There are many intangible heritages in China, two of the representative works are Yueju Opera and grand song of the Dong ethnic group, which will be introduced in the following parts. Applied and declared by the Cultural Department of Guangdong Province, Yueju Opera was approved and listed into the human intangible cultural heritage list of masterpiece in the fourth conference of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage held in September of 2009.
About the Yueju Opera, one thing the foreign students who learn Chinese online free need to know first is that it is the traditional local opera with distinctive features of the area in the south of the Five Ridges. It is sang in the performance with Cantonese and many other performing arts area combined together such as singing, acting, recitation and acrobatics, background music dubbed by musicians, the dress and costume on stage as well as the abstract performance. It is very popular in the areas that the Cantonese is spoken such as the whole Guangdong province, the south of Guangxi Province, Hong Kong and Macao.
Yueju Opera has nearly a history of 500 years and the peak time was in the 20s or 30s of the twentieth century, during which the plays or operas programs were greatly increased and the melodies and tunes were diverse. In this way, a large group of famous persons and schools of dramas were cultivated, making the performance of Yueju Opera more colorful.
Another representative of intangible heritage that the overseas students who study as volunteer in China should know about is the grand song of the Dong people which was applied by the cultural department of Guizhou province. Just the same as Yueju Opera mentioned above, it was also put into human intangible cultural heritage list of masterpiece in the fourth conference in 2009. It is a kind of folk chorus form with various voices, without commander and background music, which is rarely seen in the folk music at home and abroad.
When singing the grand song, Dong people imitate the voices of animals and the sounds of water in the mountain. The main contents of the songs are to praise the nature, work, love and friendship, indicating the harmonious relationships between human and nature as well as between human and human. Therefore, it is not only a music art form, but has great importance to inherit Dong culture.