On June 12, 2026, the ancient town of Xunxian in Hebi, Henan Province, transformed into an immersive intangible cultural heritage experience zone. The occasion was the county’s Cultural and Natural Heritage Day event, themed “ICH Makes Life Better,” and the programming covered all the senses: the thunderous percussion of dapingdiao opera, the precarious grace of stilt-walkers towering above the crowd, the intricate detail of clay figurines and woodblock prints, and the irresistible aroma of fire-baked flatbread wafting from the food stalls.
Xunxian, a county with over 2,200 years of history, is part of China’s National Historical and Cultural City program. Its ancient town — a well-preserved Ming-Qing urban landscape of stone-paved streets, grey-brick courtyard houses, and temple complexes — provided an authentic backdrop for an event designed to prove that heritage does not need a museum to feel alive.
Three Zones, Three Ways to Experience
The event was organized into three interconnected zones, each designed to engage visitors through a different mode of cultural participation.
Dynamic Performance Zone: The main stage hosted dapingdiao, a regional opera style native to northern Henan and southern Shanxi, characterized by its forceful vocal delivery, robust percussion, and martial-arts-influenced movement. Listed as a national-level ICH item in 2006, dapingdiao traces its origins to the Ming dynasty and is sometimes called “the yellow earth opera” for its deep roots in the farming communities of the Central Plains. Alongside the opera, traditional shehuo performances — stilt-walking, drum corps, and folk processions — brought the streets to life in a format that has been part of Henan’s Spring Festival and festival culture for centuries.
Static Exhibition Zone: Display tables showcased the county’s distinctive craft traditions. Clay figurines (nihou) — small, vividly painted sculptures of monkeys, a Xunxian specialty — sat alongside wanfuhu (“ten-thousand-blessing tiger”) cloth toys, woodblock New Year prints, and willow-branch woven baskets. Each item represented a craft passed down through family lineages, often within a single village or neighborhood, for generations.
ICH Food Zone: The culinary section featured zha mianxia (deep-fried dough “shrimp”), Wu-family fire-baked flatbread, and eight-bowl banquet dishes — a traditional Henan feast format in which eight dishes are served in ceramic bowls, each representing a different cooking technique. For many visitors, food is the most accessible entry point to heritage, and the organizers clearly understood this: the food zone drew the longest lines.
Wang Ting, head of public services at the Xunxian Culture, Radio, Television, and Tourism Bureau, framed the event in terms of community development rather than cultural preservation alone. “Through dynamic performances like stilt-walking and shehuo, static exhibitions of crafts like wanfuhu, and ICH foods like eight-bowl banquets, we are creating an immersive ICH experience that can be watched, played with, tasted, and purchased,” she told China Daily. “Going forward, we will continue to dig deeper into ICH content, run cultural programs that benefit the public, and promote deep integration of culture and tourism so that ICH truly becomes part of everyday life.”
This language — “culture and tourism integration” (wenlv ronghe) — has become the standard framework for heritage policy in China, and Xunxian’s event exemplifies the model. The ancient town provides the venue; the ICH items provide the content; the visitor spending provides the economic rationale; and the community — both residents and visitors — provides the audience that keeps traditions alive through continued relevance.
Xunxian’s approach is particularly notable for its inclusivity. Unlike high-profile ICH exhibitions in major cities that can feel curated for cultural elites, the county-level event in Xunxian was designed for local residents as much as for tourists. The food stalls were run by local vendors, the performers were local troupes, and the crafts on display were made by artisans who live within walking distance of the exhibition site. This is heritage not as spectacle but as infrastructure — the cultural equivalent of a public park or a community library.