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Tomb inscriptions containing information about tomb-building craftsmen have been found inside imitation wood tombs dating from the 11th to 14th centuries in China's Central Plains region. These inscriptions are valuable because they provide a different angle from which to analyze the designs and functions of tombs. Scholars have viewed tomb building as a domestic act. If the deceased were pleased with their burial arrangements, then their descendants would be blessed. The inscriptions suggest that this beneficial connection relied deeply on the capacity of craftsmen, whose talent was recognized by patrons. By considering how craftsmanship contributed to religious efficacy, as well as the intermediary role craftsmen played to achieve it, this paper explores how the above-mentioned inscriptions deepen our understanding of the functions of tombs and the roles played by craftsmen in burial practices in terms of historical, religious, and social factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is the main technology research and development country in the world’s bamboo industry, as well as the main producer and exporter of bamboo products. It ranks at the international leading level in terms of bamboo forest area, stock volume, bamboo product output and scientific research level. However, through literature review, it is found that the development of bamboo products in the modern social environment still faces many challenges. The author searched the keyword “bamboo product design” through CNKI and SCOPUS database systems, and initially retrieved 562 literatures. According to the screening criteria “Bamboo Product Design Status and Strategies”, and excluding redundant and repetitive studies, 76 papers were finally screened and identified. The author uses the A-type graphical tool of the KJ method to combine, classify and analyze the keywords in the “problem” literature, and use the relationship between these materials to organically combine and summarize these facts. It is found that there is a gap in capability between bamboo product designers and craftsmen. What is the gap between them? How to narrow the gap between them and improve their design capability? This is the research question of this study. To a certain extent, it is one of the key factors for the insufficient design innovation of bamboo products and the inability to meet consumer demands. Therefore, this study constructs a strategic framework of five capability dimensions by reviewing the literature on design capability management, combining product design standards and design capability demand theory, and incorporating the unique relevant factors of bamboo product design. The framework aims to improve the knowledge system and professional capability of craftsmen and designers to enhance the diversification and innovation of bamboo products, help the bamboo industry to clarify the market positioning of products, and meet people’s needs for bamboo products in modern life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reveals the interest in foreign trademarks observed in Lithuanian society from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the demand for brand names spread after Western culture reached the Soviet Union. The consumption of Western cultural products, or imitations thereof, became one of the key symbolic expressions of freedom in Soviet society. In Lithuania, the most popular clothes were those bearing fake trademarks, even though Soviet authorities attempted to prevent the desire for and the wearing of these garments through the use of ideological tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the role played in urban uprisings and conspiracies in late medieval and early modern western Europe, the butchers’ trade has been one of the most intensively studied food-related occupations. Recent research on medieval butchers has shown a renewed interest in the topic. This article begins by presenting a review and synthesis of the historiography of butchers’ revolts in late medieval cities across western Europe. It then moves on to an analysis of the specific case of Siena, based on original primary research. The aim of the article is to show how Sienese butchers rebelled more than once during the fourteenth century and to examine why it was inevitable that they failed, despite the long-standing alliances they built with part of the educated elite. Indeed, social and political tensions within the guild forced a two-way split within the guild and its elites. These findings definitively call into question the traditional view of the cohesiveness of the butchers’ guilds in medieval Europe and their supposed marginalization in medieval society, advancing understanding of fourteenth-century Siena, of its enduring popular regime and, more generally, of late medieval urban society, politics and revolts. Moreover, such a case study has the potential to enable further comparative analysis across medieval and early modern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global era capitalism provides new cultural and economic opportunities to profit from heritage, especially for those producers who generate highly valued products whose consumption is an indicator of refined taste, as is the case with the Japanese-style services in Hong Kong. The productions of the Japanese service professionals in Hong Kong symbolize the promise of sophistication and cosmopolitanism for local consumers. Japanese chefs, bartenders, hairstylists, etc. use group-specific values and concepts such as ‘selfless’ hospitality (omotenashi) and craftsman spirit (shokunin kishitsu) to construct and market their services as cultural productions. The conceptualization of the Japanese heritage conceived by these service professionals inadvertently aligns them with the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ campaign. However, their common efforts are not as much an expression of cultural nationalism as a market-driven attempt to convert so called Japanese values into a commodity and transform Japan into a brand in and of itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]