Vietnam_Picture_Tugging Rituals and Games:Anh Keo co ngoi

Seated Tugging is practiced in the village festival of Thach Ban Ward, Long Bien District, Hanoi city.\nThis village is situated on the land along the Red River dike. The people live mainly on farming and rice cultivation, so water is extremely important. The legend of Seated Tugging is rooted in the desire for sufficient water for life and production. Thus, the saints that people worship are all related to water. Seated Tugging expresses the desire for good weather and good harvest.\nSeated Tugging is done on the ground. A rattan rope is threaded through ironwood pillars fixed to the ground. The tugging game is played by two teams (nineteen people per team) sitting on the ground. One leg is bent, the other is straight, and the heels provide the leverage to pull. The teams also have to prepare gifts of sticky rice and a pig head covered with fat to offer to the saints. Seated Tugging is a ritual and a game, played in three-round matches at the Tran Vu temple festival. There is always a winning team. According to the compact of the community, it symbolizes luck and flourishing for the year. These compacts, concepts, and conditions for participation for Seated Tugging are prescribed\nby the community and maintained from generation to generation. The value of the ritual and game has a spiritual character and also expresses cultural creativity. It is the conversion of beliefs or desires into a cultural expression of offerings, rituals, and performances, which is reflected in the behavior between the two teams, as well as between the game participators, flag keeper, and drum player. All communities participate in the ritual and game voluntarily, fairly, and without rivalry.

Masks and mask dance exist through which they try to realize equality and be free from judgement, allowing you to express yourself as an equal in society regardless of class. The mask dance festival starts on the last Friday of September and lasts for ten days, and over a million people visit domestically and internationally. It has garnered attention from world leaders. Queen Elizabeth II of the UK, George H. Bush and George W. Bush of the USA, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and other influential leaders have attended. The festival is about mixing modernity with tradition coming together, creating a mosaic of different colors and cultural significance. They use the mask dance festival as a collaborative tool that can bring various cultures together. The mask dance festival also plays a large role in transmitting the heritage to younger generations through various associations that function as a network.

Bakhshi - is an epic creator. The Bakhshi art is one of the specific genres of folk performing art. Bakhshi is a master and improvisator of words and stories, a skillful musician (skillfully plays on certain musical instrument) and singer (possesses the skills of traditional singing), who can accompany his performance with mimicry and plastique. He should be familiar with the life of his nation, with its culture and history. Moreover, he should have a rich vocabulary and masterly use popular language, be able to play with words, use their diverse forms. And all these features are connected with the art of bakhshi (bakhshichilik), which has centuries-long history. The repertoire of Uzbek storytellers and narrators includes heroic, historical and romantic dostons, which incorporated ancient cultural traditions, memory of the nation, its spiritual world and historical destiny, its civic, moral and aesthetic ideals. In dostons it is possible to find the ideas of patriotism and humanism, commitment and love, friendship and brotherhood. At the same time, freedom of fantasy, which is observed among bakhshis, makes possible artistic realization of folk ideals. It should be noted that doston is not about verbal performance only. It is also the work of art which is prosaic, poetic and musical. Indeed, bakhshi does not read doston but sings it. The singing is accompanied by playing on dombra or by instrumental ensemble. The whole artistic composition, all figurative means and expressions of doston are aimed at improving the perception of listeners.

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.

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.

Nhịp đuổi is one of the melodies in a Chèo play, called “Trấn thủ lưu đồn”. This melody was performed through the solo of the nhị two-string fiddle by Meritorious Chèo artist Minh Nhương,a Chèo troupe artist of Thái Bình province who was born in Khuốt village.Thái Bình is the sole place preserving the ancient folk Chèo at community houses.

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.”

CD4_FOLK MELODIES OF NEPAL\n\nIt has been estimated that Nepal's repertoire of folk melodies once numbered more than sixty thousand. The country’s landscape features rivers, hills, mountains, plains, and streams, as well as an extremely rich flora and fauna, which have all inspired Nepal's folk musicians. In the past, communities were more isolated from one another due to the difficult terrain and the lack of roads and transport. Thus, every small village developed its own melodies. For example, it is said that the call of the bharedwaja bird inspired at least 128 different rhythms.

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.

Audio and Video Materials Collected from the Onsite Survey in the Ferghana Valley_2012 Uzbekistan-ICHCAP Joint Cooperation Project of Producing Digital Contents on ICH\n\nThe glorious intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of Ferghana Valley encompassing the state of Ferghana, Andijion, and Namangan in Uzbekistan includes oral traditional, performing arts, traditional rites and festive events, and traditional crafts. However, this heritage is largely unknown to the public in the nation and abroad, and it is fading out even more rapidly due to the young generation’s lack of interest.\n\nSince 2011, the four Central Asian countries, including Uzbekistan, have been implementing a three-year project, Facilitating ICH Inventory-Making by Using Online Tools for ICH Safeguarding in the Central Asian Region as a Central Asia–ICHCAP cooperative project. In the framework of the project, the countries have collected ICH information and tried to build an online system for managing the collected information.\n\nIn Uzbekistan, the Republican Scientific and Methodological Centre of Folk Art, under the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in collaboration with the National Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan for UNESCO, implemented the three-year project. They collected information on ICH elements in the Ferghana Valley (Andijan, Namangan, and Ferghana regions), Zarafshan Oasis and Southern Uzbekistan (Jizzakh, Samarkand, Kashkadarya, and Surkhandarya regions), and the Republic of Karakalpakstan (Navoi, Bukhara, and Khoresm regions) through onsite surveys from 2012 to 2014.\n\nIn 2012 when the first onsite survey was concluded, Uzbekistan and ICHCAP selected representative materials among collected videos, audios, and photos on ICH elements and ICH bearers, and compiled the materials as a ten-CD/DVD collection. Also, booklets in English, Uzbek, and Korean were made to spread related information to a wider audience.\n\nFerghana Valley is also home to Tajikistan, Uighers, and Turkistan. In the other words, different traditions co-exist in the same place. ‘Katta Ashula’, which integrates arts, songs, music, and epics, is one Uzbek cultural heritage representing the identities of the diverse people live in the valley\n\nThe collection could preserve the disappeared and disconnected ICH and encourage increased mutual understanding and communication by spreading the information widely from the experts to the people.

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 40 is 'Rites of Passage, a Journey to Adulthood.'