As in other societies, the family may be the smallest social unit but holds the highest priority in Kyrgyz culture, so the making of a family is very important in Kyrgyzstan. This is why in Kyrgyz society wedding ceremony is an important event. The Kyrgyz traditional wedding requires an understanding of soiko saluu, kyz uzatuu, kalym, sep beruu, and nikahh kyiuu among others.\n\nThe traditional Kyrgyz engagement ceremonies include the following. The kuda tushuu tradition is the compulsory visit of the groom’s family to the bride’s house where the bride receives a pair of golden earrings (soiko saluu) from the groom’s family for the official engagement. In addition, the groom’s family needs to pay kalym (bride price); it can be in the form of either money or livestock. Moreover, there is kiyit kiygizuu (a gift exchange) of mostly clothes, between the bride’s and groom’s family. These are all the of the Kyrgyz people.\n\nAfter, there is the kyz uzatuu tradition, a custom to say goodbye to the bride by holding a feast and preparing sep (dowry). Accordingly, the bride is taken to groom’s house through a special rite and respect. However, the practice of ala kachuu (bride kidnaping without the bride’s consent) is not part of Kyrgyz traditions. Traditionally, bride kidnapping meant an arranged marriage when a loving couple agreed to marry but the bride’s parents were against the marriage. In today’s Kyrgyz traditions, however, the understanding of bride kidnapping is very much distorted. Therefore, the practice is illegal, which leads to criminal liabilities. A legal and socially acceptable Kyrgyz traditional wedding incorporates rituals in which the bride and groom marry with respect and honor.\n\nOther wedding customs and rituals are performed in the groom’s house, where the official celebration takes place, such as welcoming the bride and displaying her dowry. The groom’s family present a white scarf to the bride as a symbol of blessing. The bride usually spends several days behind koshogo (curtain) while the visitors come and present different scarfs to see the new bride. Lastly, in the nike kiyuu tradition, a Muslim ceremony, the mullah reads a prayer and asks the couple of their consent to marry.\n\nNowadays, a mix of traditional and western styles of wedding is common in Kyrgyz society, incorporating decorated cars, visits in famous sites, and a feast in restaurants.\n\nPhoto : Kyrgyz Wedding Rites. Inspection by the Groom. Circa 1860s. by Aleksandr L. Kun, 1840-1888

Nepal, like most nations, has its own distinct cultural, ethnic, and bio-diverse makeup. The richness of Nepal’s centuries old art, crafts, and culture abounds the alleys and courtyards of Kathmandu. Arts and crafts have long been a part of Nepalese livelihoods and lifestyles. Today these arts and crafts have become precious commodities—souvenirs and antiquities for collectors. Still hundreds of thousands of people create masterpieces as part of their livelihood. Acknowledging the importance of arts and crafts in Nepal, many Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) have been working to preserve and promote art, crafts, and culture as a means of sustainable livelihood for people practicing fair trade (FT).

The Azerbaijani Carpet Makers Union (ACMU), founded in January 2010, is a voluntary self-governmental public association of citizens rallied to support Azerbaijani carpet weaving.The ACMU seeks to promote a revival of the powerful spiritual heritage of carpets, the national traditions of the Azerbaijani people, a consolidation of the creative potential of seen figures of society and culture, support for talented children and youth, and creative carpet dynasties. The purpose of the ACMU is also to convey objective information about the unique national culture, rich historical heritage, and diversity of the carpet art of Azerbaijan to the international community.

The similar actions in fairytales, epics, and dastan of Altaians, Tatars, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, and other Turkic-speaking people, shows that the Uzbek dastan “Alpamysh,” as a creation of Turkic oral folk art, has a long history. In other nations, it is called “Alpamys,” “Alpamiros Botir,” “Alyp-manash,” “Alpamsha,” “Alpamysh,” and “Barchin Hiluv.”

"1. Introduction: Safeguarding ICH through a Designation System\nSimilar to other countries, the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of Korea, which embodies Korean cultural identity, is now facing the threat of transformation and disappearance as a result of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation over the last several decades. In light of this threat, Korea enacted institutional safeguarding measures for intangible cultural heritage beginning with the establishment of the Cultural Properties Protection Act in 1962. \nThe Cultural Properties Protection Act defines ICH as cultural manifestations of intangible nature with high historical and artistic significance, such as theatrical and musical performing arts as well as crafts and skills. The act, furthermore, distinguishes ICH into two different groups: Important Intangible Cultural Property, designated by the state, and Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage, designated by local or regional governments. The number of items listed as Important Intangible Cultural Properties was 7 in 1964, and by 2011, this amount expanded to 114, and the number of Provincial Intangible Cultural Properties is 446. \nThe overriding principle for all activities involved in protecting and managing cultural properties and reviving them as living culture is preserving these heritage elements in their original forms. \nHowever, in the case of ICH, due to their very nature of existing and being transmitted orally, they are especially vulnerable and endangered in today’s quickly evolving, industrialised and urbanised society. Ensuring their continuity over time is accordingly more challenging and requires active intervention. \nTherefore, state and local governments select and designate categories of ICH more severely threatened than others by the changing environment, and provide support for transmission activities by Holders and transmitters of skills and the arts to guarantee the continuity of traditions and the cultural identity of the nation. "

