First of all, I congratulate publishing Tugging Rituals and Games: A Common Element, Diverse Approaches through the collaborative efforts of Dangjin City and ICHCAP. Intangible Cultural heritage (ICH) is the life of the human community and an important driver and asset for sustainable devel-opment. In particular, the tug-of-war as a representative folk game expresses the characteristics and spiritual values of Korean national culture as well as a common Asian heritage wishing for harmony, unity, prosperity, and fertility of the community.\n\nThe Korean government has been initiating ICH safeguarding policy efforts since 1962, starting with the enactment of the Cultural Properties Protection Act. In 2005, Korea joined the UNESCO 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, sharing the expe-rience and knowledge of safeguarding Korean ICH and strengthening cooperation for safeguarding intangible heritage in an international context. In 2015, four Asian countries (Cambodia, Philippines, Republic of Korea, and Vietnam) jointly inscribed folk tugging rituals and games on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The custom of traditional Japanese tug-of-war, or tsunahiki (綱引), can be outlined as follows:\n\n• It is practiced on different annual events, such as Ko-syogatsu (小正月), or New Year celebration around 15 January according to the lunar calendar), Obon festival (盆)celebrated around 15 August, the Boys’ Festival on 5 May (端午節句), or the fifteenth night of August of the lunar calendar (八月十五夜).\n• The tug-of-war ropes are made of either straw, kaya (kind of cogon grass often used as traditional roofing materials), or shobu (菖蒲 or sweet sedge).\n• A village is divided into two groups of farming and fishing areas, eastern and west-ern areas, and upstream and downstream areas, and in some cases, the two groups are subdivided into smaller groups such as children and young adults as well as men and women.\n• The rope is tugged by these groups, or dragged around, slammed against the ground, or sometimes cut into pieces.\n• The purpose of this traditional event is said to forecast the volume of the coming harvest, to ward off evil spirits, or to pray for a peaceful life.

Tug-of-war is a universal game that pits two teams against each other in a test of strength. Although the sport is prac-ticed in different forms depending on the environment and culture of each country, it has promoted community solidarity and unity around the world. Dangjin has a unique folk tradition called Gijisi tug-of-war. It is believed that the tug-of-war was first held about five hundred years ago to overcome a devastating disaster by encouraging harmony and cooperation among the residents. Later, it reflected the local rope-mak-ing methods of fishing villages, and the city has supported large-scale tugging war events for the community. The local tradition has been well preserved and passed on to the present day.

The tug-of-war is one of the most well-known intangible cultural heritage elements that represent the Republic of Korea. Tug-of-war games were widely enjoyed by people across the country before the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1960s, the tug-of-war came under the protection of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Policy and has been appointed and is being managed by local and national governments. Locally, eight tug-of-war traditions have been inscribed on the national inventory list. Moreover, compared to other ICH element studies, of the element has been significantly researched.\n\nTug-of-war is a cultural heritage element of many East Asian nations, and these nations are preparing to nominate the element to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In this context, the goal of this paper is to discover universal traits in tug-of-war traditions in East Asia. However, besides the Republic of Korea and Japan, there is insufficient research on tug-of-war traditions in the region, which limits the scope of this presentation. In case of China, despite the existence of various records on tug-of-war in literature, the tradition as it exists in China today seems to be more of a sports match than a ritual event. I would also like to mention that this paper is a draft based on document records, the Internet, and the academic symposium hosted by Gijisi Tug-of-War Conservation Institute.

Gijisi tug‐of‐war is one among many traditional Korean tug‐of‐war games. \nPlaying Gijisi tug‐of‐war forms a temporary community as well as a trans-mission community. In exploring the formed community, this article will discuss how the communities are formed, the features they have, and the meaning such temporary communities have. In addition, this article will examine how continuous and conventional communities enable the Gijisi tug‐of‐war event to take place. While doing so, different features of the tug‐of‐war communities will be discussed by comparing the characteristics of the Gijisi tug‐of‐war community with the Jul Nanjang, a special market held for the tug-of-war. Although different and both have changed, the characteristics of contemporary traditional transmission commu-nity will be clarified. Such comparative research might give Gijisi tug‐of‐war to find its unique position among traditional tug‐of‐war games.\nBased on the name, Gijisi tug‐of‐war, one may assume that the people who create such a spectacular would be residents in Gijisi‐ri or even residents of Dangjin, which includes Gijisi‐ri. However, participation in the tug‐of‐war is not restricted and is open to visitors from the whole country as well as foreigners. As such, a community for playing tug‐of‐war is temporarily formed. In other words, it is a temporary com-munity that is formed in a specific time and space.

