Alan Macfarlane

Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy

A culture is living people and so the objects are just one thing that has survived from living people. But what is important to save is also their whole life, as much as you can. So their songs, their music, their agricultural systems, their dances, their family life, all that, if possible, should be recorded.

China has preserved better than almost anywhere else in the world the cultural heritage of minority ethnic groups. Wonderful costumes, wonderful folk art, and this is what I think really needs to be preserved in China.

One of the very interesting things we could do is to devote some of that time and imagination and energy to the conservation and dissemination and understanding of our mutual cultures.

Once you make that effort, it encourages mutual understanding and respect for other cultures at a deep level, and hopefully will lead to a world where we will have peace, harmony and order, not endless bullying, misunderstanding, confrontation and competition. So, world culture can unite us all.