The Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently released a new group of 325 national intangible cultural heritage items in Beijing, increasing the total of ICH items to 1,557 on the national list, which was established in 2006.

East China's Zhejiang province accounted for 24 ICH items in the new group, bringing the province's total number of national-level ICH items to 241.

It was the fifth expansion of the list of national ICH items. Zhejiang had contributed more items than any other provincial-level regions for each of the five expansions.

The 24 ICH items native to Zhejiang consist of one traditional music item, one folk art form item, two traditional sports and acrobatics items, two traditional fine arts items, nine traditional craftsmanship items, three traditional Chinese medicine items, as well as six folk custom items.

Zhejiang is also home to seven items on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity and two items on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritages in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

The seven items on the former list are inscribed by the UNESCO as "Kun Qu opera", "Guqin and its music", "traditional firing technology of Longquan celadon", "sericulture and silk craftsmanship of China", "Chinese paper-cut", "art of Chinese seal engraving", and "Chinese shadow puppetry".

The two items on the latter list are inscribed by the UNESCO as "traditional design and practices for building Chinese wooden arch bridges" and "wooden movable-type printing of China".

The artwork of Wenzhou Hair Embroidery depicts the scenery near an arcade bridge. Wenzhou Hair Embroidery, which is native to Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, uses hair as raw materials and is an art that combines painting and embroidery. It was recently included on the national ICH items list. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]