- graduate students from institutions of higher education in the ASEAN region— Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand, as well as outside the region, Australia and the United States— to present academic papers at an international conference. Twenty-three papers were presented during the two-day event, held on August 4th and 5th, 2010 at Chulalongkorn University. The presentations consisted of five papers from invited speakers from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, and a further eighteen papers from selected participants. The conference was inaugurated with a key-note speech from M.R. Sukhumbandhu Paribatra, the Governor of Bangkok, who demonstrated, through his personal experience, how humour plays a role in the political and administrative arena. Before the presentation of papers, there was an interview with the Reverend Phra Maha Sompong, a renowned Buddhist monk, who uses humour to great effect in teaching the Dhamma. The first day of the conference ended with a welcome dinner organized in honour of the participants. The event included a pantomime show which created an entertaining atmosphere but which could also be taken as social criticism, thus demonstrating one of the subtle functions of humour. The conference concluded with two more activities--a demonstration of taletelling—“ ASEAN Tales: Humour and More” and some concluding remarks on the two-days of presentations. The demonstration showed that folktales not only serve the purpose of entertaining their audience but are also a means of preserving folk identity and culture. The concluding remarks focused the attention of the audience on the roles and functions of humour, highlighting its subtleties and complexities. During the final phase, a collection of seven papers will be edited and compiled into a volume for publication. Summary of the Contents and Relevance of the Papers The twenty-three academic papers on humour shed light on the subject as follows: 1. All twenty three papers and performances were solid testimonies of how human beings use humour to reflect their perception and their way of thinking and both define and transmit their experience. 2. All twenty three papers and performances showed that humour, which tends to be taken lightly as mere entertainment, can, on closer observation, reveal deeper and more serious meaning beneath the amusing façade. 3. The papers and performances showed that members of the ASEAN community share some common cultural ground. At the same time, they made the audience aware that understanding humour from different social and cultural backgrounds contributes to their understanding of other people and may, eventually, be able to relieve conflict at the personal, communal, national and international level.