The Henan Folk Literature and Art Association was formerly the Henan Branch of the China Folk Literature and Art Research Association, which was established on May 6, 1980. There were 30 members at that time, with Du Xitang as chairman, Niu Yuncang, Zhao Qingbo and Zhao Jiangong as vice-chairmen, and Lin Ye as deputy secretary-general. In 1985, Zhu Kexian was appointed Secretary-General and Du Daoheng was appointed Deputy Secretary-General. In 1987, the association was renamed Henan Branch of the Chinese Folk Writers and Artists Association. The second member representative meeting was held on November 19, 1991. The honorary chairman was Zhang Zhenli, Wang Lingqun was the chairman, Ren Cheng, Zhu Kexian, Zhang Guiqin and Du Daoheng were the vice presidents, and Cheng Jianjun was the deputy secretary-general. In 1992, the association was renamed Henan Folk Writers and Artists Association. The third member congress was held on October 27, 1996. The honorary chairman was Zhang Zhenli, Wang Lingqun was the chairman, Wang Zhenchang, Ren Cheng, Qiao Taishan, Du Daoheng, Chen Jiangfeng and Yan Fuli were the vice presidents, and Cheng Jianjun was the deputy secretary-general. In July 1997, Xia Waqun was appointed as Secretary-General. On November 23, 2001, the association held its fourth member representative conference. Zhang Zhenli and Wang Lingqun were the honorary chairs, Yang Jie was the chairman, Chen Jiangfeng, Ren Cheng, Wang Zhenchang, Qiao Taishan, Yan Fuli and Xia Waqun were the vice presidents, and Xia Waqun was concurrently the secretary-general. In September 2003, Wang Fuxing and Zhong Haitao were added as vice-chairmen. The association currently has 1,200 members. All 18 cities in the province have established ADPLs, and some counties have also established ADPLs.
After the Henan Branch of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Research Association was established in 1980, its basic purpose was to collect, organize, research, and publish folk literature. After the second member representative conference in 1991, the work of the Henan Branch of the Chinese Folk Writers and Artists Association began to extend to the fields of new story creation and folk crafts. By the time of the Association's Third Member Congress in 1996, the business scope of the Henan Folk Literature and Artists Association had further expanded to the fields of folk culture and folk performing arts. Over the past 23 years, the Henan Provincial People's Political Consultative Conference has always taken the promotion of the nation's excellent traditional culture and the prosperity of folk literature and art as its mission. It has gone through a development path of gradually broadening its career fields, improving its organizational system, and deepening its work philosophy. It can be roughly divided into initial stage, three stages of development and revitalization.
From the establishment of the association in 1980 to 1985, it was the initial stage of the association. In 1981, the Henan Provincial Folk Literature Training Course was held to train a number of key folk literature teams across the province. The excavation, collection, and arrangement of folk literature began to be carried out throughout the province. In 1983, the "Province's First Storytelling" was held, further promoting the progress of folk literature work. At this stage, various localities (cities) and counties collected a large amount of folk literature materials, and the association compiled 9 collections of "Henan Province Folk Literature" on selected items. Some prefectures (cities) and counties have also compiled and printed nearly a hundred volumes of folk literature collections. Ten collections of stories including "Looking at the Flower House", "Sanmenxia Folk Stories" and "Shaolin Temple Folk Stories" have been published publicly. At the same time, a large number of traditional and new stories across the province have been published in national publications. In 1984, the province's first folk literature and art theory seminar was held. In 1985, the province's first folk literature awards were held to review the province's folk literature work at this stage. The achievements of this period laid a good foundation for the subsequent folk literature integration work.
From 1986 to 1996, as the development stage of the association, the focus of work during this period was the "three sets of integration" work of folk literature. Folk literature and art workers across the province worked together to overcome difficulties. After more than ten years of hard work, they have basically completed the census, collection, sorting and compilation of data volumes. More than 180 volumes of materials won the "Henan Province Folk Literature Integration Outstanding Achievements Award", 111 comrades were awarded the title of National Advanced Folk Literature Integration Workers, and the Provincial Folk Literature Integration Office was rated as a national advanced collective. In the entire folk literature integration work, the province has accumulated more than 100 million words of materials, and more than 300 volumes of about 60 million words have been compiled and printed. The rich information has laid a solid foundation for the province-wide compilation and publication of the "three sets of collections" of folk literature. Among them, "Collection of Henan Folk Stories" won the provincial government's "Henan Province's First Outstanding Achievements in Literature and Art Award". 53 works including "The Legend of Mao Zedong" won the first and second "Northern China Folk Literature Awards".
96 works including "The Story of Shaolin Temple" won the Outstanding Achievement Award in the province's second folk literature awards in 1995. "Henan Wenyuan Yinghua·Folk Stories Volume", edited by the Provincial People's Association for Democracy, has selected more than 200 award-winning works by more than 100 authors in our province since the new era.
With the development of folk literature integration work, theoretical research work has been promoted. In 1987, the "Second Henan Province Folk Literature Theoretical Seminar" was held with the theme of collecting and organizing folk literature and creating new stories, and established the "Theoretical Research Committee", which pushed the theoretical research work to a new level. Professor Zhang Zhenli's monograph "An Examination of the Evolution of Classical Mythology in the Central Plains" was evaluated by academic circles across the country as "a breakthrough attempt in the history of Chinese mythology." More than 100 papers by more than 60 authors across the province have been published in professional journals such as "Folk Literature Forum" and "Folklore Research", or included in publicly published anthologies. Nearly 30 theoretical works and papers, including "The God of Pangu" and "Myth and Folklore", have won various awards at the provincial level and above.
