Why not discard the artificial marks

It has evolved into a cultural fight in the disguised form for all these years that China's adjacent provinces and municipalities are competing with one another for historical legacies and cultural resources, or even the legendary sites and figures, such as the Emperors of Yan and Huang, the ancestors of the Han ethnicity in sagas, and the butterfly lovers Liang and Zhu in fairy tales.



The historical and cultural resources seem to be a trade mark signaling the place is worth visiting, and therefore the obscure place could become a much-traveled tourist attraction overnight thanks to the real or the fanciful historical sites. That is why the cultural fight so far shows no signs to cease, instead, it has escalated in recent days.



It all happened when a bridge was erected last year in the ancient river way of Huaihe River, and Jiangsu Province, who masterminded the thing, announced recently that on top of the bridge would be built a sphere-shaped object as a mark to act as the geographical indication dividing China's south and north. Immediately after it was released, the announcement set up a hot debate across China, and in particular, irritated its neighbors-- Anhui Province and Henan Privince. An online poll even came as the bridge base was just completed, which showed almost all the 150,000 voters offended to the idea.



Many scholars also deemed that conventionally the Qinling Mountain, with the Huaihe River to the east, marks the geographical boundary between northern and southern China, and thereby it was completely undesirable to select a particular place as a representative for this geographical indication. But the provinces in question are still reluctant to give up their efforts to hanker after the fame as a historical or cultural site and the economic gains attached to the fame, and so they take it a necessary step to first of all create an impressive ‘name card' for their places before making them a hasty rise to fame.



This also helps explain why in recent years many artificial sites and even some fake ones have mushroomed, ruining the reputation of a place instead of gaining popularity as it wished, repelling the tourists rather than attracting them. Ironically, a certain governmental department recently stated that it would invest a huge sum in building a batch of public facilities with the historic significance immortal for centuries. History is man-made, but the high profile buildings with historic significance are not.



The immortality of a historical site or building comes to be so simply because history in its progress has taken root in people's memory deeply but naturally. Human efforts may propel or hinder the progress of history, but cannot change the course of its natural evolution. Likewise, historical significance is a treasure gained over time and test, nor can it be imposed upon a piece of architecture by human efforts.



Some would argue that designers of the bridges of Madison County had no intention or ability to leave behind some dreams. Why the bridges built there gained such an enormous popularity all attributes to a novel named The Bridges of Madison County. Indeed, there are many successful

cases like this smartly harnessing the unique cultural resources and making a perfect match of the cultural elements and the particular architecture and as a result, to make an otherwise obscure place eye-catching. Be that as it may, the agreement between the cultural elements and a particular place must be reached in a natural way, otherwise, the hype of historical and cultural sites by cooking up the story and stretching the meaning is not only absurd but may end up with making a blunder.



Even though the ‘eye-ball economics' has become a fashionable term and creative ideas deserve much more respect than ever before, capturing public attention can only be done through smart strategies and planning, instead of desperately cooking up a hype. In terms of developing local economy, the local authorities should keep a foothold on reality and fully capitalize on their local resources and potentials, and through the all-round planning, in order to win and enhance the public appeal for their places.



By People's Daily Online