Daily Xi's Talk: Preserving and Developing the Traditional Ethnic Culture

Xi Jinping emphasized the importance of preserving and promoting traditional ethnic culture, particularly Miao embroidery, which is both traditional and fashionable, and has significant cultural and industrial value. During a visit to Huawu Village, Bijie City, Guizhou Province, on February 3, 2021, Xi learned about the village's development of the Miao embroidery industry and pointed out its vital role in preserving ethnic culture and promoting rural revitalization.

Miao embroidery is a craft passed down through generations of Miao women. It usually features vivid and colorful designs of animals, birds, fish, and insects, expressing the Miao people's reverence for nature, remembrance of ancestors, and pursuit of a beautiful life. It continues to play an essential role in the daily lives of the Miao people.

In recent years, areas with large Miao populations like Guizhou, Hunan, and Yunnan have actively cultivated the Miao embroidery industry. They have dug deep into the cultural connotation of local Miao embroidery, integrating it with market needs and trends, ingeniously incorporating Miao embroidery art into everyday items like canvas bags, scarves, bracelets, brooches, and stationery, winning market favor. This ancient art has taken on new vitality in the contemporary era, providing local Miao embroiderers with work and income, and preserving the craft for future generations.

China, as a unified multi-ethnic country, possesses many excellent traditional cultures like Miao embroidery, some of which are national and provincial intangible cultural heritages, such as paper cutting, wood carving, clay sculpting, straw weaving, and porcelain painting. They are valuable treasures left by the Chinese nation, and it is our responsibility to protect, inherit, and develop them. Developing the cultural industry is one way to achieve this goal. Some places have attracted many tourists by creating new consumer scenarios such as "Intangible Cultural Heritage + Cultural Tourism." More domestic brands are infusing traditional crafts and intangible cultural heritage elements into their products, gaining popularity among young people.

Efforts must be made to support local development of industries with distinctive ethnic traditional cultural characteristics, actively promote traditional ethnic cultural products, and further drive the creative transformation and innovative development of outstanding traditional Chinese culture, considering the actual conditions in various places and from aspects such as financial support, base construction, talent training, innovative research, brand shaping, and market expansion.