In 2013, the UNESCO Office in Bangkok, in collaboration with the Islamabad, Hanoi, Apia, and Tashkent offices, undertook a project to experiment how intangible cultural heritage (ICH) could be used as part of a pedagogical approach to raise awareness about sustainable development. Activities, implemented thanks to the generous support of the Japanese government, were framed around the themes of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). The pilot project produced guidelines and sample lesson plans for teachers to guide them into developing educational materials grounded in local knowledge and practices. Seventeen schools in four countries—Pakistan, Palau, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam— participated in the pilot. The emphasis was not on teaching pure cultural content, but rather on using ICH as a vehicle to enrich the teaching of existing school subjects.

Relative to the creative economy of South Korea, the importance of the Eurasian Turkic states is growing. The reorganized resource-rich countries of the Eurasian continent, ancient nations belonging to the Silk Road, have established themselves from the beginning of the 21st century as political and economic powers in the international arena. CIS countries such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan were protagonists of the great Silk Road that linked the East and the West that had been cut off from each other in ancient times.

Pebaek was one of the important ritual procedures of a traditional wedding ceremony. The ritual was performed at the groom’s house after the bride finished the wedding ceremony at her house. Pebaek was to introduce herself properly to her new in-laws and, her rst greetings were to the inlaw parents and relatives.

Pencak Silat is an intangible cultural heritage that allows a community to express its culture and, more importantly, is a vehicle that allows practitioners to manifest the best values passed to them by their teachers for the benefit of all in society. It is practiced in countries in Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. However, not much research has been done on the history and culture of Pencak Silat in Singapore. The project entitled “Preserving Intangible Cultural Heritage: Documenting and Recording the History, Culture and Memory of Malay Martial Arts Groups in Singapore,” led by Dr. Mohamed Effendy from the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and sponsored by the National Heritage Board of Singapore, is therefore a timely one. It aims to safeguard the history and culture of Malay martial groups of Singapore by documenting and recording their past and cultural activities. Thus, the project provides the inspiration and backdrop for this paper, which will describe how Pencak Silat connects communities in Singapore to their historical origins. The paper will also analyze how Pencak Silat has contributed to the social and cultural success of the Singapore Malay community today, and lastly, it will examine to what extent Pencak Silat values can be used to further enhance the development of a community.

Hills resembling a dragon tail, composed of arenaceous soft mud stretching for several miles, scarce but fresh and lush vegetation, springs with ice-cold water spouting from the heart of the earth, waves of the salty lake gently crashing against the shore, magnificent white clouds soaring up in the sky and the numerous pilgrims, lined up one by one, treading right upon the “dragon tail” and making their pilgrimage through the sacred site Manjyly-Ata.

The beautiful body-sway of Malaysian traditional dance is often showcased outside the country as an effort by Tourism Malaysia to introduce local arts to the world. Aside from the mainstream traditional dance, Malaysian aborigines are also known for their unique traditional dance art. Unfortunately, these forms are not commonly known nor are they publicized as much as modern dance art.

Central Asia is a region that has served as the centre of social and economic, in particular cultural interrelations of East and West. The nations of this region have a rich cultural heritage and ancient traditions like any nation in the world. The nations of Central Asia - Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan – make up a unified cultural space, defined by great grassland steppes and famous mountains, nomadic culture and common history, relics and traditions. Throughout this region we find petroglyphs, keregsur, steles, ruins and other monuments attesting to the mingling of peoples in the Central Asian steppe since prehistory. The territory of our own nation, Mongolia, has indeed been the centre several nomadic empires at various stages in history, established by different peoples of Central Asia sharing a similar cultural origin – Hunnu, Khitan, Turks, Uighurs, Kyrgyz and Mongols.

UNESCO has ten subcategories of human communities and networks, but there are two patterns of human civilizations—sedentary and nomadic communities. Difficulty with archaeologists and historians to explore and discover civilizational heritage information. Nomadic communities served as an ancient networking system, bridging sedentary communities with cultural and technological information. There is a necessity of a network approach on the discovery, excavation, preservation, and public opening of Silk Roads intangible cultural heritages through a singular project hub—namely through ICHCAP. Examples of existing projects include the Caravanserai projects by UNESCO and National Geographic, which focus on tangible heritage along the Silk Roads without considering cultural interconnections and influences. A Korean case is the KBS six-episode documentary series on the origin, spreading and localization of noodle cuisine in Eurasian communities. Another networking case currently under way is the development of series on Silk Roads martial arts, dance, and play through Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Iran.

There were once three traditional house- construction styles in Fiji. The first, rausina, was common in the hinterland tribes of mainland Vitilevu. Its prominent feature was its single-ridge pole that gave the roof a conical shape. The second, kubulolo, was common in the outer islands of the Lau group. Its prominent feature was its oval shape, which is a typical feature in Polynesian Tonga and Samoa, two islands renowned for their trade with the Lau islands. The third, which is the focus of this article, is called the vasemasema style, and it was known for its two main ridge posts and was commonly found around coast tribes and villages on the main islands of Vitilevu and Vanualevu.

Taumako, one of the Duff Islands, is a Polynesian island within the Santa Cruz group in Temotu Province to the southeast of the Solomon Islands, in the southwestern Pacific. Taumakoans speak the Veakau-Taumako language, which comes from the Samoic branch of Polynesian languages. Taumakoans still practice ancient navigational techniques and are known for building a type of proa sailing canoe, the Tepuke, using local materials. They maintain traditional ways of living, relying heavily on subsistence farming and fishing.

Vernacular martial arts (VMA) occupy a special niche within the diverse phenomena classified as martial arts. Cross-culturally, “Martial arts can be defined as systematic bodies of knowledge, belief, and practice that are associated with methods of attack and defense against … adversaries” (Green and Svinth, 2010, p. 331). On close examination, we learn that the behaviors we attempt to gather under this umbrella term are quite diverse, ranging from life-and-death struggles through rule-governed sporting contests to expressive forms, from globalized combat sports to localized martial culture. The systems that fall on the latter end of this spectrum I have applied the VMA label to, and among the various martial expressions these are the ones that most clearly qualify as intangible cultural heritage (ICH). The following distinctions are useful for the current discussion.

The ICH of Laos is vibrant despite the instability experienced by the country’s populace throughout the twentieth century. Peace returned to the country in 1976 once the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) was established on 2 December 1975. However, a large proportion of the population relocated to other countries, including many custodians and practitioners of ICH, not only those of the Lao ethnic group but also other ethnicities such as Hmong. The relocation of these masters or knowledgeable persons led to a break in the transmission of this wisdom to younger generations. Over time the restrictions mentioned above were lifted, allowing for the revival of various ICH elements. Memory served as a reservoir of knowledge for ICH traditions whose practice and transmission had ceased temporarily. The masters of some elements are no longer present in Laos to transmit the wisdom of techniques, symbolism, and use. Memory is thus crucial since this knowledge is not recorded in books, but rather is passed on via oral instruction.