Preservation and Promotion of Intangible Cultural Assets—A Case of Tou-cheng Chiang-Ku, Yilan County, Taiwan

• Main Authors: LIN,YU-CHUAN, 林毓娟
• Other Authors: Li, Fen-Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3dap4g

碩士 === 開南大學 === 觀光與餐飲旅館學系 === 103 === Preservation and Promotion of Intangible Cultural Assets— A Case of Tou-cheng Chiang-Ku, Yilan County, Taiwan Abstract Taiwan has long been recognized as a multicultural society. Endowed with rich cultural properties, the government needs not least to take good care of those priceless legacies, but has tremendous responsibility to sustain, enhance and glorify those valuables left behind. Nevertheless, it has been commonly agreed that, either protective measures, archival data or propagandistic messages proved rather passive in Taiwanese effort to preserve and promote intangible cultural assets. To preserve value of those local cultures, reinvigorating and managing cultural assets through possibly alternative means, it may be advisable to observe the social pulse of cultural assets alongside the history. To echo the above call, this research took a historical approach, field observation as well as interviews to explore a case of Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku (competing for offering) in Yilan County, Taiwan. Aged for more than two centuries, Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku took the lead as one of the folk customs as well as state protection that were designated and declared a part of Taiwanese intangible cultural assets in the wake of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law that came into effect in 2005. Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku is understandably not unique. However, as one of the significant activities in the Chungyuan Festival in Taiwan, an exploration of it cannot be lightly dismissed. The main effort of this case study focused on human resources, expenditures, participation of the locals as well as supplementary activities related to Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku. It sought to lay bare difficulties of cultural assets in practice. This would be followed by policy suggestions. Findings could be summarized as follows. First, with the rise of cultural tourism in recent years, marketing concepts and populist lines were ushered into Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku. This included field contests and fire shows with a view to laying bare local features, seeking to enhancing publicity of those activities, which was aimed at boosting economies. Second, economic values were highlighted in the context of these cultural activities. Given the passage of time, losses of cultural meanings between generations, aging demographic structures as well as brain drains, there were limitations to these promotional activities, preserving and reliving the intangible cultural assets in an attempt to sustain local economies can therefore hardly be overemphasized. The locals to re-cherish one of their intangible cultural assets—Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku came as driving force of local economies. Third, the paper recommended that, aside from archiving and bureaucracy, we have to take a long-term view of Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku. Community building, for instance, has to be integrated with local cultural industries so that more and more Taiwanese can familiarize themselves with Chiang-Ku, one of the richest cultural assets in human history, making the priceless cultural heritage sustainable forever. Keywords: Tou-Cheng Chiang-Ku, Cultural Tourism, Chungyuan Festival