According to the oral traditions of the Cook Islands, sacred rituals were commonly performed on what is known as a marae or sacred ground. Each tribe has its own marae where ceremonies such as offerings of prayers, tributes to the gods and the induction of traditional titles on family members were once carried out. It also acted as a meeting place for important tribal matters.

Co-orgarnized by ICHCAP and Hue Monuments Conservation Centre (HMCC), this year’s Asia-Pacific ICH NGO Conference was held in Hue, Vietnam under the theme of ICH NGOs towards Sustainable Development of Communities.

Discourse about intangible cultural heritage is anchored on the question of memory, which has become a topic of great interest today not only within academia but also in popular culture. America’s newfound taste for cupcakes and macaroni and cheese, for instance, is not so much about society’s gastronomic craving for these foods, as it is about society’s craving for history and the comfort of things past. In essence, it is about restorative nostalgia and the memories that these foods evoke and make possible through the imaginary. Our preoccupation with memory and remembering, in large part, is driven by our recognition of the fragility of memory, a fragility that is underscored by this age of mass displacement in which we live. As the Iranian American writer Roya Hakakian notes in her recent memoir, “When you have been a refugee, abandoned all your loves and belongings, your memories become your belongings.” In a world where over 80 million people are currently forcibly displaced, amounting to one person being forcibly dislodged from his or her home and lifeways approximately every two seconds, dislocation, uprooting, and rupture are as much a facet of our lived experience as are connectivity and interdependence. Exilic condition is an unfortunate but undeniable feature of modernity.\nEven within living memory, Asia has had her share of tumultuous histories. Colonization, conflict, war, and other calamities have engendered mass dispersal. Over 2 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians fled their homelands in the aftermath of war, revolution and genocide, and many more Southeast Asians continue to be displaced in varied contexts and conditions as we speak. The genocide in Cambodia left deep wounds and ravaging effects on the cultural memories of the nation that is now bifurcated between Asia and the diaspora. Even without the trauma of war and mass atrocities, globalization, modernization, and urbanization have progressively divested traditional knowledge of its merits, and peripheralized certain memories into oblivion.

Learning oral epic traditions means learning people’s lifestyle, traditions, customs and history, their present and future, their way of thinking and their spirit. Specifically, it means understanding the originality of a nation, its qualities, wishes, way of living and outlook or, in other words, learning the oral traditions of a nation means to study the nation itself. The process of modernising our present morals depends on how we have studied literary heritage, including the originality and degree of mythology in oral epic traditions. For this, initially we need to learn, investigate and research ancient mythological imaginations of our people and their oral narrative traditions, which are the base for art and literature. Oral epic works present the literary history of any nation.

The Republic of Fiji is home to a multitude of cultures and traditions. In 2013, Fiji’s new Constitution was promulgated designating that all ethnicities that make Fiji their home be called “Fijians”. This includes the following:\n\n ‘iTaukei’ or indigenous Fijians;\n Rotuman people (a minority indigenous group);\n Indians who were mostly descendants of indentured laborers in Fiji;\n Pacific Islanders who were descendant of labourers in Fiji such as Ni-Vanuatu and Solomon Islanders;\n Descendants of early migrants to Fiji (Chinese, Indians, European/Australian/American &s Traders, Sailors and Beachcombers)\n Descendants of Banabans (Ocean Islanders) now known as Rabi Islanders.\n Descendants of Tuvaluans (Vaitupu Islanders) now known as Kioa Islanders.\n\nFiji therefore has a unique array of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), and if one was to ask what would be a representative ICH of all Fijians, there is none as each ethnic group is distinctively diverse and each practice their own form of ICH which are far most different from another.

