On March 29–30, scholars convened in Jinan, north China’s Shandong Province, for a forum on folkloristics and folk literature to explore how researchers of these two disciplines can further develop fine traditional Chinese culture in the modern context.

As urbanization accelerates and new technologies rapidly evolve, people’s lifestyles are changing dramatically. In response, contemporary folkloristics has shifted its focus from isolated customs and phenomena to the broader patterns of everyday life. Liu Tieliang, a professor at Shandong University (SDU), called for the conscious preservation of folklore from daily life in this field. He argues that understanding culture or civilization through the lens of everyday experiences is a core mission of folkloristics—helping scholars interpret changing survival models and trace the evolution of cultural inheritance through vivid accounts of ordinary people’s lives. To this end, Liu urged researchers to move beyond simply recording static “lore” and instead study how “folk” actively reinterpret and recreate cultural meaning in lived, dynamic contexts.

Using mythology as an example, Yang Lihui, a professor at Beijing Normal University, emphasized the dynamic nature of folk literature. Myths, she contends, are by no means static texts, but are continually reconstructed through modern media like film, television, and games. Once used to explain the origins of the cosmos, myths today address contemporary spiritual and emotional needs. This shift gives rise to methodological implications for research on legends and ballads: a transition from textual analysis to process studies, and from mono-disciplinary investigation to cross-media and cross-cultural comparisons. Oral traditions constitute the core of Chinese ethnic literature, and rich oral heritage offers a plethora of vivid cases for studying the internal and external laws of literature, said Chao Gejin, a Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In the digital age, oral literature traditions are acquiring new characteristics. While media technologies allow folk literature to transcend spatial and temporal constraints, audio, video, and text formats constitute a new communication ecosystem.

The tension between tradition and modernity in folklore provides a valuable entry point for exploring cultural creativity and fluidity. Zhao Xudong, director of the Institute of Anthropology at Renmin University of China, examined cultural transformation through the lens of “non-traditional culture.” He explained that modernity has contributed to a non-traditional orientation of culture, manifested in the creative transformation of traditional forms into non-traditional ones. Non-traditional culture is dynamic, fragmented, and fluid, in stark contrast to the fixed and static nature of traditional culture.

Zhao highlighted that folk culture has demonstrated remarkable vitality and diversity amid cultural transformation. Its development is not linear, but responsive—continually adapting to evolving social needs. Understanding the fluidity of culture, he noted, holds the key to understanding cultural transformation.

Song Junhua, a professor from the Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Center at Sun Yat-sen University, observed from folk operas the tension between the heritage orientation and modernization of traditional culture. In communities or contexts where tradition and modernity are mutually embedded, folk operas fall between the two, exhibiting hybrid characteristics.

Drawing on examples such as the Qinqiang Opera troupe in Huining, Gansu Province, and the Yingge Dance in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong, Song analyzed the coexistence of heritage orientation and contemporary adaptation. Rather than being in opposition, he stressed, these forces complement each other—jointly advancing the development of the field.

The forum was hosted by the Advanced Institute for Confucian Studies at SDU.