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Hezhen Yimakan: The Epic That Left UNESCO’s Urgent List

Intangible Cultural Heritage
Oct 4, 2026
Hezhe fish-skin jacket of cream and grey fish-skin strips with knotted buttons and scroll appliques, laid flat on a grey background

Hezhen Yimakan storytelling is one of the rare heritage stories with a turnaround in it. In 2011, UNESCO put this sung-and-spoken epic of the Hezhen people on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding (UNESCO, 2011a). At the time, only five storytellers could still perform certain cantos. Then, in December 2025, the committee moved it off the urgent list and onto the Representative List. On the same day, it picked the rescue plan behind it as a model for other countries (UNESCO, 2025a). This guide explains what Yimakan is, how a near-silent tradition found new voices, and where a curious traveler can hear it today.

What Is Hezhen Yimakan Storytelling?

First, the people. The Hezhen (also written Hezhe) are one of China’s smallest ethnic groups, at just over 5,000 people (Yang, 2025). They live along the Heilongjiang (Amur), Songhua and Ussuri rivers in China’s far northeast. Across the border, in Russia, their close kin are known as the Nanai. Traditionally, they lived by fishing and hunting, and they even made clothes from fish skin.

Yimakan is their great oral art. A single storyteller narrates in the Hezhen language, moving between verse and prose, singing one moment and speaking the next. There is no band. Instead, according to Xinhua, the performer uses different melodies to stand for different characters and plot turns (Xinhua, 2025c).

Big Song, Small Song

The 2011 nomination file splits the repertoire in two (UNESCO, 2011b). “Big Song” pieces are long heroic tales. Their heroes are the mergen, warrior-hunters caught up in tribal wars, and shamanic lore runs through many of the plots. “Small Song” pieces are shorter, with set tunes, and deal with love and daily life. Some of the long cantos, the file suggests, could fill a whole evening and more.

Why Hezhen Yimakan carries so much

Here is the key point. The Hezhen language has no traditional written script. As the national-level storyteller Wu Baochen told Xinhua, the people’s history and memory rely entirely on oral transmission (Xinhua, 2025c). So Yimakan is not just entertainment. It holds migration stories, fishing knowledge, ritual customs and moral rules all in one place. UNESCO’s committee calls it “an oral heritage that conveys the ethnic history, heroic deeds, lifestyle, customs and morals” of the Hezhen (UNESCO, 2025a).

Why UNESCO Put Hezhen Yimakan on the Urgent List

By 2011, the warning signs were everywhere. The nomination file names the main threats plainly (UNESCO, 2011b):

  • Language loss. Most young Hezhen no longer spoke their mother tongue, and a story told in Hezhen needs listeners who understand it.
  • Young people leaving. Many moved to cities for work, away from the river villages.
  • Old masters dying. Each death took whole cantos with it.

Only five trained performers remained. China’s answer was a four-year plan for 2012–2015, with a budget of RMB 1.84 million from government sources. It paid stipends to inheritors, funded youth training, built archives and planned a Yimakan museum. UNESCO accepted the file at its 6th committee session in 2011 (UNESCO, 2011a).

How Hezhen Yimakan Came Back: From 5 to 121

Fourteen years later, the numbers look very different. China’s culture ministry says the people able to perform Yimakan grew from five to 121 (Xinhua, 2025a). Xinhua’s English report gives the rest of the picture (Xinhua, 2025c):

  • more than 1,000 hours of audio and video recorded, plus a written text running to hundreds of thousands of Chinese characters;
  • seven centers for study and practice across Heilongjiang;
  • about 150 hours of online courses for local communities.

Hezhen Yimakan in the classroom

Schools did a lot of the heavy lifting. Hezhen language lessons entered primary schools in the Jiejinkou and Bacha areas (Xinhua, 2025b). In Tongjiang, the Fifth Primary School teaches Yimakan alongside fish-skin painting and sand pottery. Meanwhile, Bacha village runs a Yimakan transmission hall with weekly classes (Xinhua, 2026). UNESCO’s own summary credits exactly this: school teaching sparked young people’s interest, and it also helped keep the Hezhen language alive (UNESCO, 2025b).