Chinese martial arts present a unique combination of bare-handed and armed fighting with calisthenics, breathing exercises, meditation techniques, and elements of traditional Chinese medicine. It was in the late imperial period of Chinese history (the Ming and Qing dynasties, 1368–1912) that folk hand combat became a multifaceted system with features that go beyond the narrow framework of mere fighting. The surviving textual sources attest that during the Ming–Qing transition period, martial arts were perceived by many practitioners as a religious practice. Daoists and Buddhists alike often turned to hand- combat training in striving to achieve various religious goals, be it spiritual enlightenment or immortality. However, as recently discovered textual evidence suggests, it was Chinese local religion that disclosed the most intimate relations to martial arts practice.\nAn inseparable part of Chinese culture, the Chinese hand-combat tradition was (and still is) deeply rooted in rural life, and manifested itself in a particularly vivid way in the religious customs and ritualistic activities of the Chinese village. Chinese local religion, a highly intricate system in its own right, contains an evident martial element. For example, it is strongly believed that the employment of direct physical force against malevolent supernatural powers is not only possible but is sometimes as effective as any other ritual protective means, such as (spells) and (talismans). The folk belief that humans can best evil spirits with their bare hands is reflected in literary sources as early as the fourth

First, What areas are included in East Asia? This article deals with East Asian printing technology so it is necessary to give a thought on the area where printing technoloy was developed in pre-modern times. Even though there are differences depending on the order of time, countries where printing technology has developed are China and its neighboring countries such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Therefore, this article aims to look into characteristics in these countries, grouping them into East Asia category.\nSecond, what is the scope of printing technology? Printing is the technology for mass copy of texts. Human civilization of copying texts has evolved from oral transmission to transcription, from transcription to printing, from printing to digital copying. It has been only thousand years since printing began to be used in human society in earnest. Social needs drove a development of new technology, and craftsmen who has assimilated its knowledge and skills created new things. In other words, intangible needs and technology produced new tangible things. Diagraming of printing technology is as follows;\nSocial needs for printing → Craftsman and Technology → Woodblock or Movable - Type → Books\nIn this article, we will examine why printing technique was needed and what its social background in each area was, focusing on woodblocks and movable-type, two representative methods of printing technology in pre modern times.\n

Harmony, social cohesion, integrity, peace and tranquility and unity are; all outcome of good social networking system with core human value. And negative impacts are also inevitable if it is the organization’s aim and objective. But, information-sharing is the fundamental prerequisite for the aforementioned subject as it is a key ingredient for organizations seeking to remain competitive and dynamic. Ever since the human beings had entered the threshold of civilization, the tradition of networking had evolved simultaneously. The historical records explicitly exhibit unbelievable information of both tangible and intangible records. For example; tangible cultural heritage– the figures of the Seven Wonders of the World and the intangible accounts- the imperial figures, legends and myths living even today are the outcome of social networking system. Had there been no networking system, there may not be anything recorded at present but, unless someone has extraordinary capabilities or god-like strength and power.

"In a region as geographically immense and culturally diverse as the Pacific, intangible cultural heritage must be seen in terms of diverse worldviews, each with its own knowledge system and philosophy of life that structures and informs. This section addresses how intangible cultural heritage is reflected through specific cultural worldviews. As specific and unique as they are, however, each Pacific worldview can be seen as having a commonality structured by three dimensions: the spiritual, the physical, and the afterlife or ancestral realm. \nDespite their commonalities, the themes in this section still represent Pacific elements of knowing, philosophy, governance, and wisdom that sculpt life from vastly unique perspectives. The Tongan concept of heliaki, for instance, is not just a knowledge of language and prose, but rather a construct through which the Tongans build views about themselves and their interactions as well as the hierarchy within their society. In a similar way, Palauan place names are much more than words to mark locations; they are capsules of knowledge, events, and history that help the Palauan people identify themselves and their connections to one another. In these and the other themes in this section, the included values incorporate how the Pacific peoples perceive reality and interconnectedness and how their knowledge has shaped their worlds."

