Talk:National Treasure (Japan)

message: Concerning this phrase from the article:
"structures" here refers to sites; the number of actual buildings is higher
Why are Ginkaku-ji's Tōgu-dō and Ginkaku (Silver Pavillion) different sites (according to the phrase and the list) while parts of Tōshō-gū in Nikkō are listed together under Tōshō-gū? Please also have a look at this discussion. bamse (talk) 00:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organisation of the list 

message: I generated
*List of National Treasures of Japan (castles)
*List of National Treasures of Japan (miscellaneous structures)
*List of National Treasures of Japan (residences)
*List of National Treasures of Japan (shrines)
and am slowly working on List of National Treasures of Japan (temples) which together with the other lists would provide a complete list of buildings/structures which are National Treasures of Japan. (Because of lack of time, I am not going to do the same for other types of National Treasures.) I noticed that many of the individual castle, shrine,... articles don't mention the National Treasures. With these lists it is very easy to add information on which part of a temple, castle, etc. is a National Treasure. Please fell free to add to the individual articles. You also might want to link back to the lists. bamse (talk) 04:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I completed the list on temple structures. It can be found at List of National Treasures of Japan (temples). bamse (talk) 08:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Next is List of National Treasures of Japan (ancient documents). Feel free to add to the list. bamse (talk) 05:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.bamse (talk) 23:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists of National Treasures 

message: Are there any National Treasures of Japan which are located outside of Japan? bamse (talk) 05:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No! Export of National Treasures is forbidden (it is allowed for Important Cultural Properties). bamse (talk) 21:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Treasures of Japan outside of Japan 

message: * Many items in the Tokyo National Museum were destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.  See Tokyo national Museum, The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Museum : From Taisho to Showa era Ling.Nut3 (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The page you link says: "Luckily, many of the items escaped damage...", so not sure what to make out of your comment. I'd certainly be interested in a source that tells a bit more about the pre 1950 National Treasures, i.e. what objects were included, which items were lost in earthquakes, war,.... bamse (talk) 15:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I spent some time looking, with little luck. Based on clues from my search results (see below) I do believe many treasures were lost, but I did not find anything resembling a good account. There were strong hints: the museum was "badly damaged", an entire National Library was destroyed along with most of its documents, different block print artists and so on "lost an entire studio" etc. But most of that came from Google Books with "snippet view" only. I found little in Google scholar. The "many of the items escaped damage" means that many also didn't, BTW. maybe a Japanese-language search would have better luck, but I'm not the person for that. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't doubt that many National Treasures were damaged or destroyed. After all there used to be many more National Treasures before 1950 (likely including most of today's Important Cultural Properties of Japan). Still one should be careful, since the TNM page you linked above, does not mention "National Treasures" but only "treasures" which may or may not be the same. bamse (talk) 18:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

text: *It seems I have not been communicating effectively. The link I gave above was just a minor (but  reliable) bit of support for the idea that this "heads up" is a valid one. My underlying point is this: this is a nontrivial omission from this article, and it needs to be very diligently researched and very thoroughly covered before bringing the article back to WP:FAC. if this were at FAC, I would Oppose (and would be unwilling to change my Oppose), based on this omission alone,  as per 1b of WP:WIAFA. I have already searched a little, and came up nearly completely empty-handed. Some Japanese-language searching needs to be done, preferably with input from a domain expert. I am not trying to be rude; I am trying to be plain...  To give you a bit of context, I am here to help in any way I can, including copy editing, research, etc., if/when i have time... Ling.Nut3 (talk) 05:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Just to make sure, by "this omission" you mean the National Treasures that were destroyed/damaged in the 1923 earthquake? bamse (talk) 07:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What you add depends on what you find. If there exists a full listing of all of the National Treasures destroyed, that would make an interesting spin-off "List of" article with some good redlinks and interesting details (see the link at Talk:Chōjirō for a tiny example; I hope there will be much more). If you find a good discussion of this topic, that would make at least a nice paragraph and hopefully even enough for a section. If you find a LOT of stuff, then it would make a spin-off article. In all of the above cases, at LEAST a coupe sentences in this article would be necessary, and in fact I really think that more than that can be done. I suspect that everything depends on a Japanese-language search and some good investigative skills (including asking people who would know). The fact that this topic isn't even mentioned right now is.. uh.. kinda unacceptable. I hope I am not too blunt. :-) Ling.Nut3 (talk) 08:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I will see what I can find, when I get time. To be fair, there is some mention of national treasures in the "Extension of the protection" section including two treasures that were destroyed in the war. bamse (talk) 10:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

text: Sure I know this. It contains a database of Cultural Properties of Japan and I used it extensively to compile the various Lists of National Treasures of Japan and lists of other Cultural Properties (see ). However AFAIK, it is a database of today's Cultural Properties (post 1950). I doubt there is a list of pre 1950 National Treasures available online and in any case I would not be willing to write list articles for wikipedia for those treasures due to time constraints (the present lists took a couple of years to make) and limited interest of readers. In any case most/all of those treasures are now designated as National Treasure, Important Cultural Property, etc. PS: I can read only little Japanese, however if it is in computer readable form I can make sense of most texts thanks to rikaichan. bamse (talk) 11:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

text: * Oh, if no list of National Treasures destroyed in the earthquake exists, then compiling that  list would be work for a PhD dissertation, at the very least... but I am sure it is not necessary to make one from scratch. I am sure one exists somewhere. If it does, then it only needs translation. There may even be one in English, but it seems unlikely. Besides, I am just painting the best-case scenario when discussing such a list. No, a Very Good (and perhaps more realistic) scenario would involve finding one or two or three very reliable discussions, using them to add a paragraph or even a section, mentioning perhaps one or two or three of the most famous works destroyed, or artists whose works were destroyed. My point is just that readers should not be left completely ignorant. Ling.Nut3 (talk) 11:51, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: As mentioned before, two treasures destroyed (Hiroshima Castle and Tōdaiji Fujumonkō) are already mentioned in the article and supported by reliable sources. bamse (talk) 14:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: * That would be WWII. You can't just completely skip the earthquake(s). :-)  Ling.Nut3 (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  many items destroyed in the [[1923 Great Kantō earthquake]] 

message: I feel like there is a great deal of information that gets repeated several times. For example, the fact that Kansai has a preponderance of these objects is mentioned several times.Acire93 (talk) 00:32, 16 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repetition 

message: Hello,the #21 reference of the article, an important one, is erroneous. Indeed, the targeted PDF file does not contain any content about the article's subject; it is about "Japanese Language Policy", not national cultural properties. Unfortunately, I could not find the original document "Preservation and Utilization of Cultural Properties". Should this reference be removed ? It will be less damaging if someone could retrieve the proper original reference or bring another well qualified citation.--ContributorQ (talk) 23:19, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: That's strange. When redesigning their webpage they must have mixed up the links. The reference was certainly not about the Language Policy. Would it be possible to just remove the URL and to keep the reference as offline reference? This reference probably appears on many articles related to Cultural Properties of Japan. If that's not possible, it could be replaced by the 2015 version at http://www.bunka.go.jp/english/about_us/policy_of_cultural_affairs/pdf/2015_policy.pdf (after checking that all referenced statements are contained therein.  bamse (talk) 12:24, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I found the document at  and corrected the archiveurl in the article. Thanks for pointing out this mistake. bamse (talk) 19:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Great! I did not know this website.--ContributorQ (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Erroneous reference. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (February 2018) 

message: When we see the Japanese government promoting items as 'National treasures' we need to be aware that Japanese politics has been dominated by extreme right wing pro Shinto politics for decades. Some balance or criticism of the selection scheme needs to be mentioned here for the page to be reliable.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.11.225.246 (talk) 04:28, 9 February 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I would disagree with this proposal. Referring to the selection as necessarily being the result of "extreme right wing politics" is inherintly a non-neutral viewpoint. (Your edit summary also backs up the point that your own POV isn't neutral - "right wing pro Shinto hacks don't get to tell us what is good.") What is more: if such a criticism of the selection process on the basis of their politics as viewed by us were to be placed on the page, it would likely be a failure to represent proper perspective - rather than focusing on Japan's perspective, such a criticism would be focused on a Western viewpoint of Japan's political system. Keep in mind that what Japan's government calls a national treasure is by default what makes it a national treasure, no matter how right or wrong the system is (or is perceived to be). NomadicNom (talk) 02:28, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV