The People Above the Clouds
Celebration of Qiang New Year held in 2015 AFrench-language documentary The People Above the Clouds, aired in both China and France on May 12, has recalled memories of Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, after a deadly earthquake rocked the area exactly 10 years ago. For the Qiang people, the documentary, which features the reconstruction of Qiang culture, has a special meaning. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it shows the rejuvenation of the Qiang culture from the ruins of devastation.
Qiang is one of the 56 ethnic groups in China, with a population of about 300,000. The 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12, 2008 in Aba and its surrounding crushed the Qiang. It damaged their homes and villages in the prefecture, leaving more than 20,000 Qiang people dead, missing and seriously injured. The quake also destroyed the Qiang-style monuments such as Diaolou towers and Diaojiaolou towers along with many cultural heritages. The documentary showcases all these tragic events and offers the viewer insights into how the Qiang people are reconstructing their cultural life.
Restoring the New Year celebration
Yueli Village in Yanmen Town, Wenchuan County of Aba is one of the most ancient Qiang villages in China, as well as the main venue for shooting The People Above the Clouds. Ten years ago, a powerful earthquake wiped out and destroyed more than 90 percent of the houses in that village. But thanks to the help from the government and people from all walks of life, reconstruction is underway.
Zhao Jiankang, 29, is one of the participants and witnesses of the reconstruction efforts. When the earthquake struck, he was only a senior student at a local high school. After graduation from university, he returned to his hometown to help.
“Qiang culture has been handed down for thousands of years, and I do not want it to disappear in our generation,” said Zhao. “As a young man of Qiang ethnic group, I think I should do something.”Returning home in 2015, Zhao established the Wenchuan Ancient Qiang Culture Co. Ltd. The first thing he did was to restore the celebration ceremony of the Qiang New Year, the group’s most important festival, which falls on the first day of the 10th month of Chinese traditional calendar.
“I remembered we had our last Qiang New Year celebration in our village in 1992,” recalled Zhao. From then on, there had been no such celebration held in his hometown until 2015.
But it was not easy to re-launch this celebration as the Qiang people do not have their own written language, and the cultural traditions have been kept alive by word of mouth. To learn more about the Qiang New Year celebration ceremony, Zhao visited many places in Wenchuan, Lixian and Maoxian counties, which are mostly inhabited by the ethnic group, and was able to document events first hand.
After about one year’s preparation, the celebration was held on November 11, 2015, the eve of Qiang New Year, in Yueli Village. Zhao invited media to report on the celebration, which lasted from the afternoon to 5:00 in the morning the next day.
“This is the first traditional celebration of Qiang New Year around this region for so many years,” Zhao heaved a sigh.
Government efforts
Zhao’s ambition goes far beyond just holding the traditional celebration for Qiang New Year. According to him, it is more important to awaken the awareness in rejuvenating their traditional culture.
“Qiang buildings are the bearer of our culture, and our weddings and funerals would be more traditional if held in Qiang buildings,” said Zhao. In the earthquake 10 years ago, many Qiang buildings were totally destroyed. Starting in 2016, he began documenting reconstruction of these buildings.
In addition, Zhao is working on the sustainability of the Shibi culture, the core of the Qiang culture. Shibi is the priest in Qiang tradition. Today, Zhao and his team are assisting old Shibis in his village to train successors. Now, a total of 10 young people are studying Shibi culture.
Apart from Zhao’s efforts, the government also improved the work of restoring cultures of ethnic minorities in disaster-stricken areas. Soon after the earthquake, China’s Ministry of Culture, (predecessor of Ministry of Culture and Tourism), established an ecological protection experimental area of the Qiang culture, covering the eight counties in Sichuan Province such as Maoxian County, Wenchuan County and Lixian County, as well as Ningqiang County and Lueyang County in Shaanxi Province.
Over the past 10 years, local governments from various levels in the area have collected and restored a large number of documents, audios and videos of intangible cultural heritages of Qiang ethnic group so as to keep it alive for posterity.
Local governments also launched 178 cultural restoration and reconstruction projects within the area, and a batch of Qiang infrastructures such as the Ancient Qiang City in Maoxian County, Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Center of Maoxian, and Folk Museum of Beichuan were built. In addition, a large number of Qiang villages have also been renovated such as Taoping Qiang Village in Lixian County, Heihu Qiang Village in Maoxian County and Jina Qiang Village in Beichuan County.
Market-based development
“In rescuing Qiang culture, we are taking measures to protect both tangible and intangible culture,” said Yang Guoqing, Chairperson of Wenchuan Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
Li Xingxiu, 57, is the inheritor of Qiang Embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage of the Qiang people. She studied embroidery from her mother when she was 6. Her hometown Maoxian County is the largest county inhabited by Qiang people and the core area of their culture. The county was also seriously damaged by the earthquake.
“Before the earthquake, there was no such technology called Qiang Embroidery. We called our embroidery zahua,” said Li. When she learned that the Miao ethnic group has Miao Embroidery, she also named her embroidery Qiang Embroidery. She intended to register the name at the local administration for industry and commerce. Unfortunately, the quake struck before this could happen. “I was so frightened at that time that I forgot about my registration of the Qiang Embroidery,” she recalled.
Fortunately, with strong support from the local government, Li has now successfully registered the name Qiang Embroidery and was recommended as one of the inheritors of the intangible cultural heritage.
Backed by the local government, Li and other inheritors of Qiang Embroidery started to hold training classes in various places of the prefecture. Training is free, and once trained, craftspeople can earn 500-600 yuan ($79-95) a day.
During the 10 years after the earthquake, Li has trained more than 20,000 people. In 2014, she established her own company. Two years later, she established her production base in Maoxian County, providing jobs for more people.
“Today in Aba, you can see many people, including many old people, make embroidery products. They can earn money at home,” said Li. “For us who suffered from the earthquake, it is important to rely on ourselves for relief.”
Li’s Qiang Embroidery has also gone global. After the earthquake, the Ministry of Culture and the Sichuan Culture Department organized exhibitions to showcase Qiang Embroidery. Li visited Holland, the United States, Canada, South Korea and Thailand to demonstrate her skills. “We have since signed contracts with our customers in the United States,” she said.
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