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Building on a legacy
Mogao Caves still shine with devotion of scholars and artists
Editor's Note: President Xi Jinping called for more efforts to carry forward the culture of Dunhuang, during his visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site this summer. Thanks to the devotion of generations of scholars and artists, its cultural legacy still shines and inspires. China Daily reporters talk with researchers and designers from home and abroad to explore its renewed role in today’s cultural scene and global exchanges.
Sitting under a spotlight in the auditorium of the National Museum of China in Beijing on Oct 12, Fan Jinshi was given a long standing ovation by hundreds of archaeologists, museum curators and cultural relic conservationists from around the country.
The 81-year-old was making a speech about her decadeslong bond with Dunhuang.
In late September, she was bestowed with a national medal and an honorary title by President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People. She was the only representative from cultural heritage circles to receive the honor, a crucial recognition of her outstanding achievements over the 70-year history of New China.
Fan was director of the Dunhuang Academy from 1998 to 2014, and is only the third person to have held the post since the academy’s founding in 1944. She is often called the “daughter of Dunhuang” by those who know her.
The academy is intrinsically linked with the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, Gansu province — a complex of 735 grottoes with Buddhist murals and statues which were produced between the fourth and 14th centuries. The site is generally considered to be a microcosm of the exchanges between different civilizations that passed along the ancient Silk Road.
About 60,000 ancient documents were discovered in Cave 17, also known as the “library cave”, which offers an encyclopedic insight into Buddhism and secular life over the course of a millennium.
“I can’t say that I was always ‘devoted’. I first went to Dunhuang simply because I was obeying an assignment given to me by the country,” she states frankly, winning another round of applause.
In 1962, when Fan was an archaeology student at Peking University, she was sent to the site as part of her internship.
“I was intoxicated by the exquisite murals in the caves,” she recalls. “However, it was the remote sites outside of the caves which I couldn’t stand.”
Harsh conditions
Fan was born in Beijing into a well-off family of intellectuals. She was appalled by the harsh living conditions in Dunhuang during her internship. Set in the Gobi desert, the offices and accommodation for the researchers at the Dunhuang Academy were built from earth, the drinking water was salty, and their children could not attend school due to the poor roads.
“I didn’t expect to ever go back to Dunhuang again,” Fan says.
However, just a year later, she did return. Back then, Chinese college graduates were assigned jobs by the government. Coincidentally or not, it seems her fate was inexorably tied to the Dunhuang Academy.
“My father wrote a long letter which he wanted me to pass on to my teacher,” Fan recalls. “He was trying to persuade my teacher to assign me another job because he thought I was too fragile to bear that harsh environment.
“Well, I didn’t pass on the letter,” she says. “I had vowed to make contribution to our country and I could not refuse the assignment because I was needed there.”
Fan adds she did not expect it to become her life’s work.
Her research work led her to spend a near hermit-like existence in the grottoes, where she was tasked with documenting and categorizing the caverns, analyzing the artistic and historical value of the murals, and conserving and researching the origins of the fragile earthen relics she found there.
After she married her college classmate Peng Jinzhang in 1967, things got even tougher. Peng was assigned to work in Wuhan University in Hubei province and the couple had to live separately.
“Frankly speaking, I wanted to leave Dunhuang,” Fan recalls. However, when she finally got the chance to move to Wuhan, she hesitated. “When I began to understand the artistic importance of the masterpieces in Dunhuang, how could I leave without doing something?”
She finally decided to stay, and, after living separately for 19 years, Peng left the archaeology department he helped to set up at Wuhan University, and joined his wife at the Dunhuang Academy in 1986.
The couple’s reunion not only brought Fan huge emotional support, but also an outstanding colleague in her field. Peng’s archaeological research in the northern sector of the Mogao Caves filled many of the gaps in Dunhuang studies.
Accepting a new role
Speaking of that history, Wang Xudong, Fan’s successor as chief of the Dunhuang Academy — a position he held from 2014 to April this year, when he became director of the Palace Museum in Beijing — says: “Many of the older generation of scholars like Fan had to live separately from their spouses. That was heart-wrenching. They devoted their lifetimes just to become deeply rooted in the Mogao Caves, which must deserve people’s recognition today.”
Fortunately, new office buildings, research facilities and the road to the Dunhuang Academy were built in the 1980s.
Fan says the people in Dunhuang at the time were encouraged to build a global perspective of their studies, thanks to the country’s reform and opening-up.
