China, Japan honoured by UNESCO heritage board

China and Japan swept the board of additions to the United Nations' list of cultural treasures on Wednesday, accounting for nearly half of the ancient customs and handicrafts honoured by UNESCO.

Some 400 experts from the United Nations cultural organisation meeting in the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi agreed on 76 living arts and traditions from 27 countries to be safeguarded as humanity's "intangible cultural heritage".

No fewer than 22 Chinese customs were honoured, from intricate paper cutting techniques passed down from mother to daughter, to the silkworm farming and crafts of Sichuan Province and the worship of the sea goddess Mazu.

Many are drawn from China's minority cultures, from Tibet's opera or its Regong decorative arts, to the epic poems of the Kyrgyz people in Xinjiang or the Mongolian people's tradition of ritual polyphonic singing.

Japan also saw 13 additions, many of them folk dances and processions, from an annual float-ceremony in Kyoto to a seventh-century rice harvest ritual from Akiu in the north or the oldest of Japan's performing arts called Gagaku.

Western Japan's Sekishu-Banshi paper making techniques were added along with the Ojiya-chijimi and Echigo-jofu art of making hand-woven, tie-dyed fabrics from the ramie plant in Japan's snowy northwest.

The Paris-based UNESCO decided in 2001 to offer the same protection to living traditions as to natural and cultural treasures such as the Great Wall of China or the Great Barrier Reef, with 90 customs added so far to its list.

Other additions to the UNESCO list ranged from Latin America's tango culture to the Procession of the Holy Blood in the Belgian city of Bruges, an ancient Malian constitution and the lacework of Croatia and Cyprus.