In my earliest, groggiest memories, I can recall waking up to the ticking burner of a gas stove, the gurgle of a Bialetti cafetière beginning to boil, the grinding gears of a coffee machine crushing each bean to a fine powder, magic dust that became the first sip of the morning. To those who grew up in Italian households, rackety espresso mornings (and afternoons and evenings) echo memories of childhood, grandparents’ houses, or the kitchens of countless cousins. As a result of memories like this of an upbringing deeply infused with Italian culture, I feel Italian right down to my bones. I have Calabrian blood, brown eyes, Sicilian skin, an Italian passport; but I was born and raised far from the Mediterranean.\n\nMy grandparents moved to Canada in a wave of immigration of young people from all over post-war Italy to North America. In the decades that followed, European and Asian immigrants blew like dandelion fluffs across the vast Canadian landscape, rooting themselves into the fabric of a now very multicultural nation. Those seeds planted so many communities like my own, homegrown by expatriates in the image of the cultures and lifestyles they carried with them across the sea. There are so many people like me, the sons and daughters and grandchildren of that first generation, who still speak and act and cook and live under their influence.\n\nMy associations with morning coffee are a simple example of a wider tendency within us all: each person senses and conceptualizes the world according to their unique cocktail of intimate personal experiences. Comfortingly, our senses are pre-programed, predisposed towards the semblance of where we come from, what we grew up doing. But our origins stretch far beyond the place in which we grew up and the family that reared us, especially when many of our generation, born during waves of migration and globalization, grew up between countries and continents, or at least with distant homelands close at heart. We became who we are in a multitude of places.\n\nThese are the circumstances under which the process of self-identification becomes even more difficult than it already is. For those with scorched origins, those who understand dialects spoken but never written, those christened with names that the next-door neighbors of displaced homes couldn’t pronounce, unpacking one’s cultural identity is no easy feat. We are left to grapple with the conflicting inferences of how we look, what passports we hold, what language it feels most natural to curse in.\n\nHow can we possibly know who we are when there’s no singular trace of where exactly we come from? What is it that makes a person associate with a culture and consider their own? What permits them to wear that badge of identity rightfully? Is it a matter of language or lifestyle or geography or genealogy or gastronomy? Need it be justified and by whom?\n\nI would argue that following a distinct checklist of prerequisites in the interest of culturally profiling ourselves and others is surely one of the reasons so many of us feel so mixed up about who we are. Humans are messy beings and we live messy, sprawling lives. And the ongoing identity crisis within us all, especially those who can’t exactly pinpoint where we come from, simply won’t be solved by the validation by any number of other people.\n\nThe only broad response I can put forward is something like the cliché usually used in reference to relationships: when you know, you know. Each of us just knows what makes us feel at home, connected to who we are. We can feel, sense, hear, see and smell it all around us. We sweep our eyes across a room and a slideshow of recollected images play behind our eyes. Certain words bowl off of our tongues more easily than others in second and third languages because they are quotations of a linguistic background unique to each of us, selected from the dialogues of our entire lives. We might find ourselves at home with the landscapes and humidity levels and smells that resemble the setting of our grandparents’ stories rather than our own memories. Wherever we end up, wherever they might be, we are all painfully, inevitably connected to our origins. Our tie to them is a cord that can’t be cut, one that stretches with our efforts to pull away and always offers enough give to coax us back to the source.\n\nRead more from Issabella on cultural heritage and thoughtful travel at www.museandwander.co.uk.\n\nPhoto : Word cloud © Shutterstock / Tupungato

In this new century, barriers are falling, customs are changing, and yet, there is a core of meaning, of affect, of memory that people refuse to give up. In this flowing and foaming world, people rush towards the new at the same time that they want to cling to meanings and shared experiences with others. Why? Because sharing gives them a sense of self and of identity in an open world. When such bonds are lost, their need is keenly felt, psychologically and politically, as is very evident in the world today. It was the concern over this loss in the turmoil of globalization that led Member States to give UNESCO the mandate to generate actions for the protection of living culture. This was indeed a tall order, and one that led to fascinating intellectual and political meanders. At the beginning of the nineties, the “cultural turn” in world politics and the rise of representational claims had led to new ways of understanding cultural flows in terms of “worlding”—that is, creating a new cosmopolitical vision of the world based on cultural heritage, human rights, and democracy. People in nations, cultural enclaves, ethnic groups, diasporas, and recently emerged cultural groups began to mobilize to position themselves differently in the new world order. Through a deliberative process, the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was successful in proposing a new concept for the recasting of relationships among nations, culture bearers, creators, and stakeholders.

In this new century, barriers are falling, customs are changing, and yet there is a core of meaning, of affect, of memory that people refuse to give up. In this flowing and foaming world, people rush towards the new, at the same time that they want to cling to meanings and shared experiences with other. Why? Because this sharing gives them a sense of self and of identity in an open world. The loss of such references are keenly felt, psychologically and politically, as is very evident in the world today