美国学者鲁道夫·P·霍梅尔(Rudolf P. Hommel)的大作《手艺中国:中国手工业调查图录》的研究对象正是我们现今骤然兴起的“非物质文化遗产”。“手工艺术”在历史的分化和演化中会集结为特定的“行业”,这在全世界都是一个通则。中国文明体有自己的概念、分类和命名,形成了独特的表述体系。“分类概念”具有引导思维的特性,它不仅属于言语表述,更是一种话语权力,我们完全丢弃中国传统体系中的概念、分类系统尤其需要警示。如果我们把中国传统的“手工技艺”视为一笔丰厚的非物质文化遗产的话,眼下要做的工作就是还原传统概念体系,即从“名”到“实”的整体回归。
In his masterwork China at work, the American scholar Rudolf P. Hommel studied China' s handcrafting, which is what we call today an "intangible heritage", a rising topic of interest. Handcrafting often yields to a certain industry along with the development of the society, which is a universal rule. Chinese civilization has formed its own schemes of conceptualization, taxonomies and terminologies. Taxonomy represents not only a scheme of description but also an authority of knowledge. It is dangerous to discard the traditional schemes of concepts and taxonomies. To protect Chinese handcrafting as a precious intangible heritage, it is essential to restore the traditional schemes of conceptualization.