From Intangible Cultural Heritage to Cultural Industry: Tibetan Woodblock Printing Leads to Rural Revitalization

Waichong Village is located on the banks of the Jinsha River in eastern Xizang with an average altitude of 3,900 meters. The villagers once survived on herding livestock and digging for caterpillar fungus, earning only 3,600 yuan per capita annually. Few people knew that this remote village guarded a national-level intangible cultural heritage—Boroguze woodblock printing, a craft with over 300 years of history. In 2018, the targeted assistance from the China Huadian Corporation’s Xizang Branch breathed new life into this ancient craft, which became a golden key for villagers to move from poverty to prosperity.

Confronted with a scattered artisans community and limited sales channels, the Huadian team adopted measures suited to local conditions, exploring a sustainable path for developing the intangible cultural heritage industry.

With government funding, the work team mobilized villagers to set up the Musong Ethnic Handicraft Company, which transformed the woodblock industry from scattered individual orders to a centralized and well-organized system. This significantly boosted efficiency and accelerated the path toward large-scale production.

The team tapped into various resources to connect with markets. In 2019, Waichong’s woodblock company signed 10-year supply contracts worth about 40 million yuan with multiple business partners, strengthening villagers’ confidence in the craft’s potential as a pathway to prosperity. In the meantime, the team and the village committees launched a Tibetan woodblock heritage preservation program, offering “work-for-training” classes taught by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor Zepei. The program provided more villagers with a platform to learn and refine their craft, nurtured a new generation of artisans, and ensured the craft’s continuity.

Leveraging Waichong’s reputation as the “Hometown of Tibetan Woodblock Printing,” the team further developed cultural tourism projects with Boroguze woodblock printing as the core brand, supported by tours showcasing Xizang’s plateau and canyon landscapes and the art of Boroguze calligraphy. The team also organized villagers to produce Tibetan incense, handmade paper, and other specialty products, diversifying their income sources.

In 2019 alone, the woodblock industry increased villagers’ incomes by 2.2 million yuan, with artisans’ average monthly earnings rising from 1,000 yuan to nearly 6,000 yuan—lifting Waichong out of poverty. Thanks to cultural tourism, the whole village could now find work right on their doorstep, and annual per capita income rose from 3,600 yuan in 2017 to over 14,000 yuan by 2025.

Through a joint effort of enterprise leadership, government guidance, and community participation, Waichong has transformed intangible heritage into sustainable productivity, forging an integrated “heritage industry + cultural tourism” model. This has not only lifted the entire village out of poverty, but also advanced both cultural transmission and rural revitalization.