The ger, a traditional dwelling created by nomadic Mongolians, is specifically designed to fit their way of life. Its semi- sphere shape helps the ger endure storms and tempests. It has solutions for heat control and ventilation. It is flexible in terms of size and design, and it is portable and lightweight. At the same time, it is also comfortable to live in and easy to build and dismantle. Moreover, the ger is used as a measure for time and directions.

Last year Croatia joined the world community in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by holding an ICH conference and festival in Dubrovnik. In the last decade, numerous activities have taken place, but the basic question of how to continue promoting and protecting sensitive intangible assets remains.

The Loden Foundation is a pioneer organization in Bhutan bridging cultural heritage with socio-economic development. Loden literally means ‘the intelligent one’ and is an epithet of the Bodhisattvas, who work for the world using wisdom and compassion. Loden first started as a modest child sponsorship scheme in 1999 to help poor students go to school. Since then, it grew incrementally to become a leading NGO in Bhutan. Led by a group of people with shared visions, concerns and interests, Loden has three programs supported by a wide network of donors, volunteers, management team and partners.

Inside the Guam Museum’s multipurpose room, Chamorro oral historian Toni “Malia” Ramirez sits on a carpet of autumn tones along with a small group of young children. On the floor beside him are a world globe, a sprouting coconut plant, and a tray of local foods as diverse as the multicultural children seated—lumpia from the Philippines, Japanese-style omusubi, Korean kimchee, and Chamorro titiyas. On the back wall, a wire grid is covered with an assortment of t-shirts hung with plastic hangers. The t-shirts have phrases in Chamorro, the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands. In the tradition of Chamorro storytellers, Ramirez converses with the children, sharing memories he had collected over the years from Guam’s war survivors and their stories of life during the Japanese Occupation and Liberation in July 1944. The t-shirts, he explains, express cultural values that helped the Chamorros survive the atrocities of the war, values that are important even today. The t-shirt he wears is decorated with “Tåutau latti’ yu’, Guåhan, Islas Marianas,” asserting his pride as a “person of the latte,” and a native of Guam. With a song, the tray of food soon represents the cultural diversity of Guam home. As the session ends, the children and their parents wave Guam flags and sing “Fanoghe Chamorro,” the island’s territorial anthem. Ramirez has shared with the event’s participants important historical memories of Guam’s people, Chamorro cultural values, and lessons for good citizenship in a little more than an hour.

The current topic of this conference is not very well studied in the Philippines. The word –shamanism- is regarded as an arbitrary umbrella-catch-all term for lack of something better because what it refers to in the Philippines is a far ranging set of practices, belief and value systems that are very specific. It is with some trepidation that these sets of practices, beliefs and value systems may not at all fit into the north-Asian concept of Shamanism, especially with reference to the structure and social organization. The latest local term used is –pagdidiwata – referring to the rituals invoking spiritual beings (diwata). The other terms used\nare bunung, baki, pagaanito, alisig, and many others depending on the culture of the some 80 different major ethno-linguistic groups in the country. Common to all is the belief in the existence of a spirit world to which the world of people should relate, through the medium of ritual specialists. There are differences, however, in the structure and social organization in the social behavior related to ethnic practice.

Central Asia stands at the crossroads of ancient civilisations. Its territory, crossed by the northern part of the great Silk Road, constitutes an ensemble of cultural heritage sites and monuments that express common historical experiences as well as reflect an extraordinary cultural diversity dating from prehistoric times to the Islamic period and beyond. For centuries, the phenomenon of intangible cultural heritage was a key factor for the transmission of indigenous cultural traditions for future generations as well as a matching point for intercultural dialogue in Central Asia—a region with unique oral and music traditions.

