Prof. HUANG Chu-Ren, Department of Language Science and Technology

Cultural Heritage is the Memory of Our Interaction with the Environment. Connection, Innovation, Prosperity: The APEC Education Forum. Beijing Language and Culture University, in conjunction with (China Annual Conference & Expo for International Education, CACIE) APEC, Beijing National Convention Centre (Online), 31 October 2025.

Abstract
I argue that our shared cultural heritage is the sum of the memory of the interaction with our environments, both ecological and social. At the individual level, the memory records the inputs from the environment, including what we see, feel, and think. At the societal level, the memory records our shared behaviors and conventions, hence our identity. Based on this, I demonstrate how to reconstruct historical geo-environmental knowledge from classical Chinese texts, as over two thousand years of accumulated environmental knowledge that is the shared heritage for all human beings.