The China National Silk Museum (CNSM) first opened in February 1992 and reopened in September 2016. Now it has become one of the first state-level museums in China, where audiences will find 9,000 square meters of displays in a typical southern Chinese garden of 42,286 square meters near West Lake, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.\nThe museum is divided into several galleries. The first is the Silk Road Gallery, in which the permanent exhibition The Way of Chinese Silk: Silk History and the Silk Road introduces Chinese silk historically and the Silk Road geometrically. Both the earliest preserved silk from the Qianshanyang site, Huzhou, (c.2200 BCE) and the earliest pattern loom model from Laoguanshan, Chengdu, (c.100 BCE) are on display. In the underground of the Silk Road Gallery, the Textile Training Center offers professional courses related to weaving, dyeing, embroidering, and braiding to satisfy the demand of the people who love traditional textile culture and those who wish to inherit traditional skills.\nOn 28 September 2009, Sericulture and Silk Craftsmanship of China was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. To help the audience better understand the intangible cultural heritage, the Sericulture and Weaving Galleries provides more information on how the silk is made. There are five sections of the exhibition, which are The Story of the Silkworm, Folk Customs in the Birthplace of Sericulture, Silk-making Techniques, Textile Printing, Dyeing and Embroidery and Weaving Techniques, displaying more than 270 objects covering the whole process from planting mulberry trees, raising silkworms, releasing silk from cocoons, dyeing, weaving, and embroidery. The techniques in the exhibition combine static displays with live demonstration.

Growing silkworms for silk fabric. Extracting raw silk starts by cultivating the silkworms on mulberry leaves. Once the worms start pupating in their cocoons, these are dissolved in boiling water in order for individual long fibres to be extracted and fed into the spinning reel.

"Cocooning is a complex of raising silkworms, growing cocoons, and is one of the main branches of agriculture that supplies raw materials for the silk industry.\nAs a cocoon industry, the establishment of mulberry groves as a source of food for cocoons, the creation of new varieties of mulberry, the creation of silkworm breeds and durapillas, breeding work, raising silkworms and raising their eggs, preparing live cocoons for the silk industry, drying the cocoons and making them meet the requirements of the dry cocoons standard. includes tasks such as transfer to enterprises, preliminary processing of cocoons.\n"\n

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.

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 37 is 'ICH and Water Management.'

This seminar material contains presentation manuscripts that were announced at the 3rd APHEN-ICH International Seminar held on 18-19 Feburary 2021. ICHCAP hosted this event in cooperation with the UNESCO Bangkok Office and Korea National University of Cultural Heritage (KNUCH).\n\nThis seminar was held 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.