After the second member congress in 1991, the association officially included folk art into its work schedule. After understanding the existence of folk art in the province, it held a conference focusing on folk art in 1992. The theme of the "Third Provincial Folk Literature and Art Theory Seminar" was held, and the "Folk Art Working Committee" was established. In 1993, the "First Folk Craft Expo of Henan Province" was held at Daxiangguo Temple in Kaifeng, which developed a large number of members in the field of folk art and improved the social status of folk artists and the popularity of their artistic works. In 1995, the organization recommended a group of folk artists with certain attainments to participate in the "Chinese Folk Arts and Crafts Artists" selection event. More than 60 artists in the province have successively won the "Chinese Folk Arts and Crafts Artists" award jointly awarded by UNESCO and the China National People's Association. Artist" certificate of honor. In the spring of 1997, some folk arts and crafts artists were organized to go to Hong Kong, Thailand and other places for folk art exchanges. In July of the same year, the "Second Henan Province Folk Arts and Crafts Expo" was held in Pingdingshan City, and a group of "Henan Province Folk Arts and Crafts Artists and Masters" were named, which played a role in promoting the development of folk arts and crafts in the province.
On the basis of the above work, starting from 1997, facing new situations, new opportunities and new challenges under the new situation, the association has given full play to its broad work coverage, huge business potential and cultural connotation. With profound advantages, we have gradually established market awareness, resource awareness, and open-door association awareness, giving full play to the leadership role of the presidium, relying on the strong support of grassroots associations, making full use of social forces, pooling wisdom and wisdom, and carrying out work. In order to mobilize the enthusiasm of the majority of members and strengthen contact with members, the journal "Henan Folk Literary Artists" was founded, and the original members were re-registered to actively and steadily develop new members. In terms of book publishing, we organized and published 20 volumes of the "Story Basket Series", "Henan Arts and Crafts Illustrations", "Collection of Chinese Folk Stories·Henan Volume", "Collection of Chinese Ballads·Henan Volume", "Collection of Chinese Proverbs·Henan Volume" "wait. In terms of theoretical research, in June 1998, the "National Story Journal Symposium and New Story Theory Seminar" was jointly held in Xinyang with "Storytellers" magazine. In October 1999, the "China Five Mountains Culture Seminar Series·Songshan Culture Seminar" was held in Dengfeng City, and a collection of papers was published. During this period, the key social science funded project "The Dawn of Ancient Oriental Culture—Analysis of the Cultural Value of Central Plains Mythology" co-authored by Zhang Zhenli, Chen Jiangfeng, and Gao Youpeng was highly praised by the theoretical community. "Folk Taboo" by Ren Cheng, "Henan Folklore" edited by Liu Yongli, and "Henan Folklore Series" co-authored by Cheng Jianjun, Meng Xianming and others represent a new level of research on Henan folk culture. In terms of folk arts and crafts, in August 1998, arts and crafts artists were organized to participate in the "First China International Folk Art Expo". 20 manufacturers and 47 folk artists from the province participated in the exhibition and won 10 gold awards and 12 silver awards. The association won Outstanding Organizational Work Award. In September 1999, the "National Folk Arts and Crafts Calligraphy Exhibition" was held in Zhengzhou. In October, the "Exhibition of Award-winning Works of Henan Arts and Crafts to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China" was held.
At the same time, some folk arts and crafts artists were also organized to go to Germany to participate in the ’99 Berlin Asia-Pacific Culture Week, which enabled Henan’s folk arts and crafts to go abroad and be favored by international friends. In October 2002, the "International Academic Symposium on Chinese Woodblock New Year Paintings and the Joint Exhibition of Chinese Woodblock New Year Paintings" was held.
Folk performing arts, a weak link in the work of the ADPL, have also been developed. In August 1999, the "Chinese Dragon Dance Competition to Welcome the New Century·Henan Province Preliminary Competition" was successfully held, which caused a sensation in the province. In December of the same year, 8 dragon dance teams were organized to go to Beijing to participate in the "Chinese Dragon Dance Competition" and the "Welcoming the Return of Macao Gala" held in Tiananmen Square. In 2000, the large-scale "Henan Province's First Folk Art Festival" was successfully held. As the ADPL's business areas continued to expand, it took more than a year for the ADPL to organize and operate a large-scale TV series "Central Plains" that focused on reflecting the folk customs of the Central Plains and integrated folk culture, folk art, and historical sites. The filming and broadcasting project of "Love Story" has aroused great social repercussions. In 2003, the association successfully launched the folk cultural heritage rescue project in Henan Province, planning to use 10 years to carry out protective rescue of the disappearing folk culture.
The years have left clear growth rings on the tall tree of the Henan Provincial People's Association for Democracy, marking her maturity and confidence, and recording the hard work of all members in irrigation and farming for many years. Day and night for 23 years, for the sacred cause of Henan folk literature and art, how many people have been running around and shouting, and how many people have been working diligently and writing. Today, reform and opening up has brought a season full of vitality and infinite longing to our socialist literature and art career, and the Association is facing a stage full of creation and renewal. In the new century, work should have new exploration and progress, and organizations should have further improvement and development. We must continue to strengthen our sense of lofty mission and social responsibility to keep pace with the times and the destiny of national rejuvenation, and make new and greater contributions to the cause of folk literature and art.