The Important Intangible Cultural Properties (Jungyo Muhyeong Munhwajae, Hangul: 중요무형문화재) are aspects of intangible culture that the government of South Korea has officially designated for preservation in accordance with the 1962 Cultural Property Protection Law. They are proclaimed and maintained by South Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration.
The first item so designated was Jongmyo jeryeak, the ancient music and dance performed at the Jongmyo Royal Ancestral Shrine in Seoul; it was proclaimed on December 7, 1964. The most recent, announced on November 16, 2006, was Important Intangible Cultural Property 119, geumbakjang (gold leaf decoration), practiced in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do.
A similarly named yet distinct designation, "Intangible Cultural Properties," also exists, with 33 items having been proclaimed. These are proclaimed by provinces or cities rather than by the national Cultural Heritage Administration.
The 1962 Cultural Property Protection Law was modelled on the Japanese 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, which provides for the designation of Important Intangible Cultural Properties as well as the holders of these craft and performance traditions, known informally as Living National Treasures. These early initiatives at a national level influenced UNESCO in its approach to intangible cultural heritage, leading to the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. As of April 2012, fourteen Korean Intangible Cultural Properties have been inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Famous quotes containing the words important, intangible, cultural, properties and/or south:
“Unfortunately there is still a cultural stereotype that it’s all right for girls to be affectionate but that once boys reach six or seven, they no longer need so much hugging and kissing. What this does is dissuade boys from expressing their natural feelings of tenderness and affection. It is important that we act affectionately with our sons as well as our daughters.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one.... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.”
—Frederico Fellini (b. 1920)
“Somehow we have been taught to believe that the experiences of girls and women are not important in the study and understanding of human behavior. If we know men, then we know all of humankind. These prevalent cultural attitudes totally deny the uniqueness of the female experience, limiting the development of girls and women and depriving a needy world of the gifts, talents, and resources our daughters have to offer.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My course is a firm assertion and maintenance of the rights of the colored people of the South according to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, coupled with a readiness to recognize all Southern people, without regard to past political conduct, who will now go with me heartily and in good faith in support of these principles.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)