China News Service, Beijing, September 28. As a royal hunting ground for five dynasties and a royal garden for three generations, Beijing’s Daxing Nanhaizi is engraved with the imprint of thousands of years of civilization and the historical memory of the blending and symbiosis of multiple ethnic groups. It is a bright treasure on the Yongding River Cultural Belt in Xishan, and an iconic cultural landmark that complements the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens" in the capital's royal cultural system. The 9th Beijing Nanhaizi Cultural Forum was held on the 27th at the Tuanhe Imperial Palace Heritage Park. It comprehensively decoded the profound heritage of the thousand-year imperial garden, presented rich practices in the activation and utilization of cultural heritage, and made historical resources feel, appreciate, pass on, and revitalize.
Nanhaizi Park is full of scenery at every step. The picture shows an elk in the park. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Daxing District Committee of Beijing
This forum, with the theme of "Imperial Garden inherits the cultural context and opens a new chapter in Jingnan", is jointly sponsored by the Beijing Daxing District Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Beijing Daxing District People's Government, and the First Historical Archives of China.
Chu Junwei, Secretary of the Daxing District Party Committee of Beijing, said in his speech at the forum that Nanhaizi is a rich historical book engraved on the land south of Beijing, carrying the wisdom of capital construction, the cultural context of the royal gardens and the precious memories of the interaction and blending of various ethnic groups. Daxing District closely follows the overall layout of the construction of the national cultural center in the capital, insists on putting protection first and revitalizing utilization, and promotes the protection and inheritance of Nanhaizi cultural heritage to be deeper and more solid. The revitalization of Nanhaizi culture is inseparable from the continuous hard work of generations of cultural workers and cultural and historical researchers. From historical data research, site exploration to cultural relic restoration and academic in-depth cultivation, the fire has been passed down for decades, allowing the hidden cultural context of thousands of years to return to the public eye.
In recent years, Beijing's Daxing District has always adhered to the priority of protection and activation and empowerment, and has systematically promoted the protection and restoration, ecological restoration and value renewal of the Nanhaizi cultural heritage. Three major landmark achievements have been implemented one after another, transforming the cultural context of the Millennium Imperial Garden from a historical relic into a vivid and tangible urban cultural scene. The region focused on promoting the ecological revitalization project of the Tuanhe Palace, which diverted water to the East and West Lakes that had dried up for a long time. The 45,000-square-meter lake surface was restored with blue ripples, and the thousand-year-old historical style of the source of the Fenghe River, where the water gardens were interdependent and the lake scenery reflected the ancient buildings, was successfully restored. At the same time, focusing on the protection of cultural landmarks of ethnic integration, the overall renovation of Deokshou Temple was completed and opened to the public, the original layout of the ancient building was completely restored, and the precious imperial stele remains were properly preserved and protected, making it an important physical carrier to witness the border governance of the Qing Dynasty and the exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups. It echoed and complemented the Tuanhe Palace and built a matrix of core cultural landmarks in southern Beijing.
Royal Stele Pavilion in Tuanhe Palace Ruins Park. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Daxing District Committee of Beijing
Relying on the professional resources and historical materials support of China's First Historical Archives, a new theme exhibition of Tuanhe Palace and Deokshou Temple is fully unveiled. It brings together hundreds of rare cultural relics and exclusive archives and historical materials, and innovatively uses digital exhibition methods to achieve deep integration and two-way empowerment of ancient architectural site space and historical and cultural content. It completely breaks the limitations of "static display" of cultural relic sites and makes the rich Nanhaizi culture truly visible, perceptible, experienceable, and inheritable.
At the forum, many authoritative experts interpreted the contemporary value of Nanhaizi culture from multiple dimensions and highly recognized its irreplaceable core position in the cultural pattern of the ancient capital. Shan Jixiang, the sixth director of the Palace Museum, shared the theme of "Making cultural heritage resources alive", accurately defined Nanhaizi's unique positioning as an ecological and cultural landmark in the southern extension of the central axis, and pointed out the practical direction for the activation of cultural relics and the inheritance of cultural heritage. Shu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Culture, Tourism, Health, Sports and Culture and History Committee of the Beijing CPPCC, combined with the renovation practice of Tuanhe Palace and Deshou Temple, deeply explained the diverse value of revitalizing ancient buildings to nourish urban temperament and empower public cultural services. Wang Jinlong, deputy director of the First Historical Archives of China, relied on first-hand historical materials from the Qing palace maps in the collection to systematically restore the evolution of the spatial pattern of the Nanhai Sub-Thousand Years, and demonstrate its compound historical functions of royal hunting, administrative recreation, and ecological conservation.
During the roundtable dialogue, Professor Zhang Long of Tianjin University, Professor Xiang Yong of Peking University, and Professor Wei Pengju of Central University of Finance and Economics focused on core issues such as the wisdom of royal garden construction, the artistic transformation of cultural IP, and the integrated development of the cultural, commercial, and tourism industries, and deeply explored the implementation path for Nanhaizi to transform from historical relics and cultural symbols to urban development momentum. The expert team believes that Nanhaizi is a cultural treasure house that carries the historical memory of the diverse unity of the Chinese nation, greatly enriches the royal cultural genealogy of the capital, and is the core carrier for inheriting China's excellent traditional culture and highlighting the charm of Beijing's ancient capital.
Deokshou Temple. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Daxing District Committee of Beijing
The "Nanhaizi Cultural Construction Achievements Report" was released on site at the forum. The report was jointly compiled by Daxing District of Beijing and the School of Chinese Studies at Renmin University of China. It systematically reviews the phased results of Nanhaizi in cultural relics restoration and protection, wetland ecological restoration, cultural context excavation and interpretation, cultural brand building, and academic research accumulation since the forum was founded in 2018. It completely presents the entire chain development system from heritage protection and academic in-depth cultivation to public cultural supply and urban empowerment. It further consolidates the academic depth and practical value of Nanhaizi culture and lays a solid theoretical foundation for subsequent revitalization and utilization of heritage.
Based on the new trend of cultural communication in the new era, Beijing’s Daxing District is actively exploring a new track for the integration of ‘culture + technology’, and the forum simultaneously launched the ‘Xingguang’ AIGC short video competition. The competition takes the cultural context of the Millennium Imperial Garden as the core content, relies on AI digital technology to empower cultural creation, and builds a cultural communication platform for universal participation and global dissemination. It uses youthful, digital, and popular innovative expressions to break the barriers to traditional cultural communication, cultivate new business formats integrating culture and tourism, and continue to activate the youthful vitality of the Millennium Ancient Garden.
Nine years of hard work has paid off over time. Today's Nanhaizi has transformed from a traditional royal garden into an ecological conservation place where man and nature coexist harmoniously, a fertile cultural soil carrying thousands of years of memories, and a cultural highland that empowers high-quality regional development. The Nanhaizi Cultural Forum transcends the scope of a single academic conference and has become a core platform for gathering the wisdom of think tanks, displaying construction results, linking industrial resources, and polishing city brands.
Facing the future, Daxing District in Beijing will continue to adhere to its original cultural aspirations, dig deep into the historical and cultural core of Nanhaizi, promote the protection, research, activation and utilization of cultural heritage throughout the entire chain, layout key cultural and tourism projects with high standards, promote the in-depth integration of culture, ecology and industry, continue to strengthen and optimize the Nanhaizi cultural brand, polish the golden business card of the new national culture, and continue to promote the integrity and innovation of the millennium cultural heritage and the sustainability of the fire. (over)
