Ta-Lut flute is made of bamboo. The holes of this flute are to be perforated at distances according to the size of flute. There are a total of 10 perforated holes including 7 finger holes, a thumb-hole, a membrane hole and a vent hole. In perforation process, mark the three divisions on the bamboo stick with the same distance. The lowest finger holes must be perforated at the starting point of second division, and the six finger holes at the same gap according to diameter of bamboo stick. The thumb-hole is perforated on the lower side of the flute at the point half- way between the upper sixth and seventh hole. The vent hole is perforated between the topmost finger hole and the tube end. The membrane hole is between the vent hole and the seventh hole. This wind instrument consists of a hollow tube and has to be played by blowing through a open hole at one end. Its melody includes vibration frequency according to Mon traditional songs.\n-1 feet 5 inches in length\n-1.5 inches in diameter

Kazakh masters have historically made different kinds of leather clothes and accessories as well as dishes, horse riggings, and other culturally relevant goods. The prevalence of leather goods indicates that leather production has long been a highly valued part of local traditional culture. The most significant part of nomadic economy was brought to fruition through leather manufacturing. Products related to equestrian lifestyles—girths, bridles, bibs, saddles, etc. Leatherwork consists of several stages. After processing the skins, they are boiled in a paint made from the rhizomes of trees, then dried. After that, the necessary parts are sewn, and an ornament is applied to the damp skin. After the ornament is ready, a vessel is filled with sand and dried, then the sand pours out and the product is dried again in the wind. The process ensures that the product will never change its original form.

By using Rakhine Royal Drum was found at the period of Visali of the king of Chandra. At the time of king Chandra, the lyrical ode of the crown-princess Saw Pyae Nyo was played with the various kinds of instruments. Long-drum and Than-Lwin-drum contained in this instruments.In the Myanmar era of 897 ( 1535 AD) when was called Lay Myoe Age, King Min Bar built Yan Aung Zaya Chittaung stupa with a vaulted vase. Rakhine oil lamp dance, Shawl dance, Powewar dance, the sports of Mrauk.U period such as the posture of wrestling, boxing, the stick martial art and the figures in the posture of playing the Rakhine musical instruments such as the Rakhine Duelong Harp, bamboo pipes wind instrument, melodious small drum, hand-cymbals, cymbals၊ horn, long drum, Marlakhon fiddle, the bugle , the cymbal and the flute were sculpted as the ancient supporting evidences of Rakhine long drum on the western wall of the second tunnel of Shittaung pagoda.. Rakhine nationality mostly used long-drum. According to the ceremony, the drum which is used to celebrate pagoda festival is called Mu-Yoe Drum. Pan-taja drum is used for the wedding ceremony and the ceremony of propitiate nats. Khat- Ttin drum is used for the funeral ceremony . Si- Byaw( kind of long drum ) is used to play the novitiated ceremony. One- headed drum is used for ceremony of pulling gharry. Kyin-drum is used for the posture of wrestling. There are fourteen kinds of Rakhine drum. They are Mhyaut drum, Than-Lwin drum, Mu-Yoe drum ( Si-Pyaw ), Singal-headed small drum, Big drum (Shan si) , Donmin drum , Si Pataung drum, Si wun drum , Melodious small drum, One-headed drum, Pan:taya: si drum, Pat Si drum (Kyin si), Si chay drum, Si ai drum. According to the song, it can be played with hands. The song which produces the sound of Byane from cow skin and the sound of harp from goat skin. It can be played not only hand but also stick. Rakhine royal drum is played together with cymbals, gong, jingle bell and conch-shell.\nPadauk wood is used to make the body of Rakhine royal drum and the either sides of two drumheads are covered with cow-skin and goatskin. The Padauk wood has to made hollow and the either side of cow skin and goat skin are tightly stretched on the drum heads. Both two drumheads can be played. The leather must be tightly tied with the string of gunny twine.\n-2 feet 3 inches in Length\n-3 feet 5 inches in the girth\n-1 feet in the diameter of drumhead (site of cow skin)\n-11 inches in the diameter of drumhead ( site of goat skin)

