Fighting fest opens in northern province

Thousands Tuesday flocked to Chuong market in the northern Thanh Hoa province’s Dong Son District to throw potatoes and rotten eggs at one another -- a practice thought to bring good luck for the year ahead.

From early morning (5:00 am), locals and visitors wearing new clothes rushed to the festival, which is annually organized on the 6th day of first lunar month, to buy eggs, potatoes and apples to be used later as weapons to ‘fight’ one another.

Locals told Tuoi Tre it is impossible to go to the market unattacked by potatoes and eggs thrown by festival goers.

According to traditional beliefs, the redness of potatoes is a symbol of luck while fighting is said to bring abundant crops and a prosperous life.

However, some young people have taken advantage of this custom to settle real-life dispute. Actual fights and serious injuries, even death, do happen sometimes.

“Usually, police are mobilized to the scene to handle such problems. However, in some cases, the public security forces are also victims,” said Hung, a policeman in Dong Son District.

According to legend, an army general was once besieged by the enemy when he was passing through the market. He sharp-wittedly ordered his men to pretend to be market goers and hide all weapons inside baskets.

As the result, the enemy was misled and defeated.

“Our village saw abundant crops that year,” said 70-year-old Tuan.

To celebrate the event, locals gather at the market on the 6th lunar day to wish for a lucky and prosperous year.

They also stage a mock battle - with eggs and potatoes - to commemorate the legendary victory.

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In-bound tourists up 20 percent during Tet

The tourism industry in Vietnam saw an increase of domestic tourists by 20 percent during the five days of the Lunar New Year festival (Tet) from February 3-7 against last year’s period.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that 75,000 Vietnamese traveled around the country during the holidays.

Among the most favorite destinations include Hoi An ancient town in the central province of Quang Nam, the ancient capital of Hue, the beach cities of Nha Trang and Phan Thiet, the mountainous city Dalat, as well as Phu Quoc Island and other locations in the Mekong Delta provinces.

Meanwhile, Dalat, Da Nang and Hue were the most-selected venues for Tet travelling by foreign tourists, according to the department.

In total, 70,000 local and foreign travelers arrived in Dalat during Tet, while Hue received 25,000 – an increase of 10 percent and 22 percent, respectively.

The uptick in visitors created a surge in room prices. In Dalat, tourists paid VND150,000 – VND200,000 (US$7.5 - $10) for a room for one day, up by 60% over the off-peak season rate.

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World heritage photo competition begins

HA NOI – Amateur and professional photographers will display their best imeages in a competition entitled Vietnamese World Heritages to be held in July.

Launched by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's Department of Fine Arts, Photography and Exhibitions in co-operation with the Viet Nam Association of Photographic Artists (VAPA), the Natural Cultural Heritage Department and National Administration of Tourism, the competition aims to draw attention to the value of the nation's UNESCO-recognised world heritage.

UNESCO has recognised the imperial city of Hue, Ha Long Bay, My Son Sanctuary, the ancient town of Hoi An, Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, the citadel of Thang Long-Ha Noi, as world heritage sites, and nha nhac (royal court music), the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) gong culture, quan ho (love duet singing) in the northern province of Bac Ninh, ca tru (ceremonial singing), and the Saint Giong Festival as tangible or intangible cultural heritage.

The photo competition will award a first prize worth VND10 million and a gold medal from VAPA. Two second prizes worth VND7 million, three third prizes worth VND5 million, and ten encouragement prizes worth VND2 million would also be awarded, along with certificates from VAPA.

About 250 entries will be selected for display at an exhibition to be held in the central city of Da Nang on National Day, September 2, and in Ha Noi on Liberation Day, October 10.

Vietnamese and foreign photographers are being invited to submit entries, in colour or black-and-white. Images should be sized 30 by 45cm and not previously awarede prizes in other competitions held by the ministry or the association.

Contestants could submit up to 11 entries, which is the number of UNESCO heritage recognitions the nation has received, said competition organiser Vi Kien Thanh. All 11 photos can be taken from a single heritage site, he explained.

However, veteran photographer Van Tho argued, "Eleven photos cannot show the beauty of Vietnamese world heritage. I have taken many photos at the Giong Festival, and I propose that photographers be allowed to send more to the organisation." – VNS

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Festivals honour rice, heroes and pilgrims

Party time: The opening day of the Huong Pagoda Festival, one of the major festivals in Viet Nam. — VNA/VNS Photo Quoc Khanh Light it up: Thousands join a procession during the firecracker festival in Dong Ky Village in Bac Ninh Province on Sunday. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoang Hung

HA NOI — A three-day festival commemorating mythical Vietnamese hero Saint Giong began in Ha Noi yesterday.

The annual event at Soc Temple is one of several festivals in the north to honour of Saint Giong, a legendary hero who is said to have defeated an army of foreign invaders.

Participants at the Soc Temple festivities took part in offerings to the saint, the moc duc ceremony, symbolising a cleansing process for the temple, and the bamboo procession, which celebrates Saint Giong's martial arts skills with a bamboo weapon used to defeat the invaders.

According to legend, Saint Giong was only three years old when the country was invaded by northern troops. When the infant Giong heard an official from the royal court calling for skilled warriors to defend the motherland, he magically grew in stature.

Last year, the Saint Giong festival was recognised by UNESCO as an example of the world's intangible heritage that should be preserved. It's one of several major festivals across the country during the onset of spring.

Other major festivals include the Huong Pagoda festival, which also started yesterday and features the largest annual pilgrimage of Vietnamese Buddhists.

Pilgrims from across the country flock to the Huong Son Pagoda, in Ha Noi's My Duc District, around 60km west of the city's centre, on the 6th day of the first month of the new lunar year.

The pagoda, built at the end of 17th century, is situated in an area of several important temples dedicated to local saints and agricultural gods on a banks of the Day River.

It is estimated that about 50,000 visitors attended the opening day of this year's festival, which lasts till the end of the third month of the lunar year (end of April). Last year, the number of pilgrims reached 1.3 million.

My Duc District People's Committee chairman Le Van Sang said the local authority had planned a safer and more bustling festival this year. Shops, advertisement banners and food stalls would be strictly controlled to offer the best service to visitors.

Environmental protection would also be enhanced by the pagoda's management board, which planned to process rubbish according to guidelines issued by the Ha Noi Natural Resources and Environment Department.

In other festivals across the north, people in Ha Nam Province begin celebrating the Tich dien (ploughing the rice field) festival today. The three-day festival commemorates the day King Le Dai Hanh ploughed a field to promote farming during the 10th century.

Provincial leaders will join farmers at the plough to open the festival today. Since this year, the festival will be organised annually and upgraded into a national-level event with participation from State leaders every five years.

"The Tich dien festival was a time when leaders of the nation was closer to the people," said Tran Quoc Hung, director of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

"The noble tradition should be maintained."

Tens of thousands of visitors also converged on Dong Ky Village, Tu Son Town in the northern province of Bac Ninh, on Sunday in the traditional firecracker festival.

Four respected elders from each of the four hamlets in the village were selected to perform rituals and pray for good weather, bumper crops and prosperity.

The festival, which is organised on the fourth day of the first lunar month and lasts for three days, honours General Thien Cuong, who recruited young villagers to fire on the enemy and was later considered the tutelary god of the village.

Wrestling fest revives

Hundreds of tourists and local residents witnessed an annual traditional wrestling competition held in the central Thua Thien-Hue Province yesterday.

Scores of wrestlers from Thua Thien-Hue and Quang Tri provinces took part in the event held in Thu Le Village in Quang Dien District.

The Thu Le Wrestling Festival, begun by local residents more than 100 years ago, was revived recently after disappearing during the war.

The event will be followed by other festivities like the Princess Huyen Tran Festival in Huong Thuy District on February 11, the Sinh Village Wrestling Competition in Quang Dien District ûon February 12, and the Fish Praying Festival in Phu Vang District on February 14. — VNS

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Catholic priest helps preserve ethnic culture

Father figure: Catholic priest Nguyen Duc Ngoc poses with Chu Ru children. — File Photo

LAM DONG — Catholic priest Nguyen Duc Ngoc has built a wooden museum displaying ancient items of the ethnic Chu Ru group in the Central Highland province of Lam Dong's Ka Don Village.

On show are hundreds of the Chu Ru's belongings collected by Ngoc, including farming and hunting tools, musical instruments, jewellery, costumes and culinary utensils.

Elderly villager Ko Tum said: "The museum is very helpful for ethnic Chu Ru and Co Ho people, particularly the young, who often come here to understand about their ancestors and history."

Ngoc first gained exposure to traditional Chu Ru culture nearly 40 years ago when he was assigned to work at the parish in Ka Don Village of Don Duong District.

Apart from collecting items, Ngoc is compiling documents to write a book in Chu Ru language to systemise and analyse the value of the culture and life of the people.

He said each item in his museum could tell an interesting story about the Chu Ru's tradition and how they lived in the past.

"It's very difficult to find such ancient items as a wooden buffalo bell. I had to travel to each house of each villager to find it.

"I'm very happy because apart from helping people preserve their ancient things I can also help explain the culture to students from Da Lat and HCM City who visit my museum to learn and compile documents for their university assignments," Ngoc said.

Many researchers of ethnic culture from HCM City and abroad had also visited his museum, he said.

Ngoc has also set up a room to translate documents of the majority Kinh group and other groups' cultures and agriculture into the Chu Ru language.

Speaking and writing the language helps him teach villagers to apply advanced technology in agriculture production to improve their living standards.

Villager Tum said: "Ngoc often visits our vegetable gardens and rice fields to show us how to apply modern technology to gain higher productivity."

Tum expressed the group's gratitude to Ngoc for his love of their culture and his contribution to the protection and preservation of the Chu Ru's tangible and intangible heritage and the villagers' well-being. — VNS

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The Pilgrim’s tales

A large crowd of pilgrims jostle on the way up to Huong Pagoda

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Tens of thousands of pilgrims are jostling, pushing, and littering up the sacred place at the Huong Pagoda in Hanoi as the famous Huong Pagoda Festival opens Tuesday, to last three months.

The pagoda, in My Duc District, is a cultural and historical relic of Vietnam and according to traditions, on the sixth day of the lunar New Year which is today, people would arrive at the pagoda to pray for wellness and fortune.

Huong pagoda is not one temple but a cluster of temples and shrines in the general vicinity of Huong Mountain, built during the reign of Le Chinh Hoa (1680 -1705), by a monk.

Other shrines and temples were later built in this area to take advantage of the beautiful scenery.

Tuoi Tre captures chaotic images around the site today:

 

 

A large crowd of pilgrims jostle to the entrance gate of Thien Tru Pagoda – one of many sites belonging to Huong Pagoda to lay their offerings to the gods for fortune

 

Some shop owners offer odd service by charging VND2,000 – 10,000 for each pilgrim to use their shops as shortcuts to the pilgrimage site

 

After squeezing in to visit some locations, visitors take a rest and start to throw away garbage

 

Many young people try to enter a sacred site to pray by climbing over a hedge

 

Children buy violent toys on their pilgrimage path

 

Many jostled and waited up to 2 hours for their turn to take a cable car to the Huong Tich Cave – lying midway on the side of Huong Tich Mountain and 400m above sea level

Ho Chi Minh City bookworms rummage festival

Parents take their children to search for books during the book road festival

Around 150,000 people visited the first-ever Book Road Festival organized in Ho Chi Minh City from January 31 to February 6 during the Lunar New Year.

Located on Mac Thi Buoi, a side street connecting Dong Khoi with the heavy-trafficked Nguyen Hue flower road in District 1, it was filled with people from morning until late at night.

A Q&A session with four writers Do Thi Thanh Binh, Le Thi Kim, Bui Chi Vinh, and Pham Sy Sau on Sunday morning attracted a large audience, some of whom stayed longer than expected to get a chance to talk to the famous writers.

The festival also provided a special area for children to read books and color drawings, which proved a huge attraction with kids.

People looking for rare books published before the Renovation period could exchange or buy them at a stall put up by the city’s General Science Library, some for merely VND10,000 (50 US cents).

“At first, we did not think we would be able to sell many books during Tet but it turned out people in HCMC bought a lot,” said Tu Ha, a cashier for a bookstall at the event.

“Books on Buddhism, culture, and philosophy; works by famous authors like Tran Dan and To Hoai; and translated items by well-known publishers like Nha Nam, Tri Thuc, and Dong A, were in great demand.”

Fahasa, the biggest book distributor in the country, reported sales worth VND500 million (US$ 25,500) during the week.

“This is a success [at the festival in the city with population of 8 million]. Next year perhaps we can seek a larger area, a larger street to organize the festival,” Le Manh Ha, director of the city’s Information and Communication Department, said.

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