A total of 100 ancient villages have been catalogued for preservation since the project, Chinese Traditional Villages Archive-Building and Surveys, started in June, according to China’s Traditional Village Protection and Development Research Center.

The center briefed on the progress at a press conference at the Feng Jicai Research Institute of Arts and Literature of Tianjin University on Jan 20.

The project is not only a record of traditional villages, but also a basic survey of villages against a background where the current urbanization is speeding up and traditional villages in Chinese are increasingly dying.

Feng Jicai, a famous Chinese writer and an initiator the project, said that traditional village is home to countless tangible and intangible cultural heritages of the Chinese nation, as well as the root and source of diversity of the Chinese civilization.

He added that the efforts of the past half year only marks the first step of a long march, because many experts think that more than 5,000 traditional villages should be investigated and archived.

The project of Chinese traditional villages is jointly organized and implemented by China Society for the Study of Folk Literature and Art, Chinese photographers Society, Chinese Literature and Art Foundation, and China’s Traditional Village Protection and Development Research Center.

Source: chinadaily.com.cn