Rampai Aceh is a reconstruction of Saman, a traditional performance art of the Gayo tribe of Aceh, Sumatra. The Saman dance which can be traced back to the 13th Century, is a group dance performed by over 10 dancers, who kneel in a row and perform the identical moves in a highly coordinated manner. They clap, slap their chests, thighs, or the floor with their palms, bounce their fingers off each other, gesture with their hands, shaking and twisting their heads from side to side to complex rhythms. The moves express scenes from nature and the daily lives of the Gayo tribe, such as leaves flying in the wind, water buffalo bathing, and ploughing the field.\n\nThe leaders of the performance are called “Penankat”, who sing poetic verses. They are accompanied by drums, rabana and dynamic clapping. The poetic verses sing about a wide range of themes including tradition and development, religion, heroic tales, morals from daily life and love stories, told with wit and satire. Saman represents the communal values of patience, cooperation and helping each other. Saman, which is enjoyed by people of all walks of life, is performed widely at a variety of occasions, including national holidays such Independence Day, religious occasions, welcoming ceremony for honored guests and weddings. However, with rapid urbanization, youth have been leaving for the city, creating problems for the transmission of Saman for the Penankat who are unable to find suitable successors.\n\nCharacteristics:\n∙An original dance based on the Saman dance, inscribed on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011\n\nPerformed by Marwar Budaya Dance Atelier\nDirected by Maria Sofia Trimawarsanti\nPhotographed by Maria Sofia Trimawarsanti

On 12 and 13 November 2020, ICHCAP and the ICH NGO Forum virtually held the 2020 ICH NGO Conference entitled “ICH and Resilience in Crisis.” The fifteen participants, including eleven selected presenters from ten countries around the world, discussed various cases and activities of each country applied under the Corona-era, and proposed solidarity for the resilience of ICH for a ‘New Normal.’\n\nSession 1: In the Vortex: COVID-19 Era, Roles of NGOs to Safeguard ICH\n\nSpecial Lecture 1: 'Resilience System Analysis' by Roberto Martinez Yllescas, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Mexico\n1. 'Uncovering the veil of immaterial cultural heritage towards and autonomous management of well-being as well as cultural and territorial preservation' by Carolina Bermúdez, Fundación Etnollano\n2. 'Holistic Development Model of Community-Based Intangible Cultural Heritage of Yuen Long District in Hong Kong of China' by Kai-kwong Choi, Life Encouraging Fund \n3. 'Indigenous Knowledge System as a vector in combating COVID-19' by Allington Ndlovu, Amagugu International Heritage Centre\n4. 'Enlivening Dyeing Tradition and ICH: The initiative of ARHI in North East of India' by Dibya Jyoti Borah, President, ARHI\n\nSession 2: Homo Ludens vs. Home Ludens: Changed Features COVID-19 Brought\n\n1. 'The Popular Reaction to COVID-19 from the Intangible Cultural Heritage among Member Cities of the ICCN' by Julio Nacher, ICCN Secretariat, Algemesi, Spain\n2. 'Innovation for Arts and Cultural Education Amid a Pandemic' by Jeff M. Poulin, Creative Generation\n3. 'Promoting Heritage Education through Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Kalasha Valleys of Pakistan' by Ghiasuddin Pir & Meeza Ubaid, THAAP\n4. 'Shifting to Online Activities: Digital Divide among the NGOs and ICH Communities in Korea' by Hanhee Hahm CICS\n\nSession 3: Consilience: Prototype vs. Archetype for Educational Source\n\nSpecial Lecture 2: 'Geographical imbalance: the challenge of getting a more balanced representation of accredited non-governmental organizations under the 2003 Convention' by Matti Hakamäki, Finnish Folk Music Institute\n1. 'Crafting a Post Covid-19 World: Building Greater Resilience in the Crafts Sector through Strengthening Ties with its Community’s Cultural System' by Joseph Lo, World Crafts Council International\n2. 'Arts and Influence: Untangling Corporate Engagement in the Cultural Sector' by Nicholas Pozek, Asian Legal Programs, Columbia University\n3. 'ICH in the South-Western Alps: Empowering Communities through Youth Education on Nature and Cultural Practices' by Alessio Re & Giulia Avanza, Santagata Foundation for the Economy of Culture\n\n

