The Missing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Shanghai Cultural and Creative Industries

Chinese opera, a sing-song storytelling art form predominantly associated with rural and urban migrant communities, currently has over 300 regional styles. This paper investigates the intertwined development of opera Shanghai All-female Yueju its main audience, female textile workers their omission in Cultural Creative Industries (CCI) making. Utilising theories ‘selective memory’ ‘strategic forgetting’, this argues that official construction semi-colonial heritage as Shanghai’s post-industrial identity Intangible Heritage (ICH) is not only an attempt to establish global cosmopolitan image, but also strategy deal trauma compulsory workers’ redundancy painful community dissemination. It suggests that, until fully acknowledges ‘dark heritage’, discourse CCI lacks context local continues experience alienation struggles for expression. The highlights urgency China, well globally, safeguard implement UNESCO’s vision promoting ICH key vehicle social inclusion sustainable development.