A group photo of the Hua'er training class. [Photo/WeChat account of Ningxia Culture and Tourism]

Ningxia Hui autonomous region saw eight of its intangible cultural heritage (ICH) representative inheritors included in the sixth batch of the national-level ICH representative inheritors list, announced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on March 17. This brings the region's total number of nationally recognized inheritors to 30. Ningxia has been actively promoting ICH's creative transformation and innovative development through various measures.

Six provincial regulations have been promulgated to guide cities, counties (and districts) to develop corresponding supporting measures and implementation plans, including the protection regulations of ICH in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, while 5,667 ICH resources have been excavated. Hua'er, a type of folk song and spring official who sends blessings in the Liupan district, is a unique Spring Festival custom in Ningxia and has been included in the UNESCO Representative List of the ICH of Humanity.

There are 28 projects in the national list of representative projects and 289 projects in the regional list of representative projects, with 30 national-level representative inheritors and 376 autonomous region-level representative inheritors.

In addition, Ningxia hosts over 30 sessions of ICH thematic training courses annually, launches themed tourism routes, and organizes cultural and tourism events like the Western China Folk Song (Hua'er) Festival, celebrating Spring Festival with Ningxia ICH. The Yellow River Basin ICH Competition to cultivate a new cultural and tourism brand for Ningxia. 

Actors perform at the traditional cultural heritage training program presentation. [Photo/WeChat account of Ningxia Culture and Tourism]