ICH Video Production in the Asia-Pacific Region : Central Asia\n\nRapid urbanization and westernization are changing the environments in which intangible cultural heritage is rooted. The importance of documentation that traces the effect of social changes on intangible cultural heritage is being emphasized as a safeguarding measure. Quality video documentation is an important resource that enables the conservation and transmission of existing intangible cultural heritage and raises its visibility.\n\nVideo documentation is the best medium to record intangible cultural heritage in the most lifelike manner, using the latest technologies. It is also an effective tool for communicating with the public. However, conditions for video production in the Asia-Pacific remain poor, requiring extensive support for quality video documentation.\n\nICHCAP has been working to build the safeguarding capabilities of Member States and raise the visibility of intangible cultural heritage in the Asia-Pacific by supporting the true-to-life documentation of intangible cultural heritage as this heritage is practiced and cooperating with experts, communities, and NGOs in related fields.\n\nSince 2010, ICHCAP has hosted annual Central Asian sub-regional network meetings with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia to support the ICH safeguarding activities of Central Asia. Through their collaboration, ICHCAP has supported projects involving collecting ICH information, producing ICH websites, and constructing ICH video archives.\n\nAt the Sixth Central Asia Sub-regional Network Meeting in Jeonju in 2015, ICHCAP, four Central Asian countries, and Mongolia adopted a second three-year cooperation project plan on producing ICH videos to enhance the visibility of ICH in Central Asia.\n\nICHCAP developed guidelines and training programs for the project and invited video and ICH experts from the participating countries, and held a workshop in November 2015. After the workshop, focal points for the project were designated in each country, and each focal point organization formed an expert meeting and a video production team to produce ICH videos.\n\nInterim reports were submitted to ICHCAP in February 2016, and the first preview screening was held in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, during the Seventh Central Asia Sub-regional Network Meeting in May 2016. Since then, each country has carried out the project according to the project plan. ICHCAP met with each country between October 2016 to February 2017 to check on the project progress.\n\nAfter the final preview screening during the Eighth Central Asia Sub-regional Network Meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in 2017, final editing process took place in each country, and fifty ICH videos were completed by October 2017.\n\nAll photos introduced on this page along with fifty ICH videos are from the exhibition 'Living Heritage: Wisdom of Life' held in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan and the Republic of Korea. Designed for introducing various ICH in the five countries, this exhibition shows photos on representative twenty elements in each country collected during the process of on-site survey and documentation for ICH Video Production Project in Central Asia by experts participated in the ICH video production project.\n\nICHCAP will continue its ICH documentation projects in the Asia-Pacific region for the next ten years by expanding the scope from Central Asia and Mongolia to Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and the Pacific.\n\n\nPartners\nMongolian National Commission for UNESCO • National Commission of the Kyrgyz Republic for UNESCO • National Commission of the Republic of Kazakhstan for UNESCO and ISESCO • National Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan for UNESCO • National Commission of the Republic of Tajikistan for UNESCO • Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage Mongolia • National Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage under the National Commission of the Republic of Kazakhstan for UNESCO and ISESCO • School of Fine Art and Technical Design named after Abylkhan Kasteyev • State Institute of Arts and Culture of Uzbekistan • Tajik film • Tajikistan Research Institute of Culture Information • Korea Educational Broadcasting System • Asia Culture Center\n\nSupporters\nUNESCO Almaty and Tashkent Cluster Offices • Cultural Heritage Administration • Panasonic Korea • Turkish Airlines

