Recently, the word yu san seul, which commonly refers to a Chinese dish, has become more common in Korea after popular comedian Jae-seok Yu debuted as a trot singer under the stage name Yoo San-seul. Trot music, which was the exclusive property of older generations, is now appealing to the audience of all ages. The recent trot craze has been heated through Hangout with Yoo (a reality TV show produced by Yoo San-seul) and various trot audition programs. Traditional cultural contents, once viewed as boring and old-fashioned, are now not just bringing memories to the elderly but also catching on among younger people who are interested in newness through diverse media outlets.\n\nLikewise, ssireum, Korea’s folk wrestling and traditional culture, is gaining huge popularity among young generations. Ssireum was an extremely popular sport in the 1980s and 1990s, but it slowly lost much of its former glory and became a mere folk game that barely kept itself in existence as a holiday sport. In 2018, in recognition of its value, ssireum was jointly inscribed by North and South Korea on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. However, it still failed to draw public attention, as there were old stereotypes about traditional sports and modern audiences already turned their backs on the traditional wrestling. Then, the variety program Joy of Ssireum has rekindled people’s interest in the sport. The ssireum arena is filled with spectators of all ages who are carrying placards of their favorite contestants. It seems like the ssireum fandom is no less than idols. In other words, ssireum is seeing its resurgence as an enjoyable and entertaining form of traditional sport. It is also expected to contribute to the inheritance and development of various other traditional sports.\n\nThanks to easily accessible media channels, our traditions are effectively transformed into original cultural contents that attract almost as much attention as in the past. Public attention is essential for the transmission and development of traditional culture. Now that ‘retro’ pop culture is in, this could be a good turning point for traditional cultural contents.\n\nPhoto : Ssireum, Korea's folk wrestling Ⓒ ShutterStock

The food we eat is an important part of culture. It is also an expression of community identity. As American folklorist Millie Rahn writes, The kitchen, historically, is the place where families gather and where the everyday and the ceremonial meet and overlap. Here families interact and share private traditions, expressing identity through their food to each other and to the world. Creativity is alive in this space, from daily mealtimes to more elaborate feasts that mark rites of passage, religious and secular holidays, and other special events. This is where knowledge is passed on, from traditional ways of preparing and using various ingredients, implements, tools, and techniques to legends, stories, anecdotes, and cultural exchanges that have become part of familial and regional folklife. We all eat, and associate different layers of cultural meaning to the food we consume. Explorations of food, then, can be an easy conduit into the complex world of intangible cultural heritage. This article gives several examples from the safeguarding initiatives of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador that have used foodways as a means to get people thinking about, and engaged with, concepts of cultural transmission and heritage conservation.

The Kyrgyz komuz is a national musical instrument. Traditionally, komuz was made from a single piece of wood. The instrument has three strings, which were traditionally made from dried ram innards, but in modern times, fishing lines are often used instead.

This article contains a brief summary of the major traditional wrestling styles that have been preserved by local populations in Central Asia, namely Turkmen goresh; Tajik gushtingiri; Uzbek kurash; Kazakh kuresi, and Balban kurosh. Each of these sports are considered as traditional wrestling styles, recognized at national level, while some of them have gained popularity at international level. Promotion of such national sports provides an opportunity to share national values and highlight national identity through intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

Intangible cultural heritage is one of the most unprotected forms of artistic heritage. Nowadays, in the globalization environment where different cultures exist and interact, intangible cultural heritage requires our special attention. For Tajikistan, the first victory of efforts put forth toward safeguarding ICH was the acknowledgement of Shashmaqom as a masterpiece of human intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.

According to CIOFF policy, an international folklore festival will be fully accomplished as a meeting place for cultures when it is organized in the spirit of friendship and promoting a culture of peace. ICH is an excellent culture inherited over generations, a source of cultural development, and a manifestation of cultural diversity. The new management mechanism realizes the integration of ICH and tourism. The launch of “One Belt and One Road” strategy actually provides an important strategic opportunity for the protection and development of ICH. At the beginning of a new civilization cycle, to open a new window of civilization with people of the world. While there are four main cradles of civilization, which, moving from East to West, are China, India, the Fertile Crescent, and the Mediterranean, specially Greece and Italy, India deserves a larger share of credit because it has deeply affected the cultural life of most of Asia. India has also extended her influence, directly and indirectly, to other parts of the world.\n\nAn International Folklore Festival is one of the means to safeguard, to promote and to diffuse ICH, mainly through such genres of expressions as music, dance, games, rituals, customs, know-how of handicraft and other arts. To be a significant contribution to the maintenance and enhancement of cultural identity and diversity, a folklore festival has to be implemented in an appropriate cultural context. The reflections presented aim to develop a pertinent cultural context in existing and in new international folklore festivals. The following items constitute and describe what CIOFF sees as important elements of the term cultural context.