Laos is host to a diversity of cultures, traditions, and arts. While the handicraft heritage of the country, such as textile production, is widely promoted, documented, and commercialized, its rich musical traditions remain largely unknown and underestimated. The same could be said of its built heritage – much work and funding has gone into stabilizing or renovating architecture and buildings, particularly religious sites of national importance. Intangible cultural traditions, such as how to sing traditional songs, how to make instruments, and how to play certain instruments, are being left by the wayside. Due to its specific topography and the variety of ethnic groups inhabiting Laos, the country hosts an impressive diversity of musical styles. Singing is the most common form of musical expression in Laos. Traditional popular songs are called “khap” in the north and “lam” in the south. Traditional singing of Laos (khap-lam) is also used as symbol of ethnic identity, as each group has its own melodic model or musical style. While a rich knowledge exists about music, it is rarely explicitly verbalized, as most musical practices are implicitly learned through processes of listening/observation and imitation. Today, however, documenting and safeguarding this ancestral knowledge is urgent, as new media and changing social mores lead to changes in traditional mechanisms of transmission.

Bhutan’s rich cultural heritage embraces different traditional musical instruments that have been created and developed over the years and used since the beginning of Bhutan’s origination. Consequently, in tandem the lingm (flute), pi-wang (fiddle), dra-nyen (guitar), and yang-chen (harp) popularly form elements of Bhutanese music among various indigenous instruments.

Vietnam has various forms of tug-of-war (kéo co). The characteristics of each form are defined by the ethnic group practicing as well as the location in which the games are performed. While practiced throughout the country, tugging rituals and games are concentrated mostly in the northern midlands, the Red River Delta, and the north central region, the ancient land of the Viet and the cradle of the native wet rice culture and Red River civilization. In addition, the games are played widely by ethnic minorities, such as the Tay, Thai, Giay, La Ha, and H’Mong, in the northern mountains.

Chak-ka-yer or tug-of-war is one of the oldest traditional team games of Thailand. It is believed that chak-ka-yer derived from imitating the work of humans pulling a trolley with a heavy load, the behaviors of bulls, buffaloes, or elephants in pulling heavy things, and a Buddhist ceremony called Chak-Phra, in which a Buddha image is placed on a beautifully decorated cart and pulled in a procession so that people pay respect to the Buddha image as it rolled by.

My initial research among Lach community in Lac Duong town, Lam Dong province, Vietnam started with my participation in a project entitled “Establishment of associated mechanisms for conservation of landscape biodiversity and cultural space in Lang Biang Biosphere Reserve, Vietnam,” headed by Southern Institute of Ecology (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology) in 2016. The project was successful to some extent in documenting characteristics of cultural spaces of ethnic peoples in the region and the reality of these spaces’ conservation in close relationship with that of biodiversity. Noticeably, being a world heritage, gongs cultural space was recognized as one of the crucial elements constituting the entire cultural spaces and cultural identity of local ethnic groups in the region and thus recorded as being imperative for conservative strategies and actions. These preliminary conceptualizations attracted me as an anthropologist to explore further insights into the socio-economic and cultural life of the Lach in the context of their daily life from 2017 to 2018. \n\nAs the people have been taking more active parts in their national and international integration, their social and economic spaces get expanded, adjusted and re-created. So are their cultural spaces in general and gongs cultural space in specific. This paper is to explore local gongs clubs of the Lach in Lac Duong town and gongs culture restoration activities at the parish church of Langbiang to reveal the fact that gongs cultural spaces of the Lach are far from static, fixed and in need of reservation. Rather, they are dynamic, inclusive and on the process of continuous meaning making as the result of the people utilizing their agency in creating initiatives and mechanism to practice their culture and transfer it to next generations. It is implied that by ways of local participation and community based training, cultural heritage can be prolonged and perpetuated itself alive.

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

A growing interest in cultural heritage by the corporate sector has offered new opportunities to safeguard, protect, and present both tangible and intangible heritage. Through strategic investments of capital, expertise, and technology into the cultural sector, corporations offer an opportunity to revitalize a sector beleaguered with precarious government funding and unpredictable public support. Nicholas Pozek stressed that the cultural sector must continue to approach the commoditization and commodification of cultural goods with skepticism.