20 000 Won Talchum

Talchum — the Korean mask dance tradition — was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Property by the South Korean government decades before this coin's issue, a recognition that came precisely because the practice had nearly collapsed under Japanese colonial suppression. The 2007 commemorative series of which this piece forms a part was one of the Bank of Korea's more deliberate efforts to document endangered folk performance traditions in silver before living transmission lines broke entirely.