At a big square in Shangri-La County of southwest China's Yunnan Province, backpackers from across the world together with Tibetan locals were dancing to joyful melody in a big circle.

Among the crowd, a French girl dancing with sweat on forehead said she had found the "Oriental Shangri-La" here. She was inspired by the popular novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton and traveled China to find the paradise described in the novel.

The Corchom circle dance, an unaccompanied group dance having been inscribed into the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List, was performed every day, according to local residents in Shangri-La County of Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

Less than a hundred kilometer away from Shangri-La, when 48-year-old Drolma sang a welcoming song in the Gorchom circle dance in her living room, her 4-year-old granddaughter also learned to sing with humming.

"My granddaughter is too young, and she often forgets the meaning of the lyrics which I have taught her", said Drolma, a member of the Corchom Art Troupe in her hometown–the Benzilan Township of Deqin County.

The township features its own Corchom circle dance style with low and elegant melody as well as steady and unrestrained dance steps.

The dancers of the troupe have performed their "Benzilan Corchom" in foreign countries including Japan and Singapore.

Drolma said she had learned to sing and dance the Corchom dance from the seniors in the village and now she was able to teach the youngsters and kids the same way in her spare time.

Drolma has great expectation on her granddaughter and wishes her to learn both Tibetan and English well in order to introduce the traditional Tibetan culture to more foreigners.

"As long as every Tibetan loves his or her own culture, the Tibetan culture will carry forward generation after generation", said Drolma, who is confident with the inheritance of her ethnic culture.

China has attached great importance to the protection of cultures of various ethnic groups, and has formulated a series of measures in ethnic cultural protection.

Diqing became the first in Yunnan to build a national ethnic cultural and ecological protection experimental area in 2011, where the population of Tibetan ethnic group accounts over 30%.

The protection and inheritance of Tibetan culture, especially the endangered intangible cultural heritages is therefore further strengthened.

"To protect ethnic minorities' culture is to protect the diversity of culture", said Bai Linde, deputy director of the religious authorities in Diqing, adding that"a society with more cultures will show stronger inclusiveness".