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With a population of 320,000, the Qiang today is only one branch of the ancient Qiang nationality. They live mainly in the eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Villages of the Qiang people are normally built on the slope of the steep mountains, for which the Qiang ethnic group was given the name "the people in clouds."
Because of the long history and reclusive living environment, many ancient traditions and customs of the nationality have remained, such as the myths about the origin of the nationality, folk songs and dances and traditional architecture.
However, the above-mentioned four counties (Beichuan, Maoxian, Lixian and Wenchuan,) in Sichuan Province were severely damaged by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12, 2008. The Qiang culture was badly affected as a result. In Beichuan County, the only Qiang Autonomous County of China, most original buildings collapsed and quite a number of elder Qiang people, who were major successors of many intangible cultural heritages of the group, died in the earthquake. It brought the culture of the nationality to the verge of extinction.
Because the Qiang nationality does not have its own characters, the language and culture have been passed down orally. It was revealed that one of only a handful of Qiang people who can play the Qiang flute died in the earthquake. Luo Shengli, Deputy Director of the Beichuan Bureau of Culture and Tourism, told Xinhua that before the earthquake, the Museum of Qiang Ethnic Group Folk Customs in the county had collected around 800 pieces of cultural relics and modern items of the Qiang culture, but apart from 120 pieces that were saved, the rest were all buried in the ruins.
Rescue efforts
To rescue and protect the Qiang culture, the Qiang Nian Festival was listed as one of the state-level intangible cultural heritages soon after the earthquake. Some Qiang people were named as the successors of the festival by the government. Along with the Qiang Nian Festival, other art forms such as folk songs, dance, embroidery skills, and customs of the nationality were included on the list.
According to a report in the Sichuan Economic Dailyon April 17, the Qiang NianFestival has been included on UNESCO's primary list of the intangible cultural heritages that are in dire need of rescue. At the same time, the Chinese Ministry of Culture has decided to set up a biological protection zone of the Qiang culture in Sichuan to protect the remnants of the ancient culture.
Chen Hongli, Curator of the Wenchuan Library, the only library on the Qiang culture in China, said in the same article that experts are trying their best to seek various documents and books about the Qiang culture, which has been one of the major tasks of the staff of the library after the earthquake.
"If the Qiang Nian Festival is recognized by the UNESCO as one of the world intangible cultural heritages, it will surely provide an unprecedentedly good environment for the protection and passing down of the ancient culture," Chen said. | 
