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Yongding County in southeast China is famous for its large, multistory communal vernacular buildings known as tulou, translated'rammed earth building.'These structures were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008. Living in Heritage introduces readers outside of China to this classic example of local Chinese architecture in the context of contemporary heritage preservation and tourism.Focusing on the Yongding Hakka Tulou Folk Culture Village, which is part of Hongkeng Village, author Lijun Zhang examines the on-the-ground processes and effects of heritage-making, UNESCO-inspired tourism, and how locals negotiate the dramatic transformation of their daily, social, and economic lives. Within an age of cultural change beginning at the start of the 21st century, Living in Heritage explores how the tulou phenomenon as heritage has and continues to be transformed into cultural, economic, or political capital. Through her careful study, Zhang reveals how the blurring of formerly distinct domains—private and public, local and global—gives rise to a living museum that now relies on insiders and outsiders to preserve their way of life.Living in Heritage offers an in-depth ethnographic account of the people dwelling and working within traditional tulou architecture in the 21st century.

Chinese folklorists are well acquainted with the work of their English-language colleagues, but until recently the same could not be said about American scholars'knowledge of Chinese folkloristics. Chinese Folklore Studies Today aims to address this knowledge gap by illustrating the dynamics of contemporary folklore studies in China as seen through the eyes of the up-and-coming generation of scholars. Contributors to this volume focuses on topics that have long been the dominant areas of folklore studies in China, including myth, folk song, and cultural heritage, as well as topics that are new to the field, such as urban folklore and women's folklore. The ethnographic case studies presented here represent a broad range of geographic areas within mainland China and also introduce English-language readers to relevant Chinese literature on each topic, creating the foundation for further cross-cultural collaborations between English-language and Chinese folkloristics.