Achievements and Challenges of the National and City/Do Intangible Cultural Heritage Systems - Focusing on the Designation System and Designation Status

Under a changing policy environment, with the ever increasing number of applications forcity/do intangible cultural heritage designation applications, changes to the national and city/dointangible cultural heritage designation systems due to the enactment of the 「Intangible CulturalHeritage Act」, and the voices of concern that point out the uselessness of the national and city/dodesignation systems, this paper looks to review and seek ways to improve the current national andcity/do intangible cultural heritage systems.Since the enactment of the 「Cultural Heritage Promotion Act」 in 1962, there have been 140national intangible cultural heritages, and 569 city/do intangible cultural heritages from 17 city/dolocalities that have been designated. The designation of city/do intangible cultural heritage havegreatly increased after the local self-governing system was introduced in the early 1990s.Of the seven fields of intangible cultural heritage, traditional performance·art, and traditionalskill fields takes up the lion’s share, with 69\% (97 items) at the national level, and 71\% (406 items)at the city/do level. However, traditional skills remain one of the least transmitted items, sincethere are only a few transmitters compared to the its high proportion. A single national intangiblecultural heritage are being designated as multiple city/do intangible cultural heritage, extending itbeyond its region. With weakening regionalities and increasing symbolism, there are items beingtransmitted in regional units that hold regional characteristics, mainly for group items.At national and city/do levels, a system of transmitting is being established, with the centralcarrier branching out to transmit education assistants, then to recipients. The transmissionsystem is pyramid shaped, with the recipients at the lowest level being the most numerous, andthe pyramid becoming narrower as it goes up to the transmitter. The city/do intangible culturalheritage also has the same shape.The relation between national and city/do levels are more organic than exclusive in that theitems and transmitters can move from one to another to create more opportunities to transmit. In particular, the fact that there is active movement between city/do transmitters (carriers,transmission education assistants) of national transmitters (transmission education assistant,recipient) indicates that fostering national intangible cultural heritage transmitters will improve thetransmission of city/do intangible cultural heritage.However, there are some inadequacies in the system that require urgent attention. First,intangible cultural heritage designation standards that reflect the local characteristics and uniquelyfit the localities must be established. With this, the government must also move away from theexisting cubicle-style preservation and management methods, and seek a way to operate theintangible cultural heritage system on a grander scale, that included designation standards andpass down systems that encompass city/do intangible cultural heritage.We are now faced with changing aspects of intangible cultural heritage and completediscontinuation of transmissions, and ‘post-management’ after designation is key. Thegovernment’s response is to enact the 「Intangible Cultural Heritage Act」 and establish the NationalIntangible Heritage Center. In the future, it should focus on communicating and cooperating withlocal governments and the private sector. To this end, the localities’s organization and financialconditions must be improved, while the government must be willing to work on policies, includingrevising related regulations.