The 11th Global Mazu Culture Forum opened on Meizhou Island in Putian, in China’s south-eastern Fujian province, on November 1, with organisers using the event to promote cultural tourism linked to the sea goddess Mazu, Xinhua Silk Road, a service of state news agency Xinhua, said on November 4.
Meizhou Island is regarded as Mazu’s birthplace. The forum, held every year since 2016, is billed as a platform for deepening the integration of culture and tourism. This year’s programme ran 10 sub-forums on topics including cultural and tourism cooperation, youth exchanges, the marine economy, green electricity for islands, mangrove ecology, rural revitalisation and China-Brazil cultural exchanges, with 13 satellite venues on several continents joining by video.
The opening ceremony featured a compilation of China’s first national cases of marine risk mitigation, version 2.0 of an ocean model known as MaCOM for disaster prevention, and the handover to Sri Lanka of an integrated smart unit from MAZU, China’s intelligent meteorological early-warning system. The forum also issued a Meizhou Declaration on what it called the core values of Mazu culture.
Mazu belief has spread to 52 countries and regions and has more than 300 million followers, according to the release. Putian has been working to draw younger visitors to the island, where Mazu-themed blind boxes have topped CNY100mn in sales.
Mazu is a sea goddess venerated by fishing and seafaring communities along China’s coast, in Taiwan and across the Chinese diaspora in South-East Asia. Mazu belief and customs were added to UNESCO’s list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
