In the list of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects in China, there are 8 projects selected in Macao. Here are 2 intangible cultural heritage projects of Macao.

1. Taoist music (Macao Taoist Music)

Macao Taoist music is a kind of religious music which combines the Zhengyi school of Macao and Quanzhen School of Guangdong. The total number of Daoqu is more than 500, which ranks first in the number of its repertoire among all the Taoist teaching music. In the 1960s, Wu Yusheng, the Taoist director of Wu Qingyun Taoist school, spread the music to the Taoist temples in Macao and Hong Kong, expanding the spread of Taoist music in Macao.

Since the 1960s, with the economic transformation and urbanization of Macao, the traditional religious rituals have been gradually simplified, and the Daoist rituals are no longer flourishing. As a result, the number of Zhengyi Taoists has been sharply reduced, and the traditional local style Macao Taoist science and instrument music is facing a crisis of loss. In order to preserve and save the precious cultural heritage of Macao, the Macao Taoist Association immediately launched a series of protection work after its establishment in 2002: the establishment of the Taoist culture science and instrument seminar, the establishment of the Macao Taoist Orchestra, the formation of the legal affairs group of the Macao Taoist Association, the holding of the Taoist music appreciation meeting, the recording of the "Xuanmen morning and evening hall lessons" CD-ROM.

2. Wood carving (Macau statue carving)

Statue carving is a traditional carving art popular in Macao Special Administrative Region. It originated from the religious belief of local fishermen and other residents. Its development went through the process from simplicity to delicacy, from small to large, from monomer to assembly. In accordance with the fine tradition of Chinese classical sculpture art, Macao's statue carving has maintained the ancient painting including Golden lacquer technology and the Ningbo style, which can be called the mainstream of Jiangsu and Zhejiang statues. At the same time, it has also borrowed the modeling factors and joint methods of Myanmar and other foreign statues to improve and innovate.

Macao's statue carving mainly produces wood Buddha statues. The technological process includes material selection, design, carving, jointing, polishing, bottom making, color coating, gold paint, gold foil sticking and other major links. Its statue products can be divided into five types: Fishermen's belief in God statues, Taoist and folk belief in God statues, Buddha statues and shrines, decoration miscellaneous and public sculptures of houses and businesses, and large-scale wood Buddha statues.

Source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage website

Time: December 21, 2019