Hung Kings festival commemorates Vietnam’s founders
The main function is at the Hung Kings Temple Festival in Viet Tri, the capital of Phu Tho province near Hanoi, and its districts of Lam Thao and Phu Ninh.
The celebrations include folk games, painting shows, bronze drum beating performances, folk dances, and puppet shows.
The Hung Kings Festival 2006 will also feature troupes from the Republic of Korea, the Vietnam Opera and Ballet Theatre, and the military.
There will be an exhibition on artifacts discovered by archaeologists in Phu Tho and one on books written about the kings.
On Thursday there will be fireworks displays in Lam Thao and the Hung Kings Temple on Nghia Linh mountain, 85 km northwest of Hanoi.
Incense will be offered at 7am Friday at the Kinh Thien Palace, a sacred site in the temple complex.
The festival organizers have arranged tours, themed Returning to the Roots, to the province’s historic and cultural sites, such as Bach Hac (white crane) Temple, Hung Lo Temple, and Mother Au Co Temple, and to rural markets and traditional handicrafts villages.
In the south
Ho Chi Minh City will host this year’s Hung Kings Festival at the Suoi Tien Tourism Park Saturday
Themed Hung Kings journey back to legendary lands, the festival, featuring 36 troupes representing ethnic minorities across the country, is expected to attract 5,000 visitors.
It will also feature 10 professional kylin-lion-dragon dance troupes from the city who will stage shows based on Vietnamese legends and martial arts demonstrations.
The highlights will include a music show – Mung Hoi Non Song (Celebrating the national festival) – by artists of the Tay, Thai, H’mong, Cham, Khmer, K’ho, J’rai, E De, and Ba Na ethnic minority groups.
Spiritual meaning
The Hung Kings Temple Festival not only allows visitors to participate in traditional cultural activities but is also a sacred pilgrimage back to the origins of Vietnamese culture.
In every Vietnamese’s mind, the Hung Kings Temple Festival and Hung Kings’ death anniversary are a symbol of the nation’s spiritual and religious ethos and represent its unity.
Vietnamese from within and outside the country gather for the festival to show their respect and gratitude to their ancestors. As a local saying goes, a person drinking water must remember its source.
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