The Andong region has many highly renowned historic and cultural sites, such as Hahoe Village, however, the major cultural attraction of the region is the Andong International Mask Dance Festival.

In Hungduan, Ifugao, three communities—Hapao, Baang, and Nungulunan—observe three post-harvest rituals, collectively known as huowah. Punnuk, an intense tugging match in the Hapao River, is the last of the three rituals.

The Cultural Heritage Administration selected ‘mask dance of Korea’ as its 2020 nomination for UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during a joint meeting of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee and the World Heritage Division of the Cultural Heritage Committee, which was held on 6 December 2019. Regarding the nomination, the International Mask Arts & Culture Organization (IMACO) held a research presentation and an international academic symposium on 20 and 21 December in collaboration with Andong City, Korea.\n\nHere, ‘mask dance of Korea’ refers to a kind of drama performed while wearing masks with different local features. It is a comprehensive folk art that encompasses a variety of elements, including singing, dance, dramatic content, and costumes. Korean mask dance is a novel form of expressing the thoughts and feelings of the people, and it truly mesmerizes the audience with diverse characters and dance moves.\n\nTraditionally, Korean mask dances helped people express their suppressed feelings and satire. Different types of mask dance drama have been transmitted nationwide. Among them, in particular, are Hahoe Byeolsingut Talnori of Andong, Byeolsingut Talnori of Gangneung, Songpa Sandae Nori and Yangju Byeolsandae Nori of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, Haeseo of Hwanghae-do (incl. Bongsan, Gangnyeong, Eunyul), and Yayu and Ogwangdae of the east and west areas of Nakdong River.\n\nThe mask dance was a representative folk culture of the late Joseon period in Korea, along with pansori, a traditional form of musical storytelling. Mask dances hold great artistic significance and value in Korea’s traditional community, as it relates to the minds of the people through its theatrical and entertaining aspects while also functioning as a medium for social criticism.\n\nUntil now, thirteen mask dance elements have been listed as national intangible cultural heritage and four others have been listed as city/provincial intangible cultural heritage. The Cultural Heritage Administration is planning to submit the nomination file on Korean mask dance to UNESCO by the end of March 2020. The nomination will be decided during the seventeenth session of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee to be held in 2022.\n\nMeanwhile, a special exhibition titled “In High Spirit, Away From Sorrows: Traditional Korea Mask Dance Drama” is being held at the National Intangible Heritage Center located in Jeonju, Korea. The exhibition presents the history of traditional masks and mask dance as well as five traditional masks known as hahoe-tal, the oldest mask dance tradition in Korea. The exhibition will be running until 23 February 2020. For more information, please visit the website.\n\nPhoto : Korean Mask Dance ⓒ shutterstock

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.

Kyrgyz traditional medical knowledge formed and developed from ancient times based on empirical observation and personal experience. Along with other methods and techniques of preventing specific diseases, importance was placed on herbs. A good level of knowledge about the medicinal properties of plants was required. Healers (tamyrchy or tabyp), by feeling the pulse and making observations in other ways, determined the cause and nature of an illness and prescribed certain medicines, where the stems, leaves, roots, grasses, and shrubs played a considerable part.

Last year Croatia joined the world community in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage by holding an ICH conference and festival in Dubrovnik. In the last decade, numerous activities have taken place, but the basic question of how to continue promoting and protecting sensitive intangible assets remains.

In 2013, the UNESCO Office in Bangkok, in collaboration with the Islamabad, Hanoi, Apia, and Tashkent offices, undertook a project to experiment how intangible cultural heritage (ICH) could be used as part of a pedagogical approach to raise awareness about sustainable development. Activities, implemented thanks to the generous support of the Japanese government, were framed around the themes of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). The pilot project produced guidelines and sample lesson plans for teachers to guide them into developing educational materials grounded in local knowledge and practices. Seventeen schools in four countries—Pakistan, Palau, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam— participated in the pilot. The emphasis was not on teaching pure cultural content, but rather on using ICH as a vehicle to enrich the teaching of existing school subjects.

The role of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in safeguarding intangible cultural heritage has evolved from its mandate regarding cultural heritage generally. ICOMOS was created in a world that had experienced the destruction of significant heritage places during World War II and faced the threat of destruction throughout the Cold War period. The Second Congress of Architects, Conservationists and Technicians of Historical Monuments held in Venice in May 1964 produced the Venice Charter and established ICOMOS.

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.

Since its establishment in 2007 and continuous operation since 2010, the Center for Research and Promotion of the Cultural Heritage (CCH) has been evaluated by the Vietnam Association for Cultural Heritage as one of the best units with the biggest number of effective professional activities among those units belonging to the Association. The two leaders of the Center are two respected scientists in the field of cultural heritage—Dr. Le Thị Minh Ly, member of the National Committee of Cultural Heritage and former Vice Director of Department of Cultural Heritage; and Associate Professor, Doctor Nguyen Van Huy, former Director of Vietnam Ethnology Museum. The number of staff working at the Center is limited to twelve, but this is not fixed. The Center expands its capacity through a strong network and mechanisms for collaborating with partners who have been working in the field of cultural heritage and community, especially in the field of safeguarding policy.

The biggest North Korean migrant community outside East Asia is located in a somewhat unlikely place, New Malden, UK, a suburb in southwest London (see Figure 1). Approximately 1,000 North Koreans live alongside the established community of over 12,000 South Koreans. In the foreign kitchen, what North Korean migrants do is recreate authentic traditional North Korean food that they have not had for such a long time. Decades of famine and national isolation have alienated people from basic meals and dishes that are part of the history and traditions of their country.

The punnuk is a tugging ritual of the village folk from three communities in Hungduan, Ifugao in Northern Luzon, Philippines. It is performed at the confluence of Hapao River and a tributary as the final ritual after the rice harvest. Its consummation brings to a close an agricultural cycle and signals the beginning of a new one. \n\nThe punnuk is a ritual of pomp and revelry. Garbed in their predominantly red-col-ored attire of the Tuwali ethno-linguistic subgroup, the participants negotiate the terraced fields in a single file amidst lush greens under the blue skies. The tempo builds up as the participants reach the riverbank, each group positioned opposite the other. The excitement is sustained through the final tugging match, and the sinewy brawn of the participants is highlighted by the river’s rushing water.