The Thap Tam Trai festival is a big festival of 13 villages in Ba Dinh district. The festival is held to acknowledge Nguyen Quy Cong from Le Mat village (now Viet Hung ward, Long Bien district) who had merit of reclaiming land of the west of Thang Long citadel that became a fertile agricultural area name Thap Tam Trai. The festival is annually held on 21st of January lunar calendar at Bach Thao park, Ngoc Ha ward, Ba Dinh district, Hanoi city.
The procession has enough 13 villages: Vinh Phuc, Lieu Giai, Cong Vi, Ngoc Ha, Huu Tiep, Kim Ma, Xuan Dieu, Thu Le, Van Phuc, Ngoc Khanh, Dai Yen, Giang Vo, Cong Yen and participation of other villages as: Le Mat village, Long Bien district, Hao Nam village, O Cho Dua ward, Dong Da district, etc.
The festival starts at 8 am with the procession in front of ceremony stage. The procession begins with couple of drums, couple of flags and followed by a team of flag sacrifice and flowers, next palanquin procession, dance, sing in order of 13 villages with old villagers, youths wearing traditional uniform. The procession will go across Ngoc Ha village, and Ngoc Ha- Hoang Hoa Tham road, then go aroung lakes in Bach Thao park.
The festival is diversified with many special performance such as the paper fan dance by 100 female elders. Next is the martial art performance of 100 students and ends with 5- dragon performance full of color. It is very nice looking.
During festival, folk games are an indispensable part as human chess, cock fighting, clay pot crushing, bamboo swing. Other activities such as: contest of bonsai, fruit tray, folk song performance on boat, Vietnamese opera. The final activity is “cut snake” of Le Mat village.
The festival of 13 villages not only carries local features aiming to honor those who had merit of helping people, but also raises people’s awareness of “when you drink the water, remember the person who dug the well” tradition, cultural tradition, spiritual belief, recalls up and down history of building villages, contribute to exchange culture and strengthen the solidarity with the land where born firm and work-hard people imbued with the tradition of Thang Long – Hanoi.
The festival of 13 villages, Ba Dinh district is an event of culture, modern and traditional fine art attracting crowd of participants. The traditional festival expresses cross-cultural and the strength of union, tributes to our ancestors and promotes the cultural image of 13 villages with people in the country and international friends.
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