Boysun district, in southern Uzbekistan, has a beautiful natural landscape and is surrounded by a mountain range. The local environment and geographic isolation created favorable conditions for unique local intangible cultural heritage forms and expressions to form and be preserved over time. The same conditions also led to the existence of various types of labor activities, such as agriculture, cattle breeding, and handicrafts.

In mid-April every year, Sri Lankans celebrate the Sinhala and Hindu New Year with distinctive rituals that fuse Hindu and Buddhist elements. With the introduction of Buddhism in the third century BCE, traditional Hindu New Year rituals were reinterpreted. While historians and sociologists believe these rituals were closely related to sun worship because they coincided with ancient myths about the sun moving from one celestial house to another—the major rituals today embody a sense of cultural heredity and tradition.

In Turkmenistan, the national inventory of intangible cultural property comprises five domains: oral expression, beliefs, performing arts, craftsmanship, and traditional knowledge. Epics belong in the division of oral expression. More than ten elements have been identified in this field, including epics such as Gorogly, Shasenem and Garip, Zokhre and Takhir, Khuyrlukga and Khemra, Sayatly Khemra, Asly Kerem, Arzy-Gambar, Khatamnama, Warka-Gulsha, Kasym oglan Melike-Dilaram, Nejep oglan, and Tulum Hoja. The epic Gorogly holds an especially important position among Turkmen epics.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet country, lies in the heart of the Tien Shan Mountain Range and the mountains of Ala-Too in Central Asia. This small country is mostly inhabited by the once-nomadic Kyrgyz people who take great pride in their whitecap mountains and ancient culture.

The Turkmenistan intangible cultural property comprises five domains that are summarised below:\n\n1. Oral expressions - oral folklore\n2. Traditions, customs and people’s beliefs\n3. Traditional performing arts\n4. Traditional craftsmanship\n5. Traditional knowledge\n\nEpics are included in the ‘oral traditions’ section. By now more than 10 elements have been identified in this field, including such epics as Gorogly, Shasenem and Garip, Zokhre and Takhir, Khuyrlukga and Khemra, Sayatly Khemra, Asly Kerem, Arzy-Gambar, hatamnama, Warka-Gulsha, Kasym oglan, Melike-Dilaram, Nejep oglan and Tulum Hoja. Gorogly occupies a special position among the abovementioned range of epics.

The Miao people are a linguistically and culturally related ethnic group who settled in the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan, and Guangxi. While the Miao are disbursed over a large area and are subdivided into several different branches, they share a common heritage element called the circle dance. Often accompanied by a lusheng (a bamboo musical instrument), the circle dance is the most important dance and the most popular among all Miao branches. The wood drum dance is popular among the Fanpai Miao in Taijiang County, Guizhou province.

The unforeseen global pandemic of Covid-19 is having a long-term, hard-hitting impact on life and living, and lockdowns, fear, and uncertainty have been evoking different types of survival responses from different sections of people. Discussions abound on proper physical and emotional well-being, good governance, positivity, and humane support towards each other, from the family to global communities. At the same time, this pervasive crippling of humankind has also raised wide-spread consciousness and efforts towards responsible living, sustainability, resilience, happiness, creativity, and local action.

The period of cultural awakening in Central Asia, which began in the Middle Ages six hundred years before the European countries, facilitated the development of a large group of genius scientists whose names were written in gilded letters in the annals of world history. One such genius is Abu Ali Ibn Sina, who blessed creativity on almost all fields of science and raised medicine to great heights. During the time of Abu Ali Ibn Sina (known in Europe as Avicenna), medicine in the Central Asia region reached perfection in all respects. It was strongly influenced by Greek, Roman, Jewish, Syrian, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, and Indian medicine, among which the ancient scientific and practical manual Avesta was the main point in this maturation process.\n

ICCN, Interurban Cooperation Network for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, is an international organization of local governments and cultural institutions which includes 31 states, 29 cities and 34 associations. Its main objective is the protection of the intangible cultural heritage around the world and the promotion of sustainable local development. Moreover, it also seeks to achieve cultural peace through mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue between the different populations that are part of it. Julio Nacher shared some good examples of cultural events that successfully held in pandemic situation.

Traditional Indonesian batik was listed by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 2 October 2009. The unique and exquisite designs created by the artistic minds of citizens centuries ago, express their reverence to life and nature by painting cloth with symbols and characters bearing the philosophies of life.

Laos is aware that culture is the foundation for a nation’s survival. At the same time, culture is considered a driving force and end target for social development. A Lao proverb says, ‘culture proves nationality, and behavior proves social standing (of someone), so to lose culture means to lose the nation (population)’. Based on this consciousness and belief, the Lao government generally considers cultural affairs as the basis for formulating policies and strategies to preserve, promote, and develop national culture. A recent and noticeable achievement by the Ministry of Information and Culture can be seen in the organization’s growing success in promoting and expanding ‘the cultural family model’ and ‘the cultural village model’ within communities nationwide.

The artistic world of traditional culture of Central Asian peoples is determined by contents that lie in certain historical periods and, at the same time, remain outside history. Contemporary science allows us to study the originality of the art of people in Central Asia, which is important for an objective reconstruction of the general picture of the art’s evolution. Historical and social changes cannot be studied without a clear understanding of cultural integrity and the perception of the artistic laws of culture and its context in this or that socio-historical period.