At the seminar, apart from Brunei, folk cultural exchange representatives from nine ASEAN countries all made positive speeches. They talked about the current situation and general overview of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) development in their own countries, as well as the pressing issues that need to be resolved.
Lai Susuan from the Oral History Centre of the National Archives of Singapore mentioned a new topic on the inheritance and protection of ICH: "Can ICH be restored?" This restoration refers to how to reproduce folk arts from over a hundred or even hundreds of years ago in the absence of inheritors. Lai Susuan said that Singapore is leading the way in this aspect. Protection and inheritance are not something that can be easily achieved; they require prior collection of data. They have designed restoration rooms for video documentation and turned oral history into text archives to restore the original culture based on data. For example, Singapore street theater, which is quite unique and was recently on the verge of disappearing, had all its materials collected in the 1980s. By January this year, a group of young students who were interested in Singaporean opera wanted to reconstruct and perform street theater, so they came to the archives to understand and conduct restorative performances. This is a new form. Therefore, although there may be breaks in the performance of Singaporean opera, young people can refer to previous local performances through the archives to recreate past art forms.
Regarding oral history, Lai Susuan also mentioned, "We have strong ties with Yunnan. Since 2009, we have cooperated to provide training here, and people from Yunnan have interned in Singapore. A batch will also go this year. We use and learn oral history to rescue the culture of ethnic minorities in Yunnan. Because many ethnic minorities in Yunnan do not have written language, we can only rely on oral transmission."
ASEAN countries actively apply for World Cultural Heritage status. Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and other ASEAN countries are all nations rich in intangible culture. In terms of protection and inheritance, they all mentioned the current state of ICH development and protection in their own countries. Their common point is that many ICH items are related to agrarian culture, such as traditional songs and dances. Governments strongly support the inheritance and protection of ICH and are actively applying to join the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. "Cambodian Royal Ballet and Shadow Puppet Art" has actively applied for UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage status, and Thailand has also submitted applications to the United Nations World Heritage Committee. Thailand realizes the importance of protecting ICH on an international scale and has held a series of international forums.
Since 2008, Thailand has enacted the "ICH Protection Regulations," with more than 80 projects listed as national intangible cultural heritage. The Thai Ministry of Culture believes that the "pinching fingers" movements, costumes, and pre-performance rituals for dance gods in Thai traditional dances have distinctive "Thai-style" characteristics and can independently and formally apply for World Heritage status.