Wednesday, August 22, 2007

How to protect traditional Japanese craftsmanship

According to the demographic statistics, one in four in 2025 would be over 65 years old. We suffer from demographic imbalance. Due to this imbalance, succession of Japanese craftsmanship is the biggest problem we have to tackle with. To solve this issue, Education plays an important role. I’ll propose two solutions here.
Firstly, excursion to visit misters and experience their craftsmanship. The most popular destination is cultural and historical city such as Kyoto and Nara. However, I propose students visit misters. East Osaka city established a committee to deal with the invitation of school excursion. Aoki corporation in East Osaka is renowned company among aircraft industry. It produces parts which need high tech for aircraft. It is designated as the best supplier by Boing. The purpose of this invitation is to make students experience and have interest of manufacturing Japan proud. I believe this is a good trend to preserve traditional Japanese craftsmanship.

Secondly, recoding for short term solution. Craftsmanship/technology was handed down by oral method and stone in ancient age. Advent of paper significantly improves the efficiency to hand down tradition. Now we are living in high-tech age. We can use recording technology such as sound/moving picture. We can record the mister’s technique and preserve it for next generation. For example, one soy source company in Kagoshima prefecture utilizes this high-tech to record the process and the technique. On the top of that, younger employee’s methods are also recorded. The point is that they can compare with Mister’s one and they can learn from the gap. Ironically, what we can do is to reduce the gap between real McCoy and developing technique. But it’s better than nothing.


In conclusion, we need new approach to succeed Japanese craftsmanship.
I believe Education has key role to protect traditional Japanese craftsmanship.

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