The 2006 International Conference of Dajia Matsu was held at the Taichung County Seaport Art Center on 15-16 April as part of the Dajia Matsu Festival organised around the annual Dajia Matsu Pilgrimage, which this year took place 25 March-2 April. It featured a dozen presentations and discussions concerning topics related to worship of the sea goddess Matsu and the preservation of cultural traditions. The first day's talks and discussions addressed the general idea of "intangible cultural heritage," highlighting examples in Belgium and Japan, while the second day's activities focused on Matsu-related topics.

Due in part to media reports, the annual Matsu Pilgrimage in Taiwan has aroused increasing interest in regions outside of the immediate pilgrimage area as well as among foreign sociologists and anthropologists. In recent years, the Taichung County Government has striven to capitalise on that interest by promoting a variety of activities prior to, during and following the eight-day pilgrimage with the purpose of uplifting the county's profile and stimulating tourism.

At the same time, the county government has become concerned over the potential negative impact that overzealous tourism promotion and commercialisation may have on the authenticity of Matsu-related cultural traditions. It has therefore made efforts to encourage activities aimed at disseminating knowledge about, and enhancing understanding of, the pilgrimage's underlying spiritual and cultural significance.

In this connection, although the Republic of China is not a member of the United Nations, the county government will be looking into ways to have the Dajia Matsu Pilgrimage included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity to be compiled by UNESCO--the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation--after the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage takes effect 20 April. While tangible heritage refers to physical things such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia, intangible heritage means such things as performing arts, festivals, rituals, oral traditions or traditional learning and skills.

One of the most anticipated presentations at the conference was given by Professor Franise Lempereur from the University of Lie in Belgium. In his talk, titled "Gilles of Binche and Processional Giants and Dragons in Belgium: Evolution and Social Impact," he discussed the millennium-old Carnival of Binche--a Belgian town with 32,000 inhabitants south of Brussels--and the traditional Processional Giants and Dragons which still lives on in several Belgian towns as examples of the importance of intangible cultural heritage.

In 2003, the Carnival of Binche was proclaimed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. In addition to the 28 masterpieces proclaimed that year, 19 were proclaimed in 2001 and another 43 in 2005. All 90 of them have automatically been incorporated into the new Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Lempereur noted that only 17 of the 90 proclaimed masterpieces were produced by Europe and North America, indicating not only the richness of non-Western cultures but the urgency of preserving aspects of local culture in his own society. In this connection, he discussed approaches to safeguarding other examples of intangible cultural heritage in Belgium.

In anticipation of the conference, Lempereur noted, he had reflected deeply on the question "How could I explain the deepest traditions of my country to people living on the other side of the world?" Most people in Taiwan and Belgium do not know even simple facts about each other's countries, such as size and location, let alone about their respective intangible cultural heritages.

Despite the difficulty of cross-cultural communication, however, it is worth working at because it has a double benefit, he indicated: Besides promoting mutual understanding, an important benefit of exchanging information about intangible cultural heritage is that it promotes self-appreciation. By discovering and taking pleasure in the differences in other societies' cultural traits and comparing them with those of one's own, one can more profoundly realise the preciousness of one's own cultural treasures.

The UNESCO Web site notes that "the Carnival of Binche is a genuinely popular festival renowned for its spontaneity and the substantial financial commitment of its participants. The townspeople take great pride in the celebration and strive to preserve the precious craftsmanship and know-how associated with the carnival's traditional costumes, accessories, dances and music." This description very closely parallels the nature of the Dajia Matsu Pilgrimage and underlines an important fact: Such prominent events with long histories both vitalise, and draw vitality from, developments in multiple, overlapping spheres of society. The wide variety of folk performances at temple fairs traditionally held in connection with the pilgrimage, and the huge amount of resources invested in preparing all manner of equipage and transmitting skills relating to it, demonstrate what powerful role such a core event can play in weaving together the many threads of society.

Hyoki Satoru, senior researcher from the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo, gave a presentation at the conference titled "Folk Performing Arts in Popular Festivals of Japan." He pointed out that his country tries to preserve its intangible folk cultural properties through governmental measures taken in accordance with Japan's 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, whose section on folk cultural properties was amended in 1975.

As a concrete example of such measures, Satoru discussed "Bitchu kagura," a folk performing art which has long existed in the Bitchu area of Okayama Prefecture. As a consequence of industrial development in the Bitchu region during the 1960s and 1970s, local inhabitants who had previously been engaged in farming and were able to exert a high degree of control over allocation of time and energy to different activities became factory workers, making it extremely difficult for community members to develop as kagura players.

Later, with the development of transportation infrastructure, large numbers of tourists began to visit cities in the area in the late 1970s and 1980s, and Bitchu kagura performances became a popular tourist attraction, Satoru explained. Consequently, with official support, kagura players threw themselves into the mission of revitalising their traditional drama.

At the same time, however, Satoru stressed that in considering how to go about preserving traditions, it must be realised that it is the nature of tradition to change in step with social dynamics. Here, he noted, the ongoing development of Bitchu kagura parallels the evolutionary changes that have occurred in the history of the Dajia Matsu Pilgrimage and its emergence as a popular tourism event.

Another Japanese speaker at the conference, Hiroshi Hoshino pointed out that in addition to official patronage of social activities, it is imperative to produce digital archives, including videos and documents, in order to ensure that cultural heritage is not lost. This, he said, is one of the goals of Japan's "Living Human Treasures" program instituted in 1955. It is also necessary for governments to actively promote the teaching of traditional skills through such projects as Japan's called "Children's Class for Transmitting Traditional Culture." Taiwanese speakers at the conference included Li Mu-ru, an expert on the remarkable Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Chinese sea explorer Zheng He, a member of the Hui minority. In his talk, he described the importance of Matsu cult traditions in the seven voyages of Zheng's large ocean-going fleets over a 28-year period, involving over 27,000 Chinese sailors. According to Li, Zheng was among the many people who had worshiped Matsu since she was deified at the beginning of the Sung Dynasty (960-1279).

Zheng, Li noted, was a religious eclectic, respectful of Islam, Buddhism and Taoism. Matsu, however had a special place as the guardian goddess of his fleets. All of his ships carried statues of Matsu and pennants carrying inscriptions invoking her blessings. He is said to have reported the helpfulness of Matsu every time he returned to China from his voyages, and to have urged the emperor to build Matsu temples, Li said.