The Chinese State Council has listed the Spring Festival, Peking Opera, acupuncture, The Legend of Madame White Snake and Shaolin Kungfu in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage of the country.

The list contains 518 items in ten categories, including folk literature, folk music and dance, traditional opera, ballad singing, cross talks, acrobatics, folk fine arts, traditional handicraft, traditional medicine and folk-custom, the State Council announced on its website on Friday.

The 518 items were selected by a jury organized by the Ministry of Culture and the Academy of Arts of China from more than 1,300 candidates across the country.

"The intangible cultural heritage in China is facing a rigorous challenge in its battle against the urbanization and globalization," said Tian Qing, a member of the jury and director of the Intangible Culture Heritage Research Center under the AAC.

The protection of intangible cultural heritage has being increasingly hot in China as the maintenance and protection of the cultural diversity is growingly recognized in the world over the past five years.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2006)