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) is transnational in nature. It is necessary to spread the perception that ICH transcends geographical spaces and national borders, creating dynamic relations, connectedness, and continuity, which is why it is a timeless bearer of cultural diversity, the foundation of the heritage of humanity. However, as the modern structure of nation-state determines the boundaries of culture with national borders, forming the concept of “culture within the country”, subsequently led to the perception that the ownership of culture belongs to the state.\n\nThe concept of exclusive ownership of culture is often controversial in the UNESCO listing process, particularly in instances where cultural heritage and cultural domains have been shared for a long time by two or more nation-states. Such conflicts lead to excessive competition for nomination, overshadowing UNESCO’s fundamental purpose of contributing to peace and security in the world by promoting collaboration among nations, as well as the very spirit of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage that promotes international cooperation and assistance in the safeguarding of ICH as a matter of general interest to humanity.\n\nConsequently, UNESCO encourages multinational inscriptions of shared intangible cultural heritage to promote regional cooperation and international safeguarding activities, preventing conflicts among countries and coping with already existing ones. By emphasizing joint nominations of shared ICH, UNESCO revised its implementation guidelines three times to deal with conflicts between countries due to the cultural property rights. In addition, States Parties are encouraged to develop networks among relevant communities, experts, professional centres, and research institutes, particularly with regard to their ICH, to cooperate at the sub-regional and regional levels.\n\nAt the 13th Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage held in the Republic of Mauritius in November 2018, Traditional Korean Wrestling was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity as the first joint designation by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea. This milestone in the life of the Convention demonstrates that ICH contributes to the peace-building, reconciliation, mutual understanding, and solidarity among peoples. Indeed, only when acknowledging that shared cultural values are empowering characteristics of ICH, the true perspective of the unifying agent of the cultural diversity can be achieved, and that it is the cornerstone of reaching peace among nations.\n\nCountries in the Asia Pacific region are deeply connected by a long history of interactions, exchanges, flows of people, goods, and ideas that have shaped shared values, practices, and traditions. Having a balanced view, advocating for cultural diversity, and recognizing the commonalities among individuals, communities, and countries as a strength are virtuous tenets in the present time.\n\nIn this regard, APHEN-ICH Secretariat, ICHCAP, and UNESCO Bangkok Office are inviting the APHEN-ICH member institutes and public to this seminar under the theme of Diversity and Distinctiveness: Looking into the Shared ICH in the Asia-Pacific, to re-assess that while fragile, intangible cultural heritage is an important factor in maintaining cultural diversity, connecting bounds, and enhancing international dialogue and peace.

The traditional musical instruments of Myanmar were prominent throughout the nation’s history. The instruments were developed as early as the Pyu Era, Bagan Era and many were dominant features of music during the Innwa Era and Konbaung Era.\n\nWhile some of these instruments have been preserved and are used today, others have been lost to history.\nIn an attempt to preserve the traditional musical instruments of Myanmar, the Ministry of Culture displayed traditional instruments and distributed the books about the instruments during an exhibition in 1955. This research shows thirty-three kinds of instruments. Moreover, in a 2003 celebration of traditional instruments, the Ministry of Culture exhibited over two hundred traditional instruments at the national museum.\nWhile the instruments on display were representative of many regions and states, many instruments were not included.\nBecause of this lack of full representativeness, additional research through field studies is required. This project proposal addresses this need.\n\nTo create a preliminary basis towards developing a national ICH inventory of craftsmanship and performing arts of traditional musical instruments in Myanmar. To safeguard ICH related to the craftsmanship and performing arts of traditional musical instruments and to promote cultural diversity among multi- ethnic groups in Myanmar. To raise awareness of the Myanmar public on the importance of ICH. To expand networking and information sharing between Myanmar and Korea.

Marriage to the Nùng ethnic minority is not merely that of a couple but has a greater meaning that is the ritual of community cohesion, keeping the ethnic group’s cultural identity. A wedding ceremony takes place in accordance with certain traditions and customs, such as bride and groom welcoming, ancestor worshiping, groom receiving; asking for a bride welcoming, etc. In the celebration to ask for the bride, the heads of the groom’s family will play music or sing to ask for the bride, and the bride’s family also plays music or sings in response. The instrumental music in Nùng weddings is mainly performed by men. Musical instruments may include the nhị (two-string fiddle), wind instruments, and cymbals.

This is a song of longing for an absent husband throughout the various seasons. “The rhododendrons are blooming, peaches are ripening in the fields, but my eyes watch the road. Mangoes are ripening, and we sit under the shade, but my husband doesn’t come. It is now winter, and the chilly wind blows, but there is no end to the sorrow of my separation.”

The huur is an instrument played by flicking a metallic piece with the mouth half-open. This recording was played by a male of the Tsaatan tribe that raises reindeer by Khuvsgul Lake in the high mountains. One can hear the intentional inclusion of wind-like sounds in the playing.

