Traditional Crafts Face Succession Crisis as Kochi Delegation Visits Tainan

A delegation of more than 50 people from Japan’s Kochi Prefecture visited Tainan to examine how traditional crafts can survive when fewer young people take them up.

Kochi Deputy Governor Yuya Nishimori, Japan-Taiwan Friendship Parliamentary League chairman Kenichi Hirota, lawmakers and officials from the prefecture’s traditional craft promotion division toured the pottery workshop of Hsu Ching-chuan, chairman of the Taiwan Ceramics Association. Participants from both sides identified the lack of successors as a serious shared challenge.

The delegation came to Tainan at the invitation of former Tainan Tourism and Travel Bureau director Kuo Chen-hui. It performed at the Madozong Japanese Cultural Festival and visited local pottery workshops and arts venues. At Hsu’s studio, the visitors exchanged experience on pottery techniques and systems for passing skills to a new generation.

Kochi has a range of traditional pottery-producing areas, while Tainan’s Baihe, Liujia and Guantian districts have attracted potters because of their distinctive clay. The delegation also visited the Tainan Art Museum and Hayashi Department Store, where it explored shared features in the two places’ historical character and cultural preservation.

Kuo said Tainan and Kochi would continue pottery exchanges and work together to cultivate a new generation of arts and culture professionals, with the aim of keeping traditional crafts relevant in contemporary life.