Today is the 6th day of Tet: Opening of many spring festivals

Today, January 6, many major festivals are inaugurated to open the 2013 festival season across the country.

Today, the 2013 Huong Pagoda Festival, the biggest festival of the year, lasting for 3 months with the theme of Traditional Vietnamese Cultural Beauty, officially opened at Thien Tru yard, Huong Pagoda, My Duc district - Hanoi.But without waiting for the opening day, tens of thousands of tourists have come to Huong Pagoda festival in the first days of the new year. In the first 5 days of the year alone, Huong Pagoda has welcomed more than 70,000 visitors to the festival and pagoda. It is expected that the number of visitors to Huong Pagoda festival this year will increase by about 8% compared to last year, or about 1.5 million people.

The festival opened a series of events in response to the National Tourism Year of the Red River Delta - Hai Phong in the capital. The highlight of the opening ceremony was the cultural and artistic program, dragon and lion dances, besides the release ceremony on Yen stream, the photo exhibition "Ancient Vietnamese pagodas" and many other unique cultural and artistic activities.

Selected by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as the key festival of the year, the 2013 Huong Pagoda Festival was prepared quite carefully. Before the festival season, the traffic routes from My Duc district to Huong Pagoda were upgraded, repaired as well as a system of signs installed from Ha Dong to Yen stream. The owners of the boats and ferries transporting passengers were also trained in knowledge of waterway traffic safety, customer service attitude... This festival season, about 4,800 boats and ferries were put into use to serve tourists.

* Also today, many monks, nuns, Buddhists, and visitors from within and outside the country attended the opening ceremony of Bai Dinh Pagoda, Ninh Binh province.

Bai Dinh Pagoda, which is over 1,000 years old, is where Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang set up an altar to pray for favorable weather and wind; King Quang Trung also chose this place to perform the flag-raising ceremony and encourage his soldiers before marching to Thang Long to defeat the invading Qing army.

On the opening day, it is estimated that tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world came to offer incense and admire the landscape of the largest pagoda in Southeast Asia, which currently holds many Vietnamese records such as the largest bronze bell, weighing 30 tons; the bronze statue of Buddha Shakyamuni weighing 150 tons; the largest bronze statue of the Three Worlds, each weighing 50 tons; the longest Arhat corridor with 500 statues...

The Bai Dinh Pagoda Festival lasts until the end of Spring. This year, to avoid chaos in the pagoda area, Ninh Binh province has increased interdisciplinary inspection teams to ensure security and order, maintain environmental sanitation, and bring tourism services into order; prevent and strictly handle all cases of soliciting, forcing customers to buy goods, taking photos, motorbike taxis, and illegal parking.

* It has become a tradition that every year on the 6th day of the Lunar New Year, Thai Nguyen people flock to Phu Luong district to attend the Duom Temple Spring Festival. This is one of the biggest festivals in Thai Nguyen province to commemorate and honor the historical figure Duong Tu Minh.

Duom Temple is located at the foot of Duom Mountain in Dong Dat Commune, Phu Luong District. This is the place to worship the historical figure Duong Tu Minh, who had great merit in repelling foreign invaders and firmly protecting the northern border of Dai Viet under the Ly Dynasty.

This year's Duom Temple Festival is organized into two parts: the ceremony and the festival. The ceremony is performed by the people in the district. At exactly 8:00 a.m., the delegation of worshipers, dressed in formal attire, carried offerings, incense, flowers, etc. from the water temple to the main temple. Right after the ceremony, the festival begins with many exciting games such as throwing cones, tug of war, performing traditional costumes, catching eels in jars, performing arts, etc. In addition to the rituals and folk games, this year's Duom Festival also has booths displaying products of 16 communes and towns in the district such as banh chung, sticky rice, rice, tea, mushrooms, honey, etc., attracting a large number of visitors and shoppