Work got underway on the Heritage Park in 2009 with extensive support from the Anhui Huajiao Group under the province's cultural and tourist development plan. Investment came from a number of sources, including Anhui Huajiao Group itself and the World Eminence Chinese Business Association. To date, funding has totaled a hefty RMB 2 billion, and the site's buildings alone occupy an area of 50,000 square meters.

Visitors are flocking to the park, located an hour's drive from Hefei. Since October last year, 350,00 tourists from all over China and abroad have passed through its gates, with 90,000 in this year's weeklong spring festival holiday alone.

Many of these Spring Festival visitors came to witness the park's International Lantern Festival of Culture, which opened on December 18, 2011 and ran till May 18 of this year. The festival was the biggest lantern display in the country, and presented 108 large-scale exhibition scenes depicting varying cultural motifs, which were lit by a staggering 60 million individual lights. Buddhism was a notable theme in many scenes – indeed, 108 is itself a sacred number in the religion. One particular standout exhibit was the 1.5-kilometer Qingming Festival at the Riverside depicting a microcosm of life in the Northern Song Dynasty (960 – 1127). As night falls and the lights are switched on, the statues of businessmen, street hawkers and playing children that line the street come alive in spectral splendor. It's a breathtaking sight.

Preserving Traditions

True to the park's name, China's "intangible cultural heritages" are heavily represented within its gates. To date, 518 intangible cultural heritages have been officially recognized in China, and a full 200 of these are represented at the park. Masters of many traditional skills and trades, known locally as "Inheritors of Intangible Cultural Heritage," now call the area home. These include craftsmen of various materials as well as practitioners of local Anhui opera, wood carving, puppetry and lion dancing.

"Of course, we value the presenting of these traditional skills and culture performances to captivated audiences as an end in itself, but we have a number of other motives as well," says Wang Ruisong. "Firstly, we want to attach an economic value to these skills. Many practitioners come to the park hoping to make a living from their skills, which are sometimes undervalued in their hometowns and cities. To that end, we encourage them to create craft items for sale when possible, or CDs or videos of performances to sell to park visitors." That the park has attracted so many inheritors of intangible culture suggests its economic model is working.

"Secondly," says Wang, "Passing on skills and trades is an inalienable part of cultural heritage. We actively encourage crowds to participate in cultural demonstrations and performances. When it comes to traditional Anhui wood carving, for example, we give master classes that have been very successful in attracting children to the craft. Children are the future, and if we can get them interested in traditional crafts, their vitality is guaranteed."

The architectural setting to these traditional arts and crafts in the China (Hefei) Intangible Cultural Heritage Park is stunning. Buildings representing a broad swath of China's rich history have been brought or reconstructed here to ensure their adequate preservation and protection. Visitors can browse classical Tai Fu Mansions – traditional dwellings of the scholar-gentry class in ancient China, Ming Dynasty hexagonal and octagonal pavilions, traditionally reconstructed trader courtyard homes, and a fully-fledged Chinese hippodrome. Traditional operatic stages jostle for space among Buddhist temples. With this much on display, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Park affords one a truly tangible grasp of the vicissitudes of Chinese history.

One of the truly standout exhibits in the park is a brick carving measuring three meters high and 400 meters long that recounts scenes from Journey to the West, one of the great classics of Chinese literature. The piece, which has been described as "A true treasure of the people" by renowned master craftsman and designer of the mascots for the Beijing Olympic Games, Han Meilin, depicts 1,800 characters from the story as well as 3,600 ghosts and demons from Chinese folklore. According to Guinness World Records, it is currently the largest brick carving in the world.

Besides the fantastic Journey to the West, three additional brick carvings are currently in the works at the park. These will also present classic works of Chinese literature, namely Dreams of a Red Chamber, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh. The works are currently being created by Anhui local and master craftsman, Zhang Cunshi, and promise to be spectacular. Zhang, whose family has been working in brick carving for six generations, has been internationally recognized for his work – UNESCO has awarded him the title of "World Folk Arts and Crafts Master."

A day spent absorbing cultural and architectural gems at the park is extremely satisfying, albeit perhaps exhausting. The park thus provides a number of venues where patrons can relax, the most enticing of which is a grand circus tent in the center of the park. At 33 meters high, the tent is huge, and during the busiest holidays up to 3,000 people cram in to see spectacular performances such as gravity-defying trapeze acrobatics, tightrope walking and lion tamers strutting their stuff. The famous "Ball of Death" act is also on offer, in which one, two, three and even four motorcyclists fly around in a giant metal sphere. The circus has toured internationally but now calls the Culture Park home, and performances are on throughout the day.

The park also boasts China's most technologically advanced and breathtaking water fountain opera display. Set in time to Chinese classic songs, hundreds of fountains set in the park's central lake shoot jets of water up to 100 meters high. Even the crashes of water falling back down on the lake's surface seem timed to the music. The event is a hit, and the stalls along the lake's banks are packed to the rafters.

Culture is proving a crowd pleaser at the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Park. Thanks to the concerted efforts of local government and the staunch backing of the park's financiers, local, national and international tourists alike are flocking to experience first-hand the cultural and historical richness of China's 5,000-year-old civilization. Disneyland, eat your heart out.