A white screen, a flame, some music and a few flat puppets that move and tell a story composed shadow play, a traditional Chinese folk art with a history of more than 2,000 years.

Shadow play of Qianjiang city of Central China's Hubei Province was entered the first group of China's intangible cultural heritage protection list in June 2006, but local reports said that shadow play was on the edge of distinction because of shrinking audience and market demands.

General speaking, Chinese ancient art forms gradually faded out of the limelight with the arrival of modern media such as television and movies.

Despite the situation, Qianjiang has taken many measures to protect and rescue shadwo play.

Intangible cultural heritage is defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as “the practices, representations, and expressions, as well as the associated knowledge and the necessary skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage.”

The dance Sayeryo, a unique ritual dance popular in Changyang Tujia nationality in Central China's Hubei Province was listed as first group of national intangible cultural heritage last month.

The Sayeryo, which can date back to Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.), is danced by Tujia people to celebrate birth and death and expresses local people's optimism, diligence and courage. The leader of the dance beats a drum and sings the song to guide the dancers. Women are not allowed for the dance.

Many local young people showed great interests in the dance and many of them learnt it to inherit the cultural heritage.

As the booming of popular culture in modern life, other cultural forms such as musicals, dramas and popular songs have affected local operas across China. And this is the case for Han Opera, which originated in the Hanjiang River Valleys in central China's Hubei Province 400 years ago.

Han Opera are facing difficult times, local reports said. Its fans are getting old while young people these days are reluctant to watch operas, saying its out of fashion and hard to understand, so the audience of Han Opera decreased sharply during the past two decades.

“The price of a Han opera performance is 10 Yuan (US$1.25), much lower than a 50-Yuan film ticket, but audience did not watch. Sometimes, there were only five people watching during a performance”, Xiong Guoqiang, head of Han Opera troupe said.

Due to shrinking market demands, several Han opera troupes have been disbanded or incorporated into other troupes in the past few years. Meanwhile, as a result, young people refused to study Han Opera and took it as their careers.

Great efforts have been made to rejuvenate the opera. According to People's Daily, experts have planed to seek World Heritage status Han Opera from the United Nations in a bid to protect it from extinction.

The stories and music are also updated with dazzling lights, luxury scenery and elaborate costumes to attract audience.

Known as one of the sources of Beijing Opera, Han Opera has an especially rich flavor of Hubei culture.

Yixing pottery pots with purple is a local Yixing clay mud from imitation, it is height of various sizes, at different radius of the merits different shapes and changing world. Wai large pots or seven meters, small as marbles. High pots can be planted in a flower-cliff, and in the shallow water basin used for layout of stone, bonsai tree stump and complementing each other. Song began, Sheng Yu Ming, Yuan Dynasty, Yixing pottery burning technology has gradually matured in artifacts from the inscription carved. Mid-ming, Yixing pottery tea purple extremely popular. During the Qing Dynasty, used to create a carving, calligraphy and painting decorative style. Yixing Yixing pottery pots unique brown color gives us a formal, classically elegant, rustic feeling. It carved and decorated to integrate closely together to stone carving techniques to bring poems, landscapes, birds, flowers, pictures and sculpture in pots, antique. Interior room, bedroom, it was even more elegant styles. The sleek, classically elegant generous, breathable and absorbent can be good.

Long before 4,000, Chinese women to wear the decoration, which includes the use made of turquoise earrings and paintings. In the Shang Dynasty bronze, lacquer work patterns, it was found embedded turquoise. Tang, Princess Wencheng to Tibet, carrying large sums of turquoise jewelry, decorative Tibet to the famous Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.

Combine turquoise carved turquoise Body lively, soft, in varying degrees, the sharp features, design to create works of a variety of characters. The structural stress modeling full, complete, lively and innovative. Carving techniques combination of our major north-south jade carving style, the knife and tidy, and the clear and concise, penetrating thin lines. Turquoise famous sculptor of the new Yuanjiaqi “Chutian”, with a weight of 14.7 kilograms of stone carvings and women. Stone got the delicate texture, surface material purity of the color green, colorful, Hubei mining turquoise, very rare treasures. Author ancient folklore, combine turquoise carved onto the exquisite features, a bold jade Pierced, Shudiao skill and Hubei were the traditional realist style to style, in this polygon meticulously carved turquoise of a perfect three-dimensional picture. King Pavilion on the mountains around the fall, the host Soaring, sunny day the sky. Crane boys Labor a violent hand, the picture turnip Fairy dignified image fullness, beautiful lovers, clothing brilliant splendor, from the relaxed demeanor of the Yue, revealed miss much of the infinite and deep. The piece used the broad approach, brown fluid lines to subtly show the sense of space and three-dimensional sense.