The custom of traditional Japanese tug-of-war, or tsunahiki (綱引), can be outlined as follows:\n\n• It is practiced on different annual events, such as Ko-syogatsu (小正月), or New Year celebration around 15 January according to the lunar calendar), Obon festival (盆)celebrated around 15 August, the Boys’ Festival on 5 May (端午節句), or the fifteenth night of August of the lunar calendar (八月十五夜).\n• The tug-of-war ropes are made of either straw, kaya (kind of cogon grass often used as traditional roofing materials), or shobu (菖蒲 or sweet sedge).\n• A village is divided into two groups of farming and fishing areas, eastern and west-ern areas, and upstream and downstream areas, and in some cases, the two groups are subdivided into smaller groups such as children and young adults as well as men and women.\n• The rope is tugged by these groups, or dragged around, slammed against the ground, or sometimes cut into pieces.\n• The purpose of this traditional event is said to forecast the volume of the coming harvest, to ward off evil spirits, or to pray for a peaceful life.

“A man in Pamir, from birth to death, is accompa- nied by all sorts of family and everyday rites and customs. In many traditions, including the prepa- ration and use of food, traces of deep geographical and climatic isolation are clearly visible.The Pamir highlanders who lived in closeness with their nature had a great culture, rich in traditions, cults, customs which created humane framework of actions in relation to wildlife. Cultural values and practices re- lated to caring for nature at the same time supported the life of the mountain peoples. This culture has become the main priority for the effective,reasonable and rational use of wildlife resources.Such behavior not only contributed to the survival of the mountain population in the most severe climatic conditions, but also became the main factor in the conservation of wild fauna and flora.

Since 2014, NGOs has been playing an important, if not decisive, role in ICH safeguarding, and the UNESCO Convention 2003 was implemented in Ukraine. The development center “Democracy through Culture,” the independent think-and-do tank engaged in cultural policy issues, including cultural heritage, took a core part in preparing the periodic report of Ukraine on the implementation of the Convention 2003 (approved at the eleventh session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in Addis Ababa, in 2016) and coordination of all stakeholders.

Throughout the years, I have been researching Korean recreational activ-ities, and among them, the tug-of-war was definitely the most central theme. According to my research, the Korean tug-of-war has many different fea-tures following the different regional characteristics, but they also have similar patterns. Although it is possible to speculate that the diverse characteristics of each region’s tug-of-war is due to the area’s geo-ecological, sociocultural, and magi-co-religious factors and culture exchange, it is difficult to prove these factors in depth. Thus, this paper examines the diverse features present in the tug-of-war through studies completed up to now. Also I would like to add that the only intent for the tug-of-war studies was to compile and examine them in this report. Despite many methods in examining the diversity of tug-of-war, this paper sets a few standards to reveal the present features, and with these standards, the meaning of Korean tug-of-war can be understood.

The joint inscription of Traditional Korean wrestling (Ssiruem/Ssirum) of 2018 was the first-ever and the only joint inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. This inscription was decided by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of ICH on an exceptional basis. It demonstrated “the extraordinary strength of cultural heritage for a vehicle of peace and dialogue.” The course of the joint inscription was neither smooth nor ordinary. The nominations were submitted and evaluated separately and submitted initially to different cycles. However, the apparent characteristics of a shared heritage were included in both nominations, leading to the joint inscription.

Based on a common geographical environment, the people of East Asia share a similar sense of the seasons and have been sharing the seasonal festival traditions for many years, which to a certain degree has brought commonality to their experience of heritage. The seasonal festival traditions in East Asia have a localized form of expression and common features.2) They all attach importance to seasonal nodes such as the Mid-Autumn Festival, Half of July, April Eight, and the Twenty-four Solar Terms. They value family ethics in the practice of festivals and share Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist cultural traditions, with emphasis on “red-hot sociality.” As they collectively enjoy seasonal festivities, they continue creating arts-related activities around these festivals and transmitting their heritage values to the younger generation. East Asia's practices of seasonal festival traditions are both a manifestation of cultural diversity and cultural sharing. This presentation will discuss the sharing, sustaining, and collaborative safeguarding f East Asian Seasonal Festivals as ICH.