Playing well with concepts before applying for world heritage status (2)

"10" is the real obstacle

Yellow Crane Tower, Yueyang Tower, Tengwang Pavilion, Daguan Tower, Penglai Pavilion, and Guanque Tower jointly set up the China Famous Ancient Towers Protection Committee in 2003. Tianxin Pavilion, Yuejiang Tower, Zhonggu Tower, Tianyi Pavilion, and the City God Pavilion of Hangzhou later joined the committee.

Rumor has it that certain committee members thought a joint application could increase the chances of success. However, technically speaking, the real obstacle to a successful application for world heritage status is the "10" in the "10 famous ancient towers."

One of the methods to value wonderful things up is to put them together and use a specific number to describe them, such as "Seven Wonders of the World" and "Four Great Inventions of Ancient China," but these numbers make no sense in terms of technology. Danxia Landform and the Grand Canal in different areas can all be included in the World Heritage List because they have the same basic meaning, no matter where they are located. They are not a concept cobbled together just for application of the world cultural heritage. In addition, the concept of "Silk Road" had appeared thousands of years ago and now has been widely recognized by the world.

People often value something according to its fame. When the Songshan Mountain, one of the Five Great Mountains in China, applied for the world cultural heritage, the World Heritage Organization experts were curious about why "Zhongyue," which was mentioned by Chinese applicants at the time and considered just a concept needing no explanation, was so important to Chinese people. Songshan Mountain's failure in application for the world cultural heritage largely lies in that the word "Zhongyue" was not explained clearly. People should not ignore the explanations on something though it is considered well-known. Taking Yueyang Tower as an example, no any experts will think it valuable just because an ancient Chinese writer had written a famous article about the building.

As the World Heritage Organization stipulates that every country can only have two historical heritages being submitted every year, many countries began "packing" them to evade the quantitative limitation in recent years. The strategy heated the application for the world heritage to some extent and created opportunities for some cultural relics that do not have actual value, meanwhile providing a chance of "creating a concept." In any case, a cultural relic must have special value to apply for the world cultural heritage, rather than so-called fame or a coined concept without groundlessness.

Source:China Youth Daily , author: Yan Haiming.

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