She shared with Dak Lak Newspaper and Radio and Television an interesting perspective on the changing aspects of the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space after 20 years of being recognized by UNESCO.
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| Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Trang. |
♦ Madam, it has been more than 20 years since the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space was recognized by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. How do you evaluate the efforts to preserve the gong cultural heritage in recent years?
The cultural heritage of the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space was inscribed by UNESCO on the List of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2005. In 2009, this List was converted into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Through Vietnam's national periodic reports submitted to UNESCO in 3 cycles (2011, 2017 and 2024), we can see the efforts of the government and provincial management agencies in preserving this cultural heritage throughout the past 20 years.
Provincial cultural management agencies have organized classes, invited artisans to teach gong performance art and gong tuning techniques to create a new generation. Localities have established gong clubs and teams; supported, purchased, and equipped gongs and costumes for community art clubs and teams.
Many projects have been systematically and scientifically implemented by all levels and sectors with the participation of managers, researchers and local communities, bringing positive impacts and benefits to the heritage's host communities. Localities also identified the need to restore and revive cultural spaces that are the performance environments of gongs, such as: recreating rain-praying ceremonies, brotherhood ceremonies of the Ede people, offering jars in the community, celebrating new rice, etc.
To be fair, the above activities have contributed to meeting the needs and aspirations of the community to continue teaching the next generation and participating in festivals. Therefore, the heritage has made positive contributions to the cultural and spiritual life of the ethnic communities living in the area, contributing to preserving and maintaining the identity and cultural diversity of the region.
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| Teaching my grandchildren to play gong. Photo: Quang Khai |
♦ However, at the forum on preserving and promoting gong cultural heritage that just took place, you also affirmed that in the past 20 years, the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space has had many changes?
After 20 years of being recognized by UNESCO, the heritage of the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space has changed in many aspects and directions; the most obvious of which is the transformation in the social and cultural functions of gongs.
For the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands, gongs are sacred objects, so the sound of gongs is also sacred and people have used it as a language to "dialogue" with ancestors and gods. Therefore, the overarching function of gongs is the ritual function, gongs are present in all human activities.
However, along with the development of modern life, the impact of urbanization, changes in farming methods, changes in lifestyle and beliefs, the belief in the spiritual meaning of gongs is increasingly declining. Nowadays, the transformation of economic structure, from rice cultivation to industrial crops leads to the decline of gong activities associated with agricultural rituals; modern life changes the perception of the sacredness and community of gongs, so the function of symbolizing prestige, power and material value of gongs is reduced. In addition, the movement of "reforming and improving" gongs has lost the identity of the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands; the introduction of new religions has strongly impacted the customs, rituals and traditional concepts of the community...
As a result, from being sacred gongs - spiritual instruments communicating with the gods, gongs are now used as ordinary musical instruments; from being gongs of spiritual life they have become gongs of everyday life and from being gongs of rituals they have become gongs of entertainment.
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| The rhythm of the gong in the highlands. Photo: Quang Khai |
♦ So, according to you, in the face of the situation of "de-sacredness", or in other words, the change in the social and cultural functions of gongs, what issues need to be paid attention to in the work of preserving and promoting this cultural heritage?
Faced with the change of living environment, the emergence of new cultural elements that have changed many traditional cultural values has had a significant impact on the activities of protecting and promoting the value of intangible cultural heritage of the Central Highlands Gong Cultural Space. And the issue of heritage protection needs to be carried out through cooperation between relevant parties, regardless of the circumstances, communities, groups of people, individuals (in some cases) are not placed outside their own intangible cultural heritage.
The Central Highlands Gong Culture Space is an integral whole and needs to be protected in its entirety, not “preserved intact” or “preserved in its original form”… All the rituals, ceremonies, customs, costumes, traditional cuisine with folk knowledge, architectural space, natural environment organically linked with gong music all need to be cherished, respected, protected and preserved equally. Losing or distorting one of those elements, the heritage will change, even deform.
Another important thing is to “focus on the process of regeneration and the continuous transfer of knowledge and skills necessary to protect intangible cultural heritage, rather than on the objects that accompany the heritage”. Therefore, equipping gongs is necessary, but each gong set needs to have its quantity clearly determined and its scale pattern accurately measured. Along with equipping and purchasing new gongs, it is also necessary to focus on training in “gong tuning”.
Finally, to overcome the situation where the State does things for the community, when selecting aspects of this intangible cultural heritage to protect, restore, develop and promote, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of consensus participation, prior understanding and full information from the community. This will help avoid the phenomenon of organized events or restored/restored activities being unfamiliar to the community; overcoming the situation of officializing and administrativeizing rituals and traditional cultural activities of the community...
Gongs and their cultural space are preserved not only through documents or projects, but also through the cultural breath of the community; promoted not only through performances and stages, but also through livelihoods, beliefs and social relations; transmitted as a continuous flow - both traditional and creative, both indigenous and of human value...
♦ Thank you very much!
Lan Ha (performed)
Source: https://baodaklak.vn/tin-noi-bat/202511/bao-ve-tinh-chinh-the-cua-khong-gian-van-hoa-cong-chieng-tay-nguyen-d1b1ec1/
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