Govt initiates project to preserve unique ethnic villages

The Chinese government has initiated a unique project to locate and preserve the most distinct ethnic villages across the country.

The Chinese government has initiated a unique project to locate and preserve the most distinct ethnic villages across the country. The aim is to preserve these unique treasures of Chinese culture for future generations. Here's more from the opening of this event.

The State Ethnic Affairs Commission or SEAC plans to visit 100 villages that have the most distinct ethnic characters all over the country. In cooperation with media, the event will select person or item that could represent the village and help promote the unique ethnic culture.

Shi Xiaoliang, Secretary General of "Hunt for the Most Beautiful Villages", said, "By going on this tour, we want to raise the social awareness of protecting ethnic cultures and intangible cultural heritage. They are large in number but lost every day, because the young generation doesn't think it's worth learning and passing on. So we want to discover it, record it and find out ways to let it enter the market."

In the recent decades, the numbers of China's villages have dropped from 3.6 million to 2.7 million, which means 200 villages are disappearing from the country every day. Experts, reporters as well as artists will join the tour and a museum will be built as the first of its kind in the country to feature the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in China.