More women, new sounds

There is a quieter change, too. UNESCO also notes greater participation by women in the tradition. And some young bearers are experimenting. A performer born in the 1990s, Hu Yi, mixes classic Yimakan passages with the mouth harp and modern music, and posts them on short-video platforms (Liu, 2026). Purists may wince. Still, it reaches listeners that a village stage never would.

The 2025 Decision, and Why It Matters

UNESCO does not take an element off the urgent list lightly. The committee first reviewed China’s periodic report in 2024. Then, at its 20th session in New Delhi in December 2025, it did two things at once (UNESCO, 2025a):

  1. It transferred Hezhen Yimakan storytelling to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
  2. It selected the “Safeguarding programme for Hezhen Yimakan storytelling” for the Register of Good Safeguarding Practices (UNESCO, 2025c).

Chinese media called the double result a first (Yang, 2025). Either way, the meaning is clear. The urgent list is meant to be an emergency ward, not a permanent address. Leaving it is the goal. If you have read our piece on Fujian puppetry and its training strategy, the pattern will feel familiar: in both cases, the world is being shown a method, not just an art.

Hezhen Yimakan vs Homer and the Manas Epic

Readers raised on Western literature already know an oral epic, even if they first met it on paper. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are widely thought to come from singers who composed in performance, long before anyone wrote them down. Yimakan shows what that world may have sounded like. Yet the comparison has limits:

  • Still alive vs fixed in text. Homer survives as a book. Yimakan is still sung, and each teller shapes it.
  • Tribe-sized vs world-sized. Greek epic served a whole civilization. Yimakan belongs to a community smaller than many Western towns.
  • Language first. Few people now learn Greek to read Homer. For the Hezhen, by contrast, keeping the epic and keeping the language are the same job.

Within China, the closest cousin is probably the Kyrgyz Manas epic of Xinjiang, on UNESCO’s Representative List since 2009. Its tellers, the Manaschi, also perform without instruments (UNESCO, 2009). The big difference is scale: Manas speaks for a far larger group, while Yimakan nearly ran out of voices.

Where to Hear Hezhen Yimakan Today

Tongjiang and Jiejinkou

Tongjiang, a city under Jiamusi in Heilongjiang, has the largest Hezhen community in China. Its Hezhe Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Experience Hall plays 54 classic Yimakan excerpts by 36 bearers. Visitors can also scan QR codes to hear model performances (Liu, 2026). There is even a digital avatar of Wu Baochen to talk with (Xinhua, 2025c).

For live storytelling, the Hezhe cultural village at Jiejinkou is a natural stop. According to China News Service, its visitor numbers rose 8.8% in 2025, and Yimakan performances became the most popular activity there (Liu, 2026). Opening hours, show times and prices were not published in these reports. So check locally, or ask your hotel, before you set out.

The Wuerigong festival

The big gathering is the Wuerigong, a Hezhen festival of performance, sport and food. It now runs every four years for two to three days, rotating between Hezhen settlements. The 12th edition took place near Jiamusi in June 2025 (Xinhua, 2025d). If that pattern holds, the next one would fall around 2029, but no date has been announced, so treat that as a guess.

Getting there

Most travelers start from Harbin, the provincial capital, and continue east via Jiamusi. Our Harbin travel guide covers the city itself. Honestly, this is a long trip into a remote border region, and English is rare. Summer is the gentler season; in winter, the rivers freeze solid. Either way, plan it as a journey of its own rather than a day trip.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Hezhen Yimakan still on UNESCO’s urgent list?

No. It was inscribed there in 2011 and transferred to the Representative List in December 2025.

Do I need to speak Hezhen to enjoy it?

Not really. The melodies and the shifts between song and speech carry a lot. That said, the sources do not mention English subtitles or guides.

Are the Hezhen the same people as the Nanai?

Broadly, yes. They are closely related groups on either side of the China–Russia border.

Can I see fish-skin craft on the same trip?

Probably. Fish-skin work is a national heritage craft (Xinhua, 2025d), and the Tongjiang hall shows it next to Yimakan.

A Story That Kept Its Voice

Heritage lists are often read as obituaries in waiting. Hezhen Yimakan is a useful exception. Five voices became more than a hundred, mainly because children were taught the language the stories live in. The work is not finished, of course; a community of 5,000 will always be fragile. For more living traditions, see our guide to intangible cultural heritage in China.

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