“At that time, I felt I was a nerd,” Fan says. “When the country opened its gates to the outside, I took every opportunity to meet with scholars from around the world.”
In 1986, she accepted the challenge of drafting the proposal document for Mogao Caves to be
World Heritage Site is not just a title for the Mogao Caves. My dream is to make it a cultural treasure with a spirit that is commonly shared by all mankind.” Fan Jinshi, former director of the Dunhuang Academy
recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At that time, China had no inscription on that list.
“To usher in the conservation of cultural heritage into a more modern context … I had to learn international law and theory,” she says. “I had to expand the scope of my research work.”
In 1987, Mogao Caves was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the six earliest entries to the list from China.
Fan also amassed a huge pile of handwritten notes during her preparations.
“At the time, I just wanted to leave some documents as a reference for the academy before I retired,” she says.
However, she did not know how many more challenges awaited her. In 1998, when Fan thought she was approaching her retirement, she was offered the position as the director of the Dunhuang Academy, and stayed there for another 16 years.
“As a manager, I had to confront problems rather than escape from them,” she says. “In Dunhuang, success is the only option. If you fail, it brings shame not only to your ancestors but also to your country.”
The murals were eroded by time. Fan played an active role in setting up China’s first laboratory that focused on the conservation of earthen murals by analyzing the impact brought about by sand, seeping water, cracks and other “diseases”. Her work now helps with the conservation of many similar relics at other sites in the west of China.
Due to a lack of younger expertise, the academy sponsored its staff to further their studies in renowned institutions around the world.
“During Fan’s tenure, interdisciplinary studies mixing natural science and the humanities became common at the Dunhuang Academy,” Wang says. “Unlike Fan, who had already gained an abundance of knowledge about murals by the time she first visited Dunhuang, I knew almost nothing about cultural heritage when I first arrived there.” Wang majored in geology at college. “However, I soon felt that what I had learned could also contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage there, thanks to her inclusiveness,” Wang recalls.
“It felt like standing on a giant’s shoulders when I became Fan’s successor — but I knew I would set off on the right path if I followed her example and kept an open mind and a global outlook.”
Protection and tourism
A boom in tourism arrived during the 1990s, bringing with it risks, as well as economic benefits.
Shortly after Fan stepped into the director’s office, there was a proposal to include the Mogao Caves as part of a tourism conglomerate, which the developers planned to list on the stock market. Fan strongly opposed this level of commercial development.
Echoing her sentiments, a protection rule on the Mogao Caves was promulgated by the Gansu government in 2002 to make the conservation of the caves a priority and forbid the construction of new permanent buildings within the protected zone.
Following her guidance, only up to 6,000 visitors are allowed to enter Mogao Caves every day to protect the site. Humidity and temperature sensors were also installed in the caves. If the microclimate is disturbed by an overwhelming number of visitors, the caves will be closed.
However, tourists are now also offered a better visiting experience. Since the caves are usually too small (only 18 of the Mogao Caves are larger than 100 square meters) to receive large number of visitors, a tourist center is set up outside the core zone, where visitors can enjoy videos of the murals shot in high-definition before they visit the actual site. This helps to shorten the amount of time visitors spend in the caves.
This ongoing digitization project to collect images of the caves also facilitates academic research. Ultrahigh definition images of some of the caves have also been posted online through its public website, e-dunhuang.com. Digitized images of the Mogao Caves have been exhibited nationwide.
“I once met a very small child, who told me he knew about Dunhuang. When I asked him how he knew about it, he replied, ‘I saw it on a mobile phone’,” Fan recalls proudly.
Embracing the future
In August, when President Xi visited the Mogao Caves, he pointed out that Dunhuang culture is a result of lasting communication and exchanges between different civilizations. He emphasized the importance of understanding the philosophy, humanity, values and morals of these civilizations to enhance people’s cultural confidence. Fan was the president’s guide then. “The new era has placed greater demands on us stewards of cultural heritage,” Fan says.
“We have to keep overcoming new challenges and embrace the future … World Heritage Site is not just a title for the Mogao Caves. My dream is to make it a cultural treasure with a spirit that is commonly shared by all mankind.”
Liu Yuzhu, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, says: “Today’s great achievements at Dunhuang can be attributed to the generations of ‘Mogao people’, who have continuously endeavored to overcome difficulties and keep going. Fan Jinshi is the outstanding representative of them.
“Fan’s strong faith in her country and her career, her unstoppable creativity in her work, and her unwavering pursuit of the truth by taking a practical approach needs to be learned by every cultural heritage conservationist,” Liu says.