Chinese branded culture: Lessons for Zim

CHINESE people are masters when it comes to preserving their culture. In my tenmonth stay in China where I travelled to at least ten provinces, I noted with admiration how the senior citizens of the Asian giant continue to contribute to economic development as custodians of culture.

Their active involvement mainly in the tourism sector among other facets of the economy run counter to the norm that senior citizens are relegated to the peripheral rural areas where they live the rest of their lives awaiting death.

Much of China’s rural areas have become tourism hotspots where you find centres of cultural artefacts, handiwork and traditional performances.

Their rural areas have been branded with monetised ventures where beyond formal employment, senior citizens continue to earn income through cultural activities.

Many people upon reaching retirement age in Africa find themselves retracing their steps to rural areas with no deliberate systems supported by Governments through which they can continue to feed into national development.

There is nothing happening besides patches of subsistence farming here and there in the rural areas as they wait for their inevitable demise on earth.

There are no plans laid out to preserve their cultural and historical experiences in a way that benefits them financially as well as their economies.

Yet in China the elderly are custodians and the repository of rich cultures which if not preserved can go extinct with the passage of time.

In rural areas you find experts in story-telling or your typical “griots” where students at any level can learn about their nation.

China’s rural areas are enriched with tourism structures which house senior citizens involved in arts and crafts. ◆ Read full article on

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