The 6th Grand Canal Culture and Tourism Expo was held at the Suzhou International Expo Center from Sept. 13 to 15. A special exhibition area, which was set up at Hall B1 of the expo center, displayed a rich variety of intangible cultural heritages along the Grand Canal such as Beijing’s Tu’er Ye (Lord Rabbit), Nantong’s blue calico dyeing, Wuxi’s clay figures and Suzhou’s Song brocade.
The intangible cultural heritage area showcased the effective efforts and new achievements made by cities along the Grand Canal in promoting the protection and inheritance of traditional crafts. With a total area of about 2,000 square meters, the exhibition was divided into 4 sections focusing on the development of representative ICH brands, the IP authorization of ICH items, the online promotion of ICH brands as well as the interactive experience of ICH techniques.
The exhibition featured 56 ICH items of traditional crafts along the Grand Canal, of which 28 were from cities in Jiangsu Province. There were 43 national-level, 10 provincial-level and 3 municipal-level ICH representative items, covering a number of traditional crafts such as spinning, dyeing, embroidery and weaving. Among them, there were Nanjing’s Yun brocade and Suzhou’s Song brocade listed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, Zhejiang’s bronze carving and Shandong’s Donge ejiao making which are national-level ICH representative items, and Suqian’s Yundu peach pit carving and Tianjin’s filigree mosaic which are provincial-level or municipal-level ICH representative items.