Feng Jicai, a Chinese famous writer, has devoted himself to the protection work of folk culture in recent years. Especially on the protection Chinese ancient villages, he advised to establish the museum, protect this kind of culture in order to avoid being the “empty nest culture”.
　　Enriched National Cultural Heritage
　　Over the years, Feng Jicai mainly does the protection work of folk culture. Moreover, it is mainly the nationwide general investigation. He is doing on dozens of projects and the emphasis is on the ancient villages. The historic districts in more than 600 cities in China are seldom reserved. Some districts in some cities have disappeared already. The now remaining and the only villages that are rich in national characteristics or culture are disappearing every day. Currently, there are more than two thousand counties, three ten thousand villages and towns and zero point five or six millions administrative villages. However, that does not mean all the administrative villages are ancient villages. The ancient villages indicate the cultural heritage having a long history, with relatively complete historical state and distinct and local feature.
　　The maintenance of material and non-material cultural heritage is relatively rich. According to the general investigation now, the quantity is about 5000 and the ones which are protected are about more than 100. These more than one hundred ones have been protected according to the method of tourist attractions. However, they are not protected according to the ideas of Feng Jicai and not totally out of the perspective of culture. In the stockaded village, there are two villages, which are protected collaboratively by China and Norway. These two villages are protected completely according to the perspectives of anthropology and culturology. However, some ones protected now are actually related to the tourism development. Not being pulled down for the reason of tourism development is also one of methods.
　　The reason why Feng Jicai pays close attention on the ancient villages is that ancient villages are the largest cultural heritage. It is the carrier of various kinds of non-material cultural heritage in China. The basis of Chinese culture lies in the villages. The same case is with the national minority. If the ancient villages disappear, disappearance of national minority culture will be the first to bear the brunt. The national minority lives in their own culture. Once the ancient villages disappear, Feng Jicai believes that it is actually the disappearance of national minority. It means that the culture can not last well. The cultural characteristics of national minority disappear. They do not use their language any more. They do not wear their own clothes. And they lose their own customs. After all of those disappear. The national minority will have no difference with other nationality. And the nationality disappears as well. Therefore, Feng Jicai believes that Chinese ancient villages are required of urgent protection. He analyzes that Chinese nation starts from the agrarian society. Chinese history does not lie in city, but in villages. Most of Chinese villages are almost the living fossil of history. These villages are not emphasized by people at home. People only pay attention on the aspect of modernization. 　　Forgotten Cultural Content
　　Chinese ancient villages may not have the value of tourism development. Because people pay great attention on the some most luxurious and prosperous cities, a large problem is caused. The villages meet with great pressure. The national minority represented by ancient villages can not be paid attention by people. Under this kind of circumstance, over the years, Feng Jicai pays much more attention on the investigation of ancient villages. However, he finds a problem during the process of investigation. Sometimes, some villages appear in good shape. However, when you really walk into the village, you can not feel any cultural content on the street.
　　It looks good for some ancient buildings. However, when you go to the home of local resident, you find no historical content. That does not mean local residents have forgotten this kind of cultural content. That does not mean local residents have forgotten this kind of cultural content. It is inside of the room that is no historical details. All the furniture has been changed into modern one. That is completely different from what is in Europe. Feng Jicai said he had gone to Europe. What he first discovered was that they respected history highly. They own historical feelings and cultural feelings. They put those things that are memorable and witnesses of history on very important position. For example, put the chairs of ancestor grandmother on a very important position. However, Chinese family usually put the fridge and television there. The Europeans usually put the spiritual things on important position. The reasons that Feng Jicai analyzes is that it is possibly because Chinese is lack of this historical and cultural feelings.
　　Feng Jicai thinks that it is not Chinese paying attention on culture and history. It is just because that people do not have that kind of feelings. If people have that feeling, they will be certain to pay attention on it. For example, when they move house, is it television important or the chair of ancestor grandmother? If you have deep affection to ancestor grandmother, her chair will be much more important. Feng Jicai believes that the key point is about feelings. Another reason is related to the constant revolution and turmoil of history over half a century. These make the Chinese people usually regard these things as the carriers of old culture and idea. In order to welcome the new one, people think they should discard the old ones. 　　Another reason is that antique fever is rising over twenty years. And from the ages of eighty, the antique market dotting around the country rises up. Feng Jicai indicates that this is a very sad thing. That means before Chinese recognize the cultural value of cultural heritage, they recognize their commercial value at first and believe it can be changed into money. The old thing that should be discarded can be changed into money now, which is a good thing. Of course, people change them into money. On another hand, a large number of antique vendors, driven by the market benefit, go from door to door and buy things inside home out. It makes each family of household of common people in these villages, even for the family with historical content, like a book with out any content, but only leaving book cover and its name. The content has been taken away completely. If there is no content, the history will be without life and it will not be witnessed.