After the wheat has been crushed, it is thrown in the air with a fork. The force of the wind separates the grain from the husk. This is the equivalent of threshing. The farmers whistle so as to create stronger winds.

CD2_HISTORICAL RECORDINGS FROM THE 1930S OF ARNOLD BAKE VOL. II: EVERYDAY SONGS\n\nThe recordings by Dutch ethnomusicologist Arnold Adrian Bake in India in the 1930s and later are one of the earliest examples of what may be called “ethnographic” recordings. Arnold Bake and his wife Corrie spent a long time in Bengal but travelled all over India, recording the music, sounds, and other forms of intangible culture of the people. These recordings cover an immense range of music and recitations that are part of people’s everyday lives, such as work songs, devotional pieces, and ritualistic performances, and include a high number of women’s songs and cultural expressions. Bake’s first field trip was in 1925 and his last was in 1955. During that time, he travelled not only to India but also to Nepal and Sri Lanka. Collections of Bake’s recordings are held in archives in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. Recordings from 1925 to 1929 were on cylinders, and those from 1938 to 1939 were recorded on a machine called Tefifon. The collection that has been digitized for this project consists of the recordings made in 1938 and 1939. \n\nThe Tefi recordings were transferred to spools and deposited in ARCE in 1982. During those two years, Bake travelled from Sindh, the Gujarat coast, to Kerala, and thus the recordings are from Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Kerala. There are also recordings made in the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Thus, the selections presented on these albums are largely from the Southwest Coast of India. These recordings were chosen because they carry great historical value yet were not easily accessible until now. NB: The titles given by Arnold Bake have been retained. However, in the notes, places and names have been changed to reflect current designations – e.g. Canarese was changed to Kannada. Place names have also been modified to follow current spelling conventions.\n\nEveryday Songs - The everyday lives of people are what make up the core of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). This selection includes rituals, work songs, devotional and religious songs, as well as common songs that express joys and sorrows. In addition to songs, some tracks include cries and noises, reflecting the wide variety of sounds that Bake recorded.

CD6_WOMEN’S VOICES FROM THE MOUNTAINS\n\nThe women performing here are not professional musicians. These songs are part of the everyday life of women. Women’s songs are often work songs sung while grinding, threshing, and pounding, as a way to while away the tedium of long laborious tasks and provide a rhythm as well as companionship. Women play a key role in rituals, singing narratives and ballads as well as life cycle songs for events such as birth, marriage, and death. Wedding songs form a large part of the repertoire of women in India. This important part of the intangible cultural heritage of India is disappearing with urbanization and migration to cities, and with mechanization that takes away the need for grinding and pounding. Moreover, recorded music and television are taking the place of song. Thus, the recording and documentation of these traditions become more important. Namely, recordings of the voices of the woman in the home and in the fields, who carry out the rituals for their families and the gods who protect them, hold immense value. This is a compilation of women’s songs from the foothills of the Himalayas, Kangra in Himachal Pradesh (the “land of the snows”), and from high up in the Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand (the “northern land”). Though not connected, there are similarities in the themes between the ghasyari songs and khuder of Garhwal and the pakaharu of Kangra. Women sing about their hardships, such as their daily struggles with marriage, absent husbands, and about the friendship among women. These songs do not have any instrumental accompaniment. The songs are from the research conducted by two wo men researchers: Kirin Narayan and Ragini Deshpande. The songs from Kangra are those recorded and collected by Kirin Narayan, who has worked in Kangra, studying women’s songs and stories for many years. The selection presented here is from 1990 to 1991. Ragini Deshpande recorded and collected women’s songs in Chamoli, Garhwal, from 1981 to 1989. As Sangita Devi says quoted by Kiri Narayan, “Everyone can sing, but only when you know pain can you understand the song.”

