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New Year Festival, Traditional and Creative

03/03/2025

The New Year Festival is an occasion to pray for peace and honor cultural values. In Ha Nam, at the beginning of the year, 5/6 districts, towns and cities have big festivals. These festivals with strong regional characteristics, where traditional rituals and community memories spread, have attracted a large number of people and tourists to participate and enjoy.

Festivals in the province are rich in forms. Among them, there are traditional festivals such as the Lieu Doi Wrestling Festival (Thanh Liem); restored festivals such as the Doi Son Tich Dien Festival (Tien Son Commune, Duy Tien Town); new creative festivals such as the Saint Tran's Salary Distribution Ceremony at Tran Thuong Temple (Ly Nhan), Poetry Day in the homeland of Tam Nguyen Yen Do Nguyen Khuyen (Binh Luc) and the Buddhist festival Tam Chuc Spring Festival... In addition to preserving and spreading traditional values, the early-year festivals in Ha Nam have been and are having many innovations and creativity to adapt to the diverse needs of contemporary society, contributing to both preserving and promoting and improving the quality of festivals.

Tam Chuc Spring Festival, Year of the Snake 2025. Photo: Le Dung

Lieu Doi Wrestling Festival - National intangible cultural heritage since 2017, is a unique and special festival from its origin, maintenance process to festival practice. Since 2020, to preserve, promote and develop the value of the heritage, Lieu Doi Wrestling Festival has been combined with the Spring Martial Arts Wrestling Tournament - a sports competition born from the land full of martial spirit of Ha Nam and is the longest-standing tournament in the system of provincial sports competitions since Ha Nam was re-established. In addition to the traditional rituals associated with the process of establishing the village, Lieu Doi Wrestling is now more open when it is no longer the rule that only boys can participate in wrestling, so along with ethnic wrestling, the wrestling competition also has female wrestling content and recently Jujitsu wrestling. Coming here, the audience can not only enjoy the beauty of traditional wrestling with traditional wrestling, wrestling and traditional martial arts, but also watch female wrestlers perform and compete in freestyle wrestling, Jujitsu wrestling and now Sambo.

Doi Son Tich Dien Festival, with its historical significance of wet rice civilization, takes place at the beginning of the year in the same field where King Le Dai Hanh once plowed the first plows of the year to encourage farmers to plow and cultivate, spreading the idea of ​​agriculture, so the festival attracts a large number of visitors. In addition to the local people who are the subject of the festival, there are also folklore researchers, intellectuals, artists and tourists from all over. In addition to the traditional rituals, in recent years, the festival has become more vibrant with the addition of stalls selling local products and products with the meaning of praying for good luck at the beginning of the year, helping people to experience the festival and feel more joyful when attending the festival.

Countryside market scene at Poetry Festival in Nguyen Khuyen's hometown.

Ha Nam has two representatives of modern and medieval poetry and literature: Tam Nguyen Yen Do Nguyen Khuyen and Writer, Martyr Nam Cao. Nguyen Khuyen was an official under the Nguyen Dynasty, but he soon retired to live in seclusion, enjoying the countryside, preserving his integrity. Regarding his writing, Poet Nguyen Khuyen left behind more than 800 poems and parallel sentences. His poetry is rich in emotions for nature, for people, for his homeland and country; in which, the autumn poems: Thu Dieu, Thu Am, Thu Vinh made him a poet of Vietnamese village scenes. Every year, on the 15th day of the first lunar month - the day of Nguyen Khuyen's death, the local government and people maintain the organization of a memorial incense offering ceremony at his ancestral temple in Vi Ha village, Trung Luong commune, Binh Luc district.

Since 2003, the 15th day of the first lunar month has been chosen as Vietnam Poetry Day. The Provincial Literature and Arts Association has also organized Vietnam Poetry Day in Ha Nam province in the poet's hometown but on a small scale. In 2024, with the advice of specialized agencies, for the first time, the People's Committee of Binh Luc district coordinated with the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism (VH,TT&DL) and the Provincial Literature and Arts Association to organize Vietnam Poetry Day in the poet's hometown. Poetry Day took place on a larger scale, from the Nguyen Khuyen Ancestral Temple area recognized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as a National Historical Relic in 1991 to Vi Ha communal house and Trung Luong Secondary School. The space of Poetry Day was decorated with the unique image of the Northern countryside: a Tet market with local products, gifts from the countryside; Tet activities were recreated, such as: teachers giving calligraphy at the beginning of spring, folk games in the communal house yard. This year in particular, at Vi Ha communal house yard, the Organizing Committee also set up an examination hall recreating the scene of the examination tents of the ancient scholars that Nguyen Khuyen also took the exam and passed the third exam. And with many extremely beautiful check-in spaces, this activity is starting to spread, attracting people and tourists. From the festival honoring poetry associated with the festival honoring heritage, honoring famous people, and educating traditions, Poetry Day in Nguyen Khuyen's hometown is a creative contribution to the impressive early spring festivals in Ha Nam.

Traditional festivals are original festivals associated with spiritual elements and community beliefs. However, besides preservation, creativity in traditional festivals is an important factor that helps the festival become more lively and attract diverse needs of people, especially the young generation.

Source: baohanam.com.vn

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