There have been various cooperative activities for safe-guarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH) at the domestic, regional, and international level since the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH was adopted by UNESCO’s General Conference in 2003. ICHCAP, a UNESCO Category 2 Centre in the ICH field, has been working to share information, build networks, and raise visibility of ICH in the Asia-Pacific region, which shows the cultural iden-tities of relevant communities who can be a driving force of sustainable development of the societies. \nTug-of-war has also been an ICH theme ICHCAP has worked to safe-guard and raise awareness. Among a number of diverse ICH elements, tug-of-war is a cultural phenomenon found worldwide. In Asia, espe-cially, tug-of-war has been a custom deeply embedded in rice cultivation and is therefore found largely in agricultural societies. Tug-of-war was generally performed as a prayer for rain or to predict the bounty of the upcoming harvest. It has common features worldwide based on climate and environment. However, differences arise according to the distinct characteristic and the creativity of the region, which makes tug-of-war a worthwhile research subject as an Asian joint heritage.

The Ramayana is one of the two greatest Hindu epics of South Asia, the other being the Mahabharata. The Ramayana, authored by Sage Valmiki, tells the story of Lord Rama (the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu, ‘The Preserver’). Rama is referred to as Maryada Purushottam (the most superior man who embodies both divinity and humanity). The central message of the Ramayana is to demonstrate to worldly individuals how to lead a virtuous life that does not violate any laws of nature.

Azerbaijan is one of the oldest areas of human habitation, where people once lived in natural geological formations. In its territory, archaeologists have discovered caves where people lived as far back as the Paleolithic era. For centuries, architects accumulated knowledge and skills related to rational planning schemes and the constructional and compositional methods of building residential houses in the area. However, data on the development of residential houses in Azerbaijan have been available only since the eighteenth century. Although we have little evidence of the development of the residential house in Azerbaijan in earlier periods, there is little doubt that the houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have survived to the present time contain many features developed earlier.

The scale of traditional herbal medicine knowledge in East Asia is enormous. One example that shows us this is the work of Seo Yu-gu (1764–1845), a Confucian scholar of the Joseon dynasty in the nineteenth century. He wrote Imwon-Kyungjeji, an encyclopedia compiling almost all the contemporary East Asian knowledge. This book was nicknamed Britannica of Joseon because it covered the overall knowledge fields of human life—agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, cooking, brewing, construction, civil engineering, crafts, calligraphy, music, commerce, and medicine. Surprisingly, about half of the entire work is about medicinal knowledge, occupying 1.2 million characters of the total 2.5 million characters. This means half of the traditional knowledge in East Asia is related to the treatment of diseases and maintaining human health.

The people inhabiting the present territory of Uzbekistan have their rich folklore, like any other nation on the earth. Dastans are special among the genres of folklore epics in terms of volume and variety of the means of expression. Like other major genres of folk art, they arise on the basis of archaic folklore and ancient national history and incorporate both ancient cultural traditions and the memory of the formation of the people, their spiritual world and historical destinies, their civil, moral and aesthetic ideals. Dastan (in Persian داستان), means ‘story’. It is the epic folklore and literature of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Dastans are either folklore or literary interpretations of heroic myths, legends and fairy stories.

For Cambodians, like many peoples in Asia, rice is indispensable and firmly attached to socio-religious life of the people. Besides being the principle daily staple, rice—either husked or unhusked, cooked or uncooked—is a necessary ritual material in every religious ceremony. Interestingly, rice is considered to be female in gender. By nurturing an individual person in the form of cooked rice, she is considered Preah Me (August Mother). In addition, rice is venerated in the form of a goddess called Neang Propei.1 She is worshipped for good harvest and prosperity. \nNeang Propei is no doubt a local adoption/adaptation of the Indian God of Wealth and Prosperity, Vaishravana. Such complex socio-religious aspects involved with rice demonstrate how important rice was and is in everyday life of rice-farming commu-nities, concerning how to obtain enough rice for each year. Besides various techniques and tools that were created, rituals and games are also performed to reassure suffi-ciency of rice. For Cambodian rice-farming communities, those rituals and games are associated with animistic beliefs or are animistic oriented. Examples of these include Loeng Neak Ta, Da Lean, and Chlong Chet.2.

Le balafon pentatonique Sénoufo, ou Ncegele en langue Sénoufo, est un instrument de musique composé de 11 à 21 lames d’inégales longueurs, taillées dans du bois et rangées sur un support en forme de trapèze. Il a pour résonateurs des calebasses d’inégales grandeurs rangées sous le support, proportionnellement aux lames. Ces calebasses sont perforées et garnies de membranes d’oothèques d’araignées pour donner de la vibration au son. Le balafon Sénoufo est accordé sur une division de l’octave en cinq intervalles égaux. Les sons s’obtiennent en frappant les lames avec des baguettes de bois attachées aux extrémités par du caoutchouc.