The Central Highlands include five provinces: Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Đắc Lắc, Đắc Nông, and Lâm Đồng. This place is the residence of many ethnic minorities speaking two languages, Mon-Khmer and Malayo Polinesian. Ba na, Xê đăng, Mnông, and Xtiêng speak Mon-Khmer while Ê đê, Gia rai, and Raglai speak Malayo Polinesian. Local people in the Central Highlands have a very rich treasure of folk music. In religious festivals, music plays a significant role. The instruments such as gongs, after being played in festivals, are stored. They are considered sacred instruments and the properties that reflect the wealth of a family. In addition to religious music, folk music for daily life is equally as rich and includes music for love exchange, music played on fields, or music played in community houses. Indigenous people of the Central Highlands have innate musical talent. It is supposed that every person can become a singer and an instrumentalist. They are able to make instruments skillfully from bamboo, leaves, and stones, and they can perform music naturally, simply, and purely. The CD, called Folk music of some ethnic minorities in the Central Highlands, Vietnam, introduces some folk musical acts performed in daily life. These acts were recorded between 1977 and 1978 (track 1, 5, 11) and between 1997 and 1998 (the rest of tracks) and performed by local folk artists from ethnic minorities Ê đê, Gia rai, Xê đăng, Mnông, and Ba na in the Central Highlands.

Vakalutuivoce is a traditional duet chant performed by men, usually from the fisherfolk clan in the maritime islands and coastal communities of the larger islands. The chants usually tell of the successful fishing expeditions of the fisherfolk clans. \nContents may vary but usually hinge upon fishing and the coastal environment. For communities located in the islands of the larger islands, these chants are called Vakavunigasau. \nThe Vakavunigasau is a functional chant associated with tugging logs. It is constantly chanted at the construction of a house and aims to help break the monotony, boredom, and heaviness of labor. It also inculcates a sense of solidarity and unity among workers and keeps the work proceeding at a methodical and companionable rate. The singing style of Vakalutuivoce is parallel to that of Vakavunigasau. For example, a melody is added as an accompaniment to another melody.

In 2015, ICHCAP with the National Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan for UNESCO and the Fine Arts Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan released the CD collection Melodies from Uzbekistan as part of its cooperation project to restore and digitize analogue resources on ICH.\n\nThis selection of audio resources are aged audio recordings stored at the Fine Arts Institute of the Academy of Sciences that have been restored and converted into a format suitable for storage and playback in media used today. The audio tracks in the collection consist of folk music recorded from field research conducted in Uzbekistan and border regions from the 1950s to the 1980s as well as studio recordings made from the 1930s to the 1970s. The eight CDs contain Uzbek songs related to work, animal rearing, rituals, and other important parts of day-to-day life in the region; instrumental music featuring various traditional Uzbek musical instruments, such as the dutor and g'ajir nay; and important Islamic oral traditions, such as maqoms and dostons.\n\nAlthough the traditional music of Central Asia may be unfamiliar to listeners from other parts of the world, the CDs come with information booklets in Uzbek, English, and Korean to provide an engaging experience for people from outside the region.\nThe selection represents the diverse and rich musical traditions of Uzbekistan and will be invaluable resources in the field of ICH education and promotion.

Sounds that Run in the Vast Grasslands of Mongolia_Oral Traditions and Performing Arts in Mongolia\n\nSince the early 1950s, the Institute of Language and Literature at the Academy of Science (ILL) has been sending survey teams one to three times a year to research and gather data on oral literature and local dialectics. These activities set the groundwork for officially establishing a new archive with written documents and magnetic audio tapes that could be used for research purposes and be maintained. Preserved on magnetic tapes are languages and dialects that have gone extinct, have lost their distinctiveness, or have been adsorbed into other languages or dialects.\n\nHowever, most of the magnetic tapes being kept at the ILL are more than sixty years old, and the expiration date on many tapes has already lapsed. Also, improper storage conditions have caused some tapes to dry out, cling to one another, or fracture. For these reason, it would be hard to transmit to the next generation. Accordingly, since 2008, efforts have been made towards restoring and digitizing superannuated magnetic tapes within the internal capability and capacity of the ILL. The lack of training, finance, and proper tools and technical equipment has, nevertheless, created several obstacles and the digitizing results have not been very successful.\n\nAt this crucial state, the ILL introduced a cooperative request to the Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage (FPNCH), and the FPNCH proposed that ICHCAP continue the joint project and take measures for restoring and digitizing superannuated magnetic tapes and distributing and disseminating the data among the general public. According to the above decision, the FPNCH and ICHCAP implemented the Joint Cooperation Project of Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage by Using Information Technology from October 2011 to April 2012.\n\nAs the first stage of the project, the Expert Meeting for Safeguarding ICH by Using Information Technology was held in the Republic of Korea to exchange information with experts for digitizing and restoring the analogue data. The experts of Mongolian National Public Radio, the ILL, and the FPNCH started the project after sharing restoration and digitization knowledge with the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) of Korea, the National Archives of Korea, and the Korea Film Council.\n\nAs the main outcome of the project, a total of 715 hours of superannuated magnetic tapes including epics, folk tales, tales accompanied by the morin khuur, traditional arts, khuumei, chor, long and short folksongs, and traditional customs were restored, digitized, and categorized. Among them, 128 audio clips were selected and reproduced in a ten-CD collection called Sounds from the Mongolian Grasslands. The collection also includes a twenty-page handbook in English or Korean. Through this project, the general public’s, involved organizations’, and domestic and international experts’ awareness about Mongolian ICH increased, and the archive and music contents of regional ICH were strengthened.

