezui, the Huandou tribe of Mount Chong during the era of Yao and Shun, the Tomb of King Nan and the Guigu Cave from the Western Zhou and Warring States periods, the Guren Di—where city construction began as early as the Warring States period, where Chong County was established starting in 202 BC (the fifth year of the Western Han), and where large quantities of cultural relics have been unearthed including stone axes, stone adzes, pottery tiles, Eastern Han wooden tablets, a multiplication table, and city wall remains—the large numbers of Warring States and Han dynasty tombs spread throughout the old urban area, the Tianmenshan Temple dating from the Tang dynasty, the Puguang Zen Temple built seven years earlier than Beijing's Forbidden City, as well as the ancient city of Dayongsuo, the Yuhuang Cave grottoes, the tomb sculpture group of Liu Mingdeng, the Soviet-era sites, and so on—all these historical traces verify that this land has an extremely solid cultural foundation and accumulation. The city currently has 14 national first-class cultural relics, over 300 other precious cultural relics, and more than 41,000 general cultural relics, ethnic relics, revolutionary relics, and relic specimens; there are currently 6 provincial-level, 8 municipal-level, and over 300 county-level cultural relic protection units. Most of the cultural relics remain in an idle state as resources, with great potential available for excavation, development, and utilization.
2. Ethnic and Folk Cultural Resources.
Our city is an area where ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities. In the course of mutual integration among the various ethnic groups, customs and cultures rich in ethnic characteristics and local flavor have still been preserved. These include: mysterious culture (such as Nuo techniques and witchcraft), religious culture, Tusi culture (within Sangzhi alone there are 8 Tusi city sites), military garrison culture (Sangzhi folk songs are deeply influenced by military garrisons), farming-and-warfare culture (farming in peacetime, going to war in wartime—such as Maogang Tusi King Qin Yaozhi and his son Qin Chengkun, who received imperial orders to lead able-bodied soldiers and people of the domain to the southeastern coast to resist Japanese pirates), funeral culture, architectural culture (such as the Tujia cornered buildings and stilted houses, and the Bai people's three-fang-one-screen-wall style), culinary culture, costume culture (such as Tujia brocade and Miao silver ornaments), ritual and custom culture (such as the Tujia crying marriage), festival culture (such as the Lantern Festival flower lanterns in the Yongding urban area), recreational culture (such as hard qigong), opera culture (such as Yang opera, Nuo vow opera, and the Buddhist opera and Daoist tradition opera that survive only in Sangzhi nationwide), marketplace culture, Soviet area culture, and so on. In short, Zhangjiajie City, which in ancient times belonged to the land of the barbarians, has a long-standing tradition of Wu-Chu culture, and the ethnic and folk culture represented by the Tujia people has a unique charm. With a tourism platform like the Wulingyuan core scenic area that draws millions of visitors each year, selectively developing these ethnic and folk cultural resources has very enticing prospects. Therefore, the nihilistic attitude of some who say that tourists come to Zhangjiajie City only to see natural scenery and that those who want to see culture should go to Fenghuang or Yongshun—this attitude, which lacks even the most basic understanding of local culture, is truly regrettable.
3. Modern Cultural Resources.
Our city's modern cultural resources are still in the cultivation stage. These include: festival culture represented by the "Forest Protection Festival," event culture represented by the "World Flight Competition," tourism culture marked by artistic performances, exhibitions, cultural entertainment, tourism publications, and cultural tourism, ecological culture marked by agricultural eco-sightseeing gardens and green science and technology parks, mass culture marked by the "Ethnic and Folk Culture and Arts Week," "Community Concerts," and "Farmers' Mountain Song Gatherings," and so on.
In short, these three major blocks of cultural resources provide the premise and foundation for building a cultural Zhangjiajie. Of course, to turn cultural resources into a city-landscape cultural brand, one must formulate a cultural development strategy from a commanding height and put it into practice one by one. It can be predicted that when we have built a strong cultural city, that is when we will have built a strong tourism city.