　　Take a specific example, if a building is ancient one, the style can prove the age when it was built. However, if you go into it, nothing inside can prove that building is ancient. What witnesses are not only the times, but also the unique history that this village has. It is just like a person. What can witness your growing processes are some old pictures, childhood picture, pictures in school and the memorization picture when enter into college, the graduation picture at the time of graduation, all of which witness history of a person. If history is without witness, it will become void. Therefore, people go into these ancient villages. When see places like Red Village and West Land, Wu Town, you will feel sad and hollow because there is only a layer of skin without any other things. Feng Jicai believes that this is a very important problem. It indicates that Chinese profound and vast cultural heritage becomes void.
　　To Memorize the History, Rather than Restrain the Development
　　Nowadays there are mainly two methods to preserve ancient villages: one is to resort to commercial operations by developing tourism; the other one proposed by Feng Jicai is to build some museums, so that the cultural content of them can spread through the ages and be passed down from generation to generation. Some people will think the latter is to artificially restrain the original inhabitants’ ideology or their life styles in a certain state, which is unfair to the original inhabitants. But as a matter of fact, it is a choice to protect it rather than to constrain it. When it comes to Europe, especially some extremely developed countries, people in their village never think history is a restraint, to the contrary, the history to them is the honor, is where their emotion lies. Feng Jicai cited that he had been to the former residence of Mozart in Salzburg, Austria, where no inhabitant in Salzburg considers Mozart's former residence as a restraint, because it does not affect the life of modern people, for example, everyone can use mobile phone and surf on the internet. 　　History isn’t a stumbling block to modern life, however, it is the pride and essence of people's spiritual life, which should not be considered as a kind of constraint. This is not to say that only the modernized facilities in cities and blockbuster of United States are up-to-date. In Feng Jicai’ opinion, showing respect to history is the important standard and the symbol of a nation and Chinese people entering into modern society.
　　Only on the basis of showing respect to history, can we be qualified to discuss other issues. We have no awareness of making much of history until we enter into modern society, in that we won’t think it’s a history before entering into modern society.
　　In Feng Jicai’s opinion, this is like a person. Fore example, when a people has grown into an adult, he will laugh it off if others mention that he used to wet the bed in childhood, because he won't wet the bed anymore. But if he is a middle school student, he may feel shy if others refer to the same, because he has not grown out of childhood entirely. Similarly, people won’t view the past as history until they get into a new historic era.
　　So, the establishment of the museum is not to confine the people, but to help them to memorize the history, to remember how the people on this land lived their lives. In 1990s, in the Alps region in Austria, Feng Jicai once saw a local girl dancing the Alps dance. She danced the spirit of spring, when everything comes to life, and many birds and flowers come back into the woods, all of which are like the spirits of spring galloping in the forest. Feng Jicai still remembers the lively dance, a very ancient folk dance. But every dance is so vivid, because spring is the same forever, and spring can not be modernized. After watching the dance, Feng Jicai danced, drank coffee and chatted with young artists and local artists. He asked the girl whether she liked Mozart, Schubert, Haydn in the area, all of who are famous classical singers of Austria, she answered she liked all of them very much and the Alps dance as well. The dance was so dulcet and passionate that Madonna, Jackson and other most famous signers in the world at that time were fond of it uniformly. When Feng Jicai asked why she liked the dance so much, she gave a very interesting answer: she appropriated Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn because they are climaxes of human history, which are classics in history and worth paying a visit to. She said she likes these folk things, which can help her recall her grandma’s or great-grandma’s emotional lives, relations with nature , and also help her review her particular and friendly feelings towards this land. She also said that she loved Madonna, Jackson who can help to unbosom herself. 　　Human’s spiritual world is rich and colorful, so there are something others besides Madonna, Jackson. Madonna who may be suitable in youth, however with the time going on, people will feel the need of other spiritual stuff apart from them. Feng Jicai believed that people’s spirit world should be very rich, so museums mainly function as reminders for people to memorize the cultural characteristics of this land, thus to make people take pride in their own characteristics. The unique characteristic is most worthy of being proud of, so let’s pass down China’s unique cultures.
　　The Problems Facing Protection of Cultural Heritages
　　Feng Jicai thought that people with certain knowledge should play a guiding role, and the function of them is different form that of government. Taking protection as an example, it is the government which provides the most powerful protect, as a result, all heritages are actually under the protection of the government. Unfortunately, intellectuals have no power to protect heritages, however they could action as a guide, i.e., they can arise awareness of protecting heritages. They should take initiatives when the whole society is in confusion. When the whole society is inanimate, they should ignite people’s dreams. In society, intellectuals should regulate people’ spiritual world, because they care about people's spiritual destiny and the mental state, Intellectuals must be proactive, and they should play a guiding role and influence the public with their spirits.
