The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) ratified the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention in 2008. Since then, the country has nominated three elements to the Convention’s Representative List, a mechanism of the Convention designed to draw attention to the importance of living heritage in general, on an international level. The first two elements listed by the DPRK were Arirang Folk Singing in 2014 and Traditional Kimchi-making in 2015, both of which were also listed separately by the Republic of Korea (ROK). Last year, when both countries listed an element jointly for the first time—traditional Korean wrestling, ssirum (also spelled ssireum) —it marked an historic moment in the cultural relations between the DPRK and the ROK and allowed culture to play a bridging role currently inaccessible through most other channels of cooperation.