Malt Sugar Making

Item name and level

Malt Sugar Making appears in Appendix 2, the district-level ICH list, of the third batch of district-level ICH material; the appendix states that the list contains 22 items in total.

Two documents give different figures for the third batch. Appendix 2, published on the district government website, states that the list contains 22 items in total, while the body of the third-batch notice issued by the General Office of the Lishui District People's Government states that malt sugar making, bamboo weaving, the New Village Shrimp Lantern Dance and others, six items in all, were assessed as representative district-level ICH items. The two figures rest on different documents; this entry reproduces them side by side without merging them into one count and without drawing any conclusion as to which is the total number of items in the batch.

Two documents that both call themselves the third batch

The two documents cited by this entry both describe themselves as the third batch, yet the lists they attach differ, so they have to be read apart:

• Li Zheng Fa [2017] No. 197 (district government, dated the twenty-second day of the eleventh month of 2017), Appendix 2, the district-level ICH list, states that the list contains 22 items in total and includes Malt Sugar Making among them. That appendix gives project names only, with no guardian units.
• Li Zheng Ban Fa [2021] No. 3 (General Office of the district government, dated 11 January 2021), Appendix 1, the list of representative protected items of the third batch of district-level ICH, states that it contains 6 items in total; Malt Sugar Making is item 4, and its guardian unit is given as Jingqiao Town Culture and Sports Centre.

The guardian field of this entry follows the wording of the 2021 appendix. The two documents differ in issuing body, reference number and year; this entry does not merge them into one matter and does not decide which of them prevails.

Guardian unit

According to Appendix 1 of Li Zheng Ban Fa [2021] No. 3, the guardian unit of this project is the Culture and Sports Centre of Jingqiao Town, and its category is that of a traditional craft.

The wording of the institution deserves note. In the same Appendix 1, the guardian unit of Shibaiguan Horse Lantern, Dacun Horse Lantern and Bamboo Weaving, all belonging to Jingqiao Town, is likewise given as Jingqiao Town Culture and Sports Centre, whereas the public notice of the fourth batch of 2024 gives the recommended guardian unit of Lishui Rice Cake Making, reported by Jingqiao Town, as Jingqiao Town Culture and Physical Education Station. The two names differ; this library reproduces each in its own original wording and does not treat them as equivalent.

Bearer

According to the public notice of the fourth batch of district-level ICH items and bearers, posted on 23 January 2024 with a comment period from 24 January to 6 February 2024, Liu Ming is named as a bearer of Malt Sugar Making. That document is a public notice; the formal list was not located for this entry.

The public notice of the fourth batch records no guardian unit for this project, so the guardian field of this entry is not altered on its authority.

To be added

The preparation of the malt and the sugar-boiling process, the form of the finished product and how it is eaten, the area and the number of generations through which the craft has passed, the project number in the third-batch district list, and the line of transmission are all absent from the cited sources.

Not to be filled in from general confectionery knowledge. Malt sugar has a number of standard processes in sugar making as a trade, but this library holds no source describing the craft as practised in Lishui itself; these points are therefore left blank rather than filled with the general practice.