The Silk Roads is a path and a route, not a fixed concept but a dynamic and expanding polysemic concept. The definition of the Silk Roads varies depending on academic perspectives. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the Silk Roads have become symbols of peace and understanding. It is at risk of abuse, commercialization, and political misapplication. Countries along the Silk Roads are experiencing a great deal of change, especially under the influence of globalization and commercialization. They are, therefore, highly vulnerable to change. It is necessary to consider the definition and target countries/areas, membership, access online and offline, gaps in ICT content production, and updating and maintaining information. Recommendations on improving a possible network include strengthening the information sharing capacity, improving the quality of information, and promoting and making successful public and private partnership programs. Two questions we have to ask are “What is the position of intellectual/academic cooperation for ICH safeguarding along the Silk Roads?” and “Can we support another new scientific approach?”

Chonbuk National University established the Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage Studies in 2012. The Center started its initial mission for researches on ICH with collecting and inventorying ICH on the domestic level. The Center’s work has increasingly expanded to study various issues regarding safeguarding, policy-making and revitalization of ICH. On the basis of it, we were able to open an introductory course for graduate students starting in the fall of 2014. In the next semester, spring of 2015, we opened another seminar on “tangible and intangible cultural heritage.” As the next step, our university established the Department of Intangible Heritage and Information, opening its graduate program for ICH studies in March of 2016. \n\nInterdisciplinary Curriculum \nICH is a new field of academia in Korea. We have courses related to ICH such as folklore, anthropology, oral literature, and traditional arts. ICH area should cover diverse fields and subjects from everyday life to arts, from the secular to the sacred and from research to practice. We have specified in curriculum to clarify course descriptions and pedagogic principles in order to distinguish the ICH field. There are five fields of the subjects, such as ideology, methodology, management and policy making, education and policy. Each field consists of its corresponding sub-fields with which specific courses are offered. Our graduate program systematically arranges each level from introductory through intermediary up to advanced courses for graduate students.

Law and Legal Documents on ICH \n\nLaw on Cultural Heritage indicates clearly that the cultural heritage in Vietnam is the valuable property of all ethnic groups of Vietnam and has its significant role in the sustainable development of the country. \nIn compatible with the 2003 Convention Vietnam rectified in 2005, the Law on Cultural heritage (2001) amended in 2009 with some articles on the identification of ICH, management, its safeguarding measures and designation of the master practitioners. The Article 1 on the identification of ICH states that “ICH is the spiritual product that is attached to the communities or individuals, relevant to tangible culture and cultural space. It expresses the cultural identity of communities, and has been continuously recreated and transmitted from generation to generation orally, through apprentices, performances and other modes of transmission."\n

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.

Nowadays, the three-dimensional (3D) data acquisition and modeling technology, which has been evolving from the late 1900s to recent years, is a useful geometric documentation tool for cultural heritage and accumulating numerous cultural heritage digital data. In the Republic of Korea, attempts have been made to build 3D cultural heritage data by several companies since the introduction of 3D scanners in the late 1990s. From the early 2000s, the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) in Korea also began to lead the project to record cultural heritage using digital technology, including 3D scanning. Although 3D scanning has been getting essential to every documentary project ordered by government agencies, local governments, and cultural heritage agencies, the process and the results were not strictly standardized. To overcome the problematic issues caused by this, the CHA decided to publish a guideline for records of cultural heritage using 3D scanning. The first version was published in 2015 and a revised version in 2018. In this paper, the issues discussed in the development phase of the guidelines are introduced, and lessons learned are given. Revision of the guidelines for 3D scanning of cultural heritage Prior to the production of guidelines for three-dimensional scanning, the Cultural Heritage Administration had produced standardization and production guidelines for digitalization in metric survey projects. “Guideline for building standardized data in the cultural heritage documentation projects” published 2000 includes standardization guidelines for data submitted, such as naming convention, the hierarchy of the files, data backup, quality management, and outcome management. “Guideline for the precise metric survey of historical architectures” includes essential issues for the metric survey mainly for historic buildings with 3D scanning and GPS technology.

Dibya Jyoti Borah, President of ARHI introduces the role of ARHI in safeguarding of ICH. Established in 2008, ARHI is collaboration of individuals belonging to the indigenous tribe, activist working for the cultural-educational rights of native people. It is a wider platform for all indigenous communities to discuss and reflect upon challenges and problems faced by indigenous communities as well as finding the best means to address those concerns. It is a grassroots organization comprising all small & big indigenous communities.