Cultural Heritage Day in Zhengzhou

Zhengzhou, capital of history-rich Henan province, celebrated the 7th National Cultural Heritage Day, which fell on Saturday, with a series of carefully arranged events.

As the host city of this year's celebration, Zhengzhou demonstrated its efforts and achievements in protecting its substantial cultural heritage over past years.

Henan province is believed to be one of the most important cradles of Chinese civilization. Zhengzhou boasts a great number of relics.

For example, the group of ancient buildings in Songshan Mountain, which is located in Dengfeng, Zhengzhou, was listed as a world heritage site in its entirety at the 34th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2010.

The buildings, including the famous Shaolin Temple and historical Songyue Academy, are named Center of the Universe Building Ensemble.

The buildings reveal mysteries about ancient Chinese astronomy, the calendar system and religion and are representative of ancient Chinese architectural arts and ideology.

Hundreds of people from different groups were invited to explore the secrets of the ancient buildings ensemble on Friday and Saturday, which was an important part of the local government's efforts to cultivate its citizens' passion for heritage.

Experts were also invited to talk about the value of the relics by discussing their history and details about the buildings.

Besides other activities such as exhibitions held to arouse citizens' awareness of cultural heritage protection, Zhengzhou launched several major heritage protection projects, including the construction of a museum of the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC) capital ruins and renovation of the Shaolin Temple's pagodas.

The unveiling of the Monitoring Center for the Center of the Universe Ancient Building Ensemble was believed by experts to be very meaningful because it shows the city's determination to protect its cultural heritage and sets an example to other regional governments.

The monitoring center's work will focus on the permanent protection of the buildings themselves and their subordinate structures, with regular monitoring based on apparatus, in combination with onsite inspections.

Factors affecting the protection and potential safety threats will be overseen with the launching of the center, the local heritage administration bureau officials said.

The persistent promotion and related activities in past years have greatly enhanced society's attention and awareness of of cultural heritage protection, said Dong Baohua, deputy head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, at the opening ceremony of Saturday's celebration.

"A new protection system based on governmental work facilitated by all of society's active participation has been gradually formed," Dong said. "The general social environment for heritage protection is improving constantly."