Ministry of Culture awards Taiwan’s living treasures

2016/07/06

Culture Minister Cheng Li-chiun conferred to nine individuals and one musical group certificates honoring them as Taiwan’s top traditional arts and cultural heritage preservationists, also known as national living treasures, during a Ministry of Culture-staged ceremony at Taichung Cultural Innovation Industrial Park July 2 in central Taiwan.

The park, a renovation and revitalization of an old winery, embodies one of the five pillars of new MOC Minister Cheng’s cultural policy: Linking and Redisplaying the Historic Memory Between the Land and its People. Without these national living treasures quietly working hard to carry forward tradition and passing traditional arts and skills to the next generation, they will eventually disappear one day and become history, according to the MOC.

Addressing the ceremony, Cheng said, “Traditional arts, originally started from daily living, gradually become a way of witnessing history, thus a culture representing an era.

“Due to its special location and the arrival of immigrants, Taiwan’s traditional arts have formed a unique cultural style well worth being preserved and carried over generation by generation.”

There is a new addition to the category of cultural heritage preservation techniques in 2016: plaster building and maintenance techniques. This consists of two systems, one for traditional Chinese architecture, including techniques such as site preparation, masonry platforms, lining up doors and windows, tiles, plaster and decorative plaster sculpture. The other is for Japanese and Western architecture, including techniques such as pebble wash, cable board, cement and mortar related skills.

According to the MOC, these skills and techniques are indispensable for restoring ancient monuments, historic buildings and residences. The three winners in this category are Chuang Hsi-shih, Fu Ming-kuang and Liao Wen-mi.

Recipients of prominent preservers in outstanding carpentry skills and traditional wooden structure techniques are Liang Shao-ying, who has restored many ancient temples in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County, and Weng Shui-chien from outlying Kinmen County.

Winners of skills for preserving traditional arts are Chang Xian-ping, master of bamboo and rattan weaving techniques; Li Rong-lie, master of bamboo crafts, combining bamboo basket with lacquer painting skills; Liu Chia-cheng, master of color paintings of traditional Taiwan temples; Yuma Taru, master of dying and weaving traditional patterns of the Atayal, one of Taiwan’s 16 officially recognized indigenous tribes; and Meinong Hakka Octave Musical Group, master of playing Hakka music.

Since 2009, the MOC has awarded certificates every year honoring those preserving the skills of traditional arts or cultural heritage. To date, the ministry has awarded 27 individual in the category of important traditional arts, six groups in important traditional arts preservation, and 12 individuals in cultural assets preservation techniques, as well as a group engaging in cultural asset preservation techniques. The recipients will devote their time and talents to teaching their skills to the younger generation in their specialty fields over the next four years.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=246034&ctNode=2194&mp=9)