| Description |
A Sào Temple Festival takes place every year in two periods: the Spring Festival is held from the 9th to the 11th of the second lunar month; The Autumn Festival is held on the 20th day of the 8th lunar month.
The festival is held to commemorate the merits of Hưng Đạo King Trần Quốc Tuấn. The place A Sào is associated with a touching and humane story about Trần Hưng Đạo's feelings for his war elephant bogged down by the Hóa River wharf. This is one of the largest festivals in the region.
On the opening day of the festival, the procession takes place from the villages to Tượng wharf and then to A Sào temple. The procession symbolizes the victorious army of Hưng Đạo King Trần Quốc Tuấn returning to A Sào in the bustling sound of drums and gongs, recreating a heroic period in the history of the Vietnamese people.
According to ancient rules, all rituals in this festival follow national rituals. The court often sent mandarins to perform rituals and often had round sticky rice cake- a type of cake that people in the area wrapped thousands of pieces as food for the army crossing the Hóa River to fight the enemy in the past. Therefore, round sticky rice cake is a typical offering that people offer to Saint Trần.
Two typical performances of the A Sàoo temple festival are earthen firecrackers and word scissors dance. These two performances are the two customs of the festival. The custom of clay cannons is associated with the legend that when King Hưng Đạo's war elephant got bogged down at the riverbank, the villagers threw dirt into the river to give the elephant a place to escape. The Word Scissor Dance is associated with the soldier training ritual of the Tran Dynasty generals, a simplification of the Bat Dat dance - an ancient court dance. These two performances also bear the mark of agricultural beliefs - praying for rain and harvest of wet rice farming residents.
Within the framework of the festival, many performing arts and folk games are organized such as Chèo singing, Văn singing, wrestling, swimming, round sticky rice cake pounding competition, etc. |
