Washi has been part of Japanese life since the 8th century. It is paper made by hand from the fibers of the paper mulberry plant — soaked in clear river water, thickened with mucilage, and filtered through a bamboo screen. It is used for letter writing, for books, for shoji sliding doors that allow soft sunlight to filter through Japanese homes. UNESCO inscribed it as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014, recognizing the craft as it is still practiced in three communities: Misumi-cho in Hamada City (Shimane Prefecture), Mino City (Gifu Prefecture), and Ogawa Town/Higashi-chichibu Village (Saitama Prefecture).
(https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/washi-craftsmanship-of-traditional-japanese-hand-made-paper-02291)
What makes Washi a living heritage — and not a museum exhibit — is that entire communities organize around it. Families of craftspeople work under Washi masters who inherited their techniques from their parents. Local residents cultivate the mulberry. Preservation associations train successors. All the people living in these communities regard Washi-making as the symbol of their cultural identity. Now consider this: Tatcha, the luxury skincare brand, was founded on a single Washi-adjacent product.
In Kyoto, gold artisans have used sheets of natural abaca leaf for centuries to protect the precious gold they hammer into thin leafing. Geisha discovered that these same papers — called aburatorigami — were incredibly strong and absorbent, and repurposed them as beauty tools to blot oil without disturbing their makeup. Tatcha founder Vicky Tsai discovered this artisan practice on a trip to Kyoto. The papers had been used for 300 years. The artisans were reluctant to share their craft with the outside world. Tsai sold her engagement ring to prove she was serious — and launched Tatcha with those blotting papers as her first and only product.
At A Bit of Art, we believe this is what cultural preservation looks like in practice: not a plaque on a wall, but a founder who stakes everything on an artisan tradition. Not a marketing angle, but a genuine transfer of ancestral knowledge into modern life. Washi has survived for over a thousand years because people refused to let it disappear. The artisans in Kyoto, in Shimane, in Gifu, in Saitama — they're still at their bamboo screens, still pressing paper by hand. And somewhere, someone is using a gold-flecked blotting paper and doesn't realize they're holding a piece of that story.
📎 References:
UNESCO ICH: Washi, craftsmanship of traditional Japanese hand-made paper (ich.unesco.org/en/RL/02291)
UNESCO Decision 9.COM 10.22 (ich.unesco.org/en/decisions/9.COM/10.22)
Tatcha: Aburatorigami Japanese Blotting Papers (tatcha.com)
#IntangibleCulturalHeritage #UNESCO #Washi #JapanesePaperMaking #Tatcha #CulturalHeritage #ValueOfCulture #ABitOfArt #ArtisanCraft #LivingHeritage