A joint taekwondo team comprising South and North Korean athletes perform at a stadium in Gangwon Province during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. JOINT PRESS CORPS Taekwondo, the martial art South Korea has spent decades promoting around the world, is set to be inscribed on Unesco's intangible heritage list as North Korea's heritage alone, and it is likely to stay that way for years. The Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage's evaluation body recommended Wednesday inscribing North Korea's nomination, "Taekwon-Do, traditional martial art in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea," on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the North's official name. The evaluation body recommends that a nomination be inscribed, referred back for further information, or not inscribed, and the committee rarely overturns these recommendations. 모바일 야마토 무료 게임 South Korea spent nearly a decade pursuing a joint inscription of taekwondo with North Korea. When talks stalled, Pyongyang filed its own nomination in 2024, and Seoul followed with its own only this March. "It's a pity that taekwondo, which carries significant diplomatic influence and symbolic meaning, could not be prioritized over other elements [South] Korea has been pushing to inscribe," said Lee Jong-sung, a professor of sports industry science at Hanyang University. "Taekwondo is the only Olympic sport category that comes from South Korea. Having North Korea pre-emptively claim it as its Unesco heritage could undermine our claim to the sport internationally." The two Koreas practice taekwondo under different rules and styles. The North's version is rooted in the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF), while the South's follows the World Taekwondo (WT). 황금성동영상 The International Olympic Committee adopted the WT style as an official Olympic event in 1994, and it debuted as a full medal sport at the 2000 Sydney Games. Taekwondo practitioners perform for the 78th Armed Forces Day ceremony at Gyeryongdae military headquarters in Gyeryong, South Chungcheong, on Sept. 29. NEWS1 Seoul's push for a joint listing took concrete form in 2018, when the WT and the ITF signed an agreement in Pyongyang to work toward a joint inscription. Exchanges followed but came to a de facto halt in 2022 as inter-Korean relations deteriorated sharply. "Due to various factors, including current inter-Korean relations, a joint inscription appears virtually impossible at this point," Huh Min, the head of the Korea Heritage Service, in charge of administrating the country's Unesco listings, said Monday on Facebook. "We find this deeply regrettable." 모바일 바다이야기 무료머니 While inter-Korean relations inevitably shaped the pace of progress, talks also stalled because South Korea itself had yet to reach consensus on a number of key issues. Unesco requires a nominated element to be included in the submitting country's national heritage inventory, but taekwondo is not on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage list managed by the Korea Heritage Service. "Institutional framework wasn't ready and there wasn't a consensus among multiple stakeholders over what kind of value taekwondo held," said Huh Kwon, the president of the World Martial Arts Union and former secretary general of the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region. "Some perceived it as heritage while others perceived it as just a sport. Whilst struggling over those issues, we missed the timing." North Korea's solo nomination, however, does not make taekwondo North Korean property, nor does it grant Pyongyang exclusive authority over the practice. 바다이야기 황금고래 종료 There have been cases where South Korea and North Korea separately listed the same intangible heritage on Unesco's list with different storytelling. "Arirang" was inscribed by South Korea in 2012 with an emphasis on emotions like love and sorrow, while the same folk song genre was inscribed by North Korea in 2014 with more emphasis on resistance and struggles. Gimjang — the process of making kimchi — was inscribed by South Korea in 2013 and focuses on sharing with the community, while North Korea emphasized its history and tradition when inscribing it in 2015. "Intangible cultural heritage is about how a community preserves tradition and passes it down to future generations," Huh Kwon said. "Even if North Korea asserted its claim first, it doesn't mean our way of preserving taekwondo has been taken away too. We should work toward independent listing." The final decision on North Korea's inscription of taekwondo is scheduled to be made at the 21st session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Xiamen, China, from Nov. 모바일 바다이야기 예시 종료 30 to Dec. 5. South Korea will be evaluated on "Traditional Knowledge, Skills and Cultural Practices of Hanji Making," which was also recommended for inscription by the evaluation body Thursday. Hanji refers to traditional Korean paper. Its next candidate, "Ginseng Culture: Caring for and Expressing Gratitude to Nature and Family (Community)," is set to be evaluated in 2028. South Korea, along with Japan and China, is allowed to be evaluated on only one nomination every two years for Unesco's Intangible Heritage list, as the country already has multiple elements on the list. As a result, South Korea's nomination, "Taekwondo: A Dojang-centered Korean Training Tradition," will not be eligible for evaluation for Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage status until 2030 at the earliest. The two Koreas so far have one joint inscription — ssireum (traditional Korean wrestling) — on Unesco's Intangible Cultural Heritage list, which was inscribed in 2018. BY JIN EUN-SOO [] 21.top ╉ 오