ICH Courier is the quarterly magazine on ICH in the Asia-Pacific region issued by ICHCAP since 2009. Every issue has its own theme under the title of the Windows to ICH, and the theme of the Vol 8 is 'ICH AND TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AS AN OCCUPATIONAL LIVING.'

This book explores creative and historical traditional food of the world through the articles provided by sixteen authors from different countries. Food is a critical element in human life and is intimately linked to the history and identity of individuals and communities. Traditional food and food ways of a community, region, or an ethnic group have become unique practices through close interactions reflecting the diverse features of the community, including the natural environment, society, politics, economy, and culture. Traditional food and food ways are then firmly embedded in the community while they are transmitted, adapted, and recreated across generations. As such, traditional food is an indispensable element in communal life and is the root of life. This book presents information on ICH reflected in traditional food and allows readers to explore the intangible value of traditional food through historical backgrounds and stories concerning the food.

The sixth sub-regional networking meeting took place in Pacific Harbor, Fiji, in April 2015. The meeting was organized by ICHCAP and the Department of Heritage and Arts of Fiji in collaboration with the UNESCO Office in Apia.\nThis meeting report includes presentation materials from the sub-regional meeting as well as summaries of the meeting with the intent of providing information to promote international cooperation among experts and institutions in the ICH safeguarding field in the Pacific region.

Since the beginning of 1950s, the Institute of Language and Literature at the Academy of Sciences in Mongolia has initiated sending the survey teams, 1-3 times a year, for researching and gathering data on oral literature and local dialectics. The initiation of above activities has set the groundwork for official establishment of a new archive with written documents and magnetic audio tapes, utilization for research purposes and the maintenance. Along with sending the survey teams, individuals/bearers were invited to the Institute from the local areas and their repertoire were recorded on magnetic tapes.\n\nAs a result, a rich repertoire of the epics, folk tales, folk songs, benedictions, odes, riddles, proverbs and other main elements of Mongolian oral heritage in their local dialectics and characteristics were succeeded to be recorded and collected at once as never before. The language and dialects that have already lost their distinctiveness or absorbed into the central one, now already the extinct forms of oral literary expressions and heritage are remained and preserved on magnetic tapes. This fact is raising the historic and academic values more for those original forms which were preserved on the magnetic tapes.\n\nDue to the fact that the most of the magnetic tapes being kept at the Institute are more than 60 years old, the storage period of some of the tapes has already been expired. Also, the un-proper storage conditions have caused some tapes to get dried, clung to one another or fractured. Due to above reasons, the inevitable need has risen for restoration and digitization of these magnetic tapes as well as improvement of the storage conditions and environment. Accordingly, since 2008, some efforts have been made towards restoration and digitization of these superannuated magnetic tapes within the internal capability and capacity of the Institute. Although, due to the lack of capable human resources, finance and proper tools and technical equipment, these efforts to restore and digitalize faced several obstacles and have shown un-successive results.\n\nIn 2009, the authorities of the Institute have introduced to the Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage their request to cooperate. Since, the organizations have started to collaborate on the possibilities to restore and digitalize the superannuated magnetic tapes. Accordingly, the Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage proposed to ICHCAP to continue the Joint Project and take measures for restoration, digitization of the superannuated magnetic tapes, and distribution and dissemination among general public.