With the spirit of community engagement in preserving and promoting cultural village heritage values, on January 22, 2016, the program “Vietnamese Tet – Dinh Dau Spring 2017” was organized at So Temple, Cong Hoa commune, Quoc Oai district took place by the Vietnamese Village Communal House Group.
The program was attended by international guests being ambassadors, members of diplomatic missions and international organizations in Vietnam; Mr. Pham Sanh Chau – Assistant Ministry of External Affairs, Secretary General of UNESCO Vietnam Committee; on the side of the city, Mr. Truong Minh Tien – Vice Director of Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports; Mr. Nguyen Van Thang – Member of the City Party Committee, Secretary of the District Party Committee, Chairman of Tay Ho District People’s Council; on the side of Quoc Oai District, Mr. Do Lai Luat – Vice Chairman of the District People’s Committee, Mr. Nguyen Vu Han – Head of the Office of Culture and Information, together leaders of Cong Hoa commune.
Taking place at So Temple, one of the most beautiful temples in Doai area, the program “Vietnamese Tet – Dinh Dau Spring 2017” reproduced the whole tradition of traditional New Year’s Days in one day for everyone to come back to the past, spreading traditional cultural values in the community, especially young people. With a lot of elaborate contents, particularly the appearance of Ao Dai – traditional costumes of the old men and women. In the space of the communal house, rituals such as singing at the communal house door, Xoan singing and Cheo singing at the communal house yard traditionally closely linked with the communal house were performed. In addition, the traditions such as Neu tree planting, Ao Dai wearing, calligraphy, Chung cake making, sweet soup cooking, and printing of Hanoi’s Kim Hoang folk paintings which have disappeared for a long time. Through this, participants would know and understand more about the significance of the Lunar New Year’s Days with the beautiful customs that make up the soul of the Vietnamese nation.
Performance of Kim Nham play
In the morning, the program started with Chung cake making and sweet soup cooking. Here, guests were directly guided to themselves make and boil Chung cakes in the traditional way. This was most expected since the urban life has made Chung cake making strange, especially among the youth.
With the desire to revive a true traditional Tet, the Organizing Committee arranged a separate space for writing calligraphy, displaying and introducing the folk paintings like Dong Ho, Hang Trong, etc. Here, guests could hear about historical pictures, production and the use of paintings on the traditional New Year’s Days. Also in the afternoon of the same day, the main contents of the program took place such as the discussion about Tet and the traditions in the Lunar New Year’s Days of Vietnam such as the Village’s Deity Worship ceremony, Neu tree planting ristual , and rituals worshiping ancestors at the end of the year, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Days, singing at the communal house door, Cheo singing at the communal house yard, etc., among which, singing at the communal house door is a long-standing custom, deeply meaningful to the past village and communal cultureal life with the aim to show respect to the Village’s Deity and wish the people good harvest, and warm and happy lives.
Singing at the communal house door
At the event, Mr. Nguyen Van Thang – Member of the City Party Committee, Secretary of the Tay Ho District Party Committee, Chairman of the District People’s Council, a native of Cong Hoa commune handed over 37 restored honorific plates in the Le and Nguyen dynasties to So communal house after 3 months of restoration to ensure the preservation and promotion of the relic’s values. According to Mr. Truong Minh Tien – Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports, in 2017 So communal house was proposed among five relics of Hanoi to be ranked as a national special historical relic. He asked the authorities of Cong Hoa commune to cooperate with Quoc Oai district and Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports to prepare the necessary procedures such as the translation of the genealogical book, epitaph, honorific plates, and parallel sentences, management of antiques, relic environmental protection and fire prevention as well as the application for the national special historical relic ranking.
Dung Nguyen