Japan Honors 150 Artisans with Outstanding Skills

Tokyo, Nov. 11 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare on Friday announced a list of 150 contemporary master craftspeople, honoring them as leaders with outstanding skills in their respective areas.

They include Shisen Kodama, a 70-year-old weaver of "Nishijin Tsumekaki Hontsuzure-ori" textile from the western prefecture of Kyoto. The handcraft weaving of the traditional textiles involves a technique of scraping threads with the weavers' nails to create intricate patterns.

Also among the honorees is Takuya Hara, 54, from Hyogo Prefecture, also western Japan, who led the manufacture of tanks to store radioactive water from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. He helped make more than 100 such tanks.

The oldest of the chosen artisans is Hiroshi Akiyama, an 86-year-old sushi chef from Tokyo, whose master skills are highly praised for bringing out the deepest flavors of the fish.

The youngest were Park Young-kwang, who developed a training simulator for coronary artery bypass surgery, and Daisuke Okanohara, who achieved innovative results in deep learning research. Both Park and Okanohara are from Tokyo and 40 years old.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]