This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Loud are the lamentations over the loss of national cultural identity in the growing homogeny of global world culture. Well, many countries are doing something about it and Japan is one of them. Not wishing to see such traditional art forms as bunraku puppetry or kimono silk dyeing vanish, Japan established Living Treasures. Begun in 1950 as a breastwork against the onslaught of Meiji Era industrialization, the program designates certain craftspeople as Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties. The lofty title comes with a mandate to pass the skill along so that there will always be a master of the intangible living among us. Oh. And in the understanding that artists can’t live by intangibles alone, it also comes with a very tangible stipend.

With thanks to Leslie von Holten for this text, from the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.