“Tug of War” joins UNESCO’s intangible heritage list

Locals play tug-of-war in a mud games held in Luolong Village of Mojiang Hani Autonomous County, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, May 2, 2014. Both the locals and tourists joined in a number of competitive but fun events in Friday’s mud games. (Xinhua/Chen Haining)

The traditional game of “Tug of War” was recently added to UNESCO’s international intangible heritage list. The decision was made during the meeting the intangible heritage committee of UNESCO held in Namibia on Wednesday 2nd December.

It’s worthy to mention that four Asian countries: South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Philippines, applied together to ask for this game to be included in the list.

The committee agreed on adding the game to the list of intangible heritage, regarding it as an important cultural tradition, encouraging cooperation in rural societies.

This means that now Korea has 18 items on the intangible heritage list of UNESCO which includes, bansuri music and the tradition of making Korean traditional pickles “kimchi”, and others.