Gold has been long viewed and used as an ornament of preciousness and luxury. Gold is often used to decorate textiles and this process is referred to as gold appliqué. Gold appliqué has a long history in Korea, and there are several records explaining a situation where the government prohibited the use of gold appliqué during the Three Kingdoms era (4-7 CE) due to concerns about the dissipation of the country’s wealth.

In 2015, the UNESCO Bangkok Office published Learning with Intangible Heritage for a Sustainable Future: Guidelines for Educators in the Asia-Pacific Region, which included the results of a pilot projects conducted in four countries—Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and Palau—with the aim of integrating intangible cultural heritage and education for sustainable development. The introduction of this handbook begins with the quote from Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”

Around four thousand years ago, Austronesian-speaking people sailed from Taiwan into the greater Pacific. A thousand years later, they were the first people to land in Vanuatu and Tonga. Then these Austronesian voyagers mixed with Papuan populations in what is now Papua New Guinea, and those people later became the Polynesian voyagers. Evidence now suggests that the extent of Austronesian and Polynesian voyaging was greater than once thought, ranging from Madagascar to Brazil—over two-thirds around the globe. The seafaring vessels that the Austronesian voyagers created were the vehicles of the greatest human migration ever made.

Nagorik Uddyog (NU) was founded in 1995 by a group of nationally and internationally renowned Bangladeshi human rights activists and academics aiming to promote good gover-nance, access to justice, and the institutionalization of democracy at the local and national level. In the beginning, the organization worked on voter education programs and raised awareness among women that they could claim their rights from local government institutions and from the community. In this awareness-raising initiative, community cultural heritage properties like the Baul folk songs were used and earned immense popularity. Over a period of time, NU extended its activities across the country with specific focus on the rights of marginalized people, especially Dalit rights, land and human rights of Indigenous peoples, and access to justice for rural communities.

Bongsan Talchum, or the Bongsan mask-dance drama, was originally transmitted in Giryang-ri, Dongseon-myeon, Bongsan-gun, Hwanghae Province in the northern part of Korean Peninsula. However, with the relocation of administrative bodies, including the district office to Sariwon in 1915, the mask-dance drama and its transmission activities were also transferred to the area. In South Korea, Bongsan Talchum had been transmitted since its restoration by performers who originated from the North, including Jin-ok Kim and Cheon-sik Min, and was designated as Important Intangible Cultural Property No. 17 in 1967. The office of the Bongsan Mask Dance-Drama Preservation Society is currently housed within the Training Center for Important Intangible Cultural Properties in Seoul.

What do sauna bathing, folk dance tikkuristi, rag rug weaving, picking mushrooms and snow games have in common? They are all part of living intangible cultural heritage, present in the everyday life and celebrations of the people in Finland. They are practised by people of all ages, in different corners of Finland. And yes, they are very much alive! \nAll of the Nordic countries have ratified the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Web-based inventories have been created in all of them to make it possible for strong standing of grass-roots communities to create more awareness for their ICH and to dig deeper into safeguarding. This paper looks more closely on the example of Finland with its Wiki-Inventory for Living Heritage. As a good example of Nordic cooperation, the web platform Nordic Safeguarding Practices is introduced.

It is imperative that the material development of a country be linked with cultural development. Such cultural development should pave the way to develop an integral citizen with knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes enabling him or her to appreciate and honor others’ traditions and beliefs. If not, material development and the connected technology will create an inhumane and disoriented person bent on disruption. A rejuvenated man from contemporary cultural decadence will be created through proper educational methods, righteous religious philosophy, true mass media application, and appropriate arts and cultural practices and applications. Janakaraliya drama and theater arts program primarily supports the development of a proper education system and application of arts and cultural practices.

Bread making is more than a culinary tradition: it is an integral part of the Austrian Lesach Valley’s cultural heritage, which carries aesthetic, symbolic, and religious value for the community of the valley. Rituals, customs, and personal stories constitute the nature of the element and illustrate the high significance of the practice for the region.

Nagorik Uddyog (NU) was founded in 1995 by a group of nationally and internationally renowned Bangladeshi human rights activists and academics aiming to promote good gover- nance, access to justice, and the institutionalization of democracy at the local and national level. In the beginning, the organization worked on voter education programs and raised awareness among women that they could claim their rights from local government institutions and from the community. In this awareness-raising initiative, community cultural heritage properties like the Baul folk songs were used and earned immense popularity. Over a period of time, NU extended its activities across the country with specific focus on the rights of marginalized people, especially Dalit rights, land and human rights of Indigenous peoples, and access to justice for rural communities.

Globalization, the age of information, and a prime era of technology where cultures and meanings collide—it is strange how we often find ourselves disorientated with it all, the local versus the global, the familiar versus the foreign. Just so, the narrative surrounding Vietnam has quite a “foreign” presence among the international audience, and even domestically to some degree. The first images people think of when it comes to Vietnam are perhaps the war, or maybe they’d focus on the cuisine and natural scenery thanks to the effort of tourism footage in more recent years. The image is either of the country’s trauma-bound identity or a paradise land of amazing landscapes. While not entirely wrong, those narratives don’t fully reflect the complexity of a Vietnam that was, is, and will be. Telling a diverse and complex Vietnamese story in an honest and caring manner is one of the goals of Cultura Fish; it’s a direct result of our very lived experiences of interacting with our peers from across the globe and within the country.

The 2003 Convention UNESCO encouraged the involvement of non-governmental organizations in the efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritage (ICH hereafter) on the national and international levels. More specifically, the text of Convention indicates that NGOs along with other stakeholders should assist government entities in identifying and defining the ICH at the national level. In addition, to the extent NGOs are accredited by UNESCO (accredited NGO hereafter), their support and counsel in the implementation of the Convention internationally and assistance in the gathering of information about ICH was envisioned by the Committee.2 Under this guiding principle, the Korean government is expected to facilitate the participation of NGOs in the process of identifying and defining the ICH. On the other hand, NGOs should also be active in assisting the government and ‘communities, groups, and individuals’3 in the implementation of the safeguarding plans for the ICH. In this paper I will examine the current situation of NGOs in Korea, including two accredited NGOs and present the tentative guidelines regarding the empowering principles of NGOs.

In China, inventory making is at the core of its legal system on intangible cultural heritage safeguarding today. China’s classification, application, and administration are very different to those in Korea and Japan.