Auto Special: BMW's journey: Protecting the nation's cultural heritage

On June 18, the curtain opened on yet another of BMW's efforts to help preserve Chinese culture, this time at the Wudang Mountains, a renowned Taoist site in Hubei province.
Through the China Charity Federation BMW Warm-Heart Fund, BMW donated a total of 1 million yuan to intangible cultural heritage sites along the route of this year's BMW China Cultural Journey.
At the donation ceremony in Wudang, BMW contributed a total of 200,000 yuan for the three intangible cultural heritage items, namely Wudang Kungfu, Wudang Mountains Taoism Music and the Lujiahe folk songs prevailed at the southern foot of the Wudang Mountains.
The world-renowned automaker began its China Culture Journey activities in 2007 to try to protect the country's cultural heritage.
Olaf Kastner, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive - a Sino-German joint venture - who was present at the ceremony, described BMW's special journey in China in this way, "Over the past five years, we've continued to explore China's cultural treasures and ways to combine them with modern life to make them shine again."
Every year, BMW chooses a special heritage site and a fleet of dealers, car owners, experts, and staff members make a pilgrimage to donate money for its protection.
This year, the fleet left Taiyuan, Shanxi province, on June 9 for Henan province's Anyang, Kaifeng, Dengfeng, Luoyang and Nanyang, on a 10-day trek.
They then continued on to the Wudang Mountains, for an almost 2,000-kilometer journey.
Along the way, they had a chance to enjoy Nanyang Wanbang, a type of Chinese opera that incorporates local folk songs and ballads. It has a more than 300-year history, making it older than Peking Opera.
They were also able to enjoy the beauties of some Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) stone sculptures, in Nanyang, attend a Taoist music performance at a temple on the Wudang Mountains, and listen to a lecture on traditional Chinese medicine.
In Kaifeng, Zhang Juntai, a seventh-generation inheritor of the "Bianliang Lantern Zhang" tradition, told them about this unique lantern-making method.
Zhang said he and his sister were the only direct inheritors of the traditional craft.
The Bianliang Zhang's history goes back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when its founder, Zhang Taiquan (1743-1803), combining the lantern-making methods of former dynasties with contemporary arts of embroidery and paintings.
Zhang said he hopes to pass the technique on to more people to preserve this unusual cultural heritage.
"Once 'Lantern Zhang' becomes a national cultural heritage, it no longer belongs to our family, but to everyone," Zhang explained.
BMW expanded on this by saying, "It's because of the great contribution of national cultural inheritors like Zhang that these cultural treasures have a hope of being revitalized."
BMW has given more than 5 million yuan to cultural heritage programs in urgent need of protection, by cooperating with local governments and the charity federation.
In addition, the company has visited six major cultural and ecological preservation sites and more than 120 cultural heritage sites across a dozen provinces.
This autumn, it will hold an exhibition in Beijing to show the achievements of its culture journey over the past five years.
The company has said it will continue to help protect the nation's cultural heritage and carry on with its pledge to protect cultural heritage and safeguard the spiritual homeland.

Lanterns made by the Bianliang Zhang family in Kaifeng, Henan province. Photos Provided to China Daily

The long BMW China Culture Journey ended in the Wudang Mountains.

(China Daily 07/25/2011 page12)