Inheritance and Innovation of Lanjiefu Culture in the Digital Economy: A Semiotic and Design-Based Perspective

Abstract

This article repositions the discussion of Lanjiefu culture by shifting the analytical center from digital publicity to symbolic interpretation and design translation. Rather than asking only how digital tools can disseminate the festival, the paper examines how the meanings of Lanjiefu are produced through ritual signs, spatial arrangements, colors, objects, performances, and kinship practices, and how those meanings may be translated into contemporary forms without being emptied of context. The analysis is informed by the author’s broader qualitative research in Wenzhou and two culturally representative township communities, including fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions with fifty-three participants from different age groups and social roles. The findings indicate that the weakening of Lanjiefu is shaped not only by globalization and digital distraction but also by rising organizational costs, time scarcity, changing work rhythms, weakened intergenerational transmission, and the outsourcing of ritual labor. At the same time, participants continue to value Lanjiefu as a carrier of blessing, ancestral reverence, kinship reunion, local identity, and collective memory. On this basis, the paper argues that contemporary inheritance should proceed through a layered model: interpret the symbolic system, identify which visual and ritual elements are transferable, and then develop carefully bounded communication and design applications. This approach allows digital and creative innovation to support preservation without reducing Lanjiefu to a generic cultural product or online spectacle.