　　There is still a long way to go in protecting cultural heritages, owing to the fact that they need to be identified after being unearthed, which is time-consuming and very tedious. Nowadays, China's cultural heritages, especially the ethnic cultural heritages, are classified into three parts from the perspectives of folk culture and cultural angle: folklore, folk literature and folk art. Take folklore as an example, it is very complex, with folk customs about holidays and beliefs, about lives and productions , about trade , about weddings and funerals , and about daily lives in every aspects. Different regions have different folk customs differing in thousands of ways .The cultural value and historical value of ethnological culture heritages require to be appraised and identified by experts. Then the heritages are studied and classified into the field which they belong to. Only in this way, can we identify in which way the heritages should be protected and how to be protected, or how to put it on record. 　　Feng Jicai has began to embark on the road of protecting China’s ancient villages in 1990s. At that time, he sold his paintings to protect folk cultural heritages while others didn’t understand the significance of his deeds. In the process of protecting them, Feng Jicai encountered a lot of resistances. In the first place, it very is difficult to make people gain awareness of cultural heritages protection from scratch, to make people understand the value and signification with their vision lacking of protection concept.
　　This requires fundamental change in concept. Feng Jicai remarked that, speaking of "heritages", in Chinese people’s view they are material, private things inherited from parents which are usually viewed as family and private heritages.
　　After the middle of the nineteenth century, a new concept came into being: there exist public and spiritual things shared by a region, a state or a nation, which are called “cultural heritages” passed down from an era to another in spiritual and cultural levels. The traditions and values of national and spiritual genes, including their unique, specific aesthetics, all are in the heritages. Especially in the era of globalization, cultural assimilation is the biggest problem. While globalization inclines to assimilate all cultures, the U.N. advocates paying attention to the diversity of human cultures, which arise every state and nation to protect their own cultural heritages. Feng Jicai thinks highly of this proposal. Then the human began to realize the importance of cultural heritages. The human has went through two stages: one is from the fishing and hunting civilization to the farming civilization between eight thousand years ago and five thousand years ago, when the human had no concept of cultural heritages, so the heritages and memories of that era have been deserted totally; the other is the second transformation from of agricultural civilization to industrial civilization , when if the human didn’t record the heritages of agrarian age , memories of this era will become empty as well, which would turn out to be a problem of the whole human civilization. Feng Jicai thinks it was not a very easy thing to make the public realize that.
　　Another crucial problem is appropriation expenditure. Many cultural institutions express that they need one billion RMB of funds by a rough estimate. China is a country with long history, with profound cultural foundation, and 56 races , where cultural heritages exist everywhere, so one billion yuan to protect Chinese cultural heritages and ancient villages is by no means superfluous in reality. China has 30 provinces to share one billion yuan, and each province has many villages and cities, as a result, each place can get a small allocation. Fortunately, the state puts more efforts to protect cultural heritages year by year, for example, the recent investment reached 1.25 billion yuan, which shows that the country is more and more aware of the significance of protecting cultural heritages. 　　China’s cultures are extremely complicated and colorful, unfortunately, not every cultural heritage has specialized researcher. Manpower resources are limited without coverage for every field, consequently some fields lack of people to conduct researches on them, which led to gradual extinguish of them. And they die out so quickly that some cultural inheritor have passed away leaving no successor before they are paid attention to, as a result the culture completely disappeared. In some places, some earth-shaking changes happened within two years without anything left behind. Feng Jicai thought that the most important thing at present is to carry out census work. After the census and recording work, the construction of museums should be completed immediately.
　　Feng Jicai is a writer, a painter, and now is a professional in protecting cultural heritages as well. He felt that, as an intellectual, what he was concerned with are human spirits of the age, and the fate of the spirit. Now the cultural problems emerge, and it will shape our Chinese spirits of the future. He confessed that, for the sake of protecting Chinese ancient villages, he has few time to write novels.
　　He thinks it’s better to tell people the reason directly rather than arising people’ awareness by writing novels, because the former method is too tortuous. He just temporarily gives up, but not to give up entirely. Sometimes he might suddenly write two short stories, because his mind is always full of novels. A person engaged in literary work, will spare a specialized room for storing his understanding, perception, memories of life. Without question, He is observing life from the perspective of literature. For example, He is a painter using vision to observe life. After observation, he intentionally or accidentally stores the feeling rather than material ceaselessly, when the storage is full, the feeling will burst out from time to time.
　　In Feng Jicai’s opinion, China lacks a kind of cultural atmosphere, which is mainly resulted from the lack of spiritual concerns by Chinese, lack of sense of putting spirit first, because today’s China is a commercialized society and full of materialism, where material comes first. He hoped that the young people pay more attention to spirits, because the reason why human is unique in animal world lies in the fact that the human has spiritual world.
　　The history and culture are most important to china, however China is short of the cultural atmosphere, thus everyone should take responsibility to forge cultural atmosphere. If everyone concerns about his or her country's culture, including the heritages, and the contemporary cultures, arts, aesthetic, and the cities they live in, however, this concern could be personal interests or the responsibility towards public culture, social culture atmosphere will be more and more favorable. Feng Jicai hopes this kind of culture atmosphere will be stronger and stronger by everyone’s effort.