An elder person ties together small fingers of the bride and groom with a sacred cotton thread chanted with Pirith and pouring holy water on the tied fingers invoke blessing

Groom dresses the bridegroom with clothes and jewelry during the Poruwa ceremony of a wedding

Palav culture and traditions have been included into the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2016. Palov (or Osh) is the most beloved and highly regarded food among Uzbeks. It is spread in all regions of Uzbekistan. Palov accompanies Uzbeks throughout their lives. It is prepared on different occasions. These are: on the occasion of the birth of the first child (aqiqa); on the occasion of circumcision ceremony (sunnat toyi); on the occasion of engagement ceremony (fotiha oshi); on the occasion of seeing off a bride to the house of a groom (qiz oshi); in connection with wedding, for men only (nikah oshi); in connection with wedding, for women only (khotin oshi); after wedding, only for friends of a groom (kuyav oshi); on the occasion of child’s birth and carrying out “ beshikkasolish” ritual (beshik toyi oshi); on the occasion of commemoration of the deceased (ehsan oshi); on the occasion of anniversary of death day (yiloshi). Thus it serves to unite people for different events.

Ulytau is the geographic and historical center of Kazakhstan where the Kazakh Khanate appeared. Central Kazakhstan is rich in historical monuments. The history and traditions of Kazakh horse breeders have been maintained since the Paleolithic times. The traditions include: biye baylau, separating dairy mares from the shoal or the feast of the first milking; ayghyr kosu, joining a stallion to the herd or the stallion’s wedding; and kymyz muryndyk, beginning to make and drink kymyz or festive of the first kymyz. Inextricably linked with one another, these traditions mark the beginning of a new horse-breeding cycle and form an integral part of Kazakh intangible cultural heritage.

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.

Lapar performing arts, as an ancient folklore genre of people’s creation, has a rich history. Lapar songs are performed by famous artists during holidays, public festivities, and wedding parties as well as in a bride’s house in the evening during ‘Girls’ Evening’, ‘Girls’ Party’, and ‘Lapar Night’. Girls and boys perform lapar songs composed of four-lined ghazals in two groups. Through lapar songs, girls and boys express their love to each other, make decisions, and take oaths. They sing their heart’s grief with a certain melody but without any music. If both the girl and the boy who are singing lapar fall in love with each other, they present gifts to one another. If the boys present flowers to girls, the girls present a kerchief, belt-kerchief, handkerchief, perfume, or some other gift.

Lapar performing arts, as an ancient folklore genre of people’s creation, has a rich history. Lapar songs are performed by famous artists during holidays, public festivities, and wedding parties as well as in a bride’s house in the evening during ‘Girls’ Evening’, ‘Girls’ Party’, and ‘Lapar Night’. Girls and boys perform lapar songs composed of four-lined ghazals in two groups. Through lapar songs, girls and boys express their love to each other, make decisions, and take oaths. They sing their heart’s grief with a certain melody but without any music. If both the girl and the boy who are singing lapar fall in love with each other, they present gifts to one another. If the boys present flowers to girls, the girls present a kerchief, belt-kerchief, handkerchief, perfume, or some other gift.

The northern mountainous regions are the residential land of the Kinh people and twenty-eight out of fifty-four ethnic minorities in Vietnam. This land has diverse forms of folk culture in general and folk music in particular. The CD, Folk Music of Some Ethnic Minorities in the Northern Mountainous Regions of Vietnam introduces some repertoires of folk music that were recorded in 1959 (tracks 1, 2, 5, and 7), in 1964 (tracks 10 and 15) and in 1970 (tracks 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 16) and performed by folk artists from minority ethnic groups, such as Thái, Tày, Nùng, Cao lan, Phù lá, Hmông, of the northern mountainous regions. Although the sound quality of the recordings isn’t that good, the materials will be valuable to history and art researchers and those who love folk music. The recordings allow listeners to compare folk art of a time that was almost isolated with the outside world with folk art of our time—the time of Internet.

Benedictions\n\nMongolian well-wishing is a powerful expression of the miraculous capacity of words. It is one of the genres of Mongolian oral poetry that uses melodies. Briefly, benedictions (well-wishing) propitiate people’s future happiness and well-being through skilfully composed and recited poems. There are thousands of benedictions on various subjects. For instance there are benedictions recited while beating the sweat cloth of a saddle, while distilling milk vodka, while celebrating a birth, and while cutting an infant’s hair for the first time. Besides ancient benedictions, many contemporary benedictions are being kept at the ILL. These include benedictions for a new ger, weddings, a child’s first haircut, endowment practices, mare-milking ceremonies, foal-branding ceremonies, the People’s Revolution, and others for the military.

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.

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.

When we were young, we were told a lot of stories. Everyone hated the big, vicious, evil, and cunning animals. However, seen through grown-up eyes, there are no bad animals in the world. Animals personified in stories convey a message to the human world-that of peace and harmony. At a time when a message of peace is desperately needed, let’s enjoy some stories featuring various animals, from tigers to birds, rabbits, monkeys, and more.

The 2018 Sub-Regional Meeting for Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding in Northeast Asia jointly organized by ICHCAP and the UNESCO Beijing Office and hosted by the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO, was held on 10 and 11 October 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia under the theme of ICH education: towards joint collaboration for promoting ICH in formal and non-formal education\nThis report is composed of country reports and case studies discussed at the meeting and generated participation from five Northeast Asian Member States—namely DPRK, Japan, Mongolia, China, and ROK—and international experts as well as the outcome document.