According to Vietnamese tradition, the first lunar month is a time for enjoying feasts and cultural festivities. Various festivals are held throughout the country during the month. Prof Ngo Duc Thinh, director of Belief Culture Research and Preservation Centre, also a member of the National Heritage Council talks about restoring traditional festivals in the country.
Many ancient traditional festivals have been recently restored after long breaks. What do you think? Should we restore old festivals?
Sure. We should. Basically, traditional festivals belong to the people, are organised by the people and are for the people, where ordinary people express their feelings and desires.
According to official statistics by the Grassroots Culture and Information Department, nearly 8,000 traditional festivals have been restored, which I think is far fewer than in reality.
I think traditional festivals possess five values meeting the demand of modern society. First, festivals are an environment for people to think of their origin, the origin of their community, society and people.
For example, the Huong Pagoda Festival in Ha Noi, was a cave festival before Buddhism was introduced in the country. The Thai ethnic group in the north-west still enjoy cave festivals now, it's where people return to their original residence in caves.
The more the urban environment becomes overcrowded, the more ecological tourism combined with belief tourism develops. A series of festivals aiming to recall historical origins have prospered including the Hung Temple Festival, Tran Hung Dao Temple Festival, and the Hai Ba Trung Temple Festival. Vietnamese people learn their history through traditional festivals.
Second, traditional festivals unite the community through the symbols being worshipped.
Third, festivals balance spiritual and secular life. After hard work, people need relaxation and enjoyment. In 1996, I visited Japan for the first time, I was surprised by the fact that while Japan was so modern, Japanese people were even busier than Vietnamese people in worshipping. They have various worshipping ceremonies.
A Japanese colleague explained to me that if there had been no festivals to balance themselves, Japanese people would have fallen into a collective mental disorder. I think Vietnamese are the same. Taking part in festivals during the spring helps people become more relaxed and balanced.
Fourth, traditional festivals are where people can express their want for culture.
Fifth, festivals are where customs are handed down. Festivals are museums of traditional culture.
So why do we raise the question whether we should or should not restore traditional festivals? If we say "no", people still invest themselves in restoring temples and pagodas anyway.
But in reality, there have been many problems in organising festivals recently. What do you think?
In one of my recent articles, I wrote on the danger of losing the traditional values associated with the festivals. The most mentioned issue is "simplification". Each festival has its own special feature. After a long break, the special features disappear, and we now tend to organise the same things at every festival.
Previously, female saints were only worshipped in some temples. But now female saints' processions appear at every festival, even at Ha Noi's Temple of Literature, where female saints were originally not worshipped.
Assimilation spoils festival identities. Festivals are spiritual activities, associated with worshipping. But many festivals have lost their holy meaning. The recent Lanh Giang Festival in Ha Nam Province is an example.
Festivals should keep their holy features. We should not turn them into money-making enterprises through offering such things as praying services.
Many people are taking advantage of spiritual activities to make money. We should think of educating people, especially the youth, with basic knowledge about belief, festivals and saints so that they act properly at festivals.
What do you think about attractive festivals such as the Tich Dien (King's Ploughing) and the Lanh Giang Temple Festival in Ha Nam Province?
In my opinion, tradition and modernity always come together. I support introducing contemporary features into tradition. But hau dong (ritual of a spiritual medium to connect practitioners and deities, with whom they attempt to communicate) should not be practised in an open square like it was at Lanh Giang Temple Festival.
At the King's Ploughing Festival, I didn't like the way the buffalo were painted. We should have made them holy buffalo. Like in Thailand, the buffalo is covered with an embroidered cape in a similar ceremony.
But I think this year's King's Ploughing was even better than the previous event. Last month, President Nguyen Minh Triet acted as a farmer. He was the correct person to do the task as the head of the country, just like the king in feudal times.
Some private companies have helped organise festivals. What do you think about this trend of privatising traditional festivals?
We should follow that trend providing that certain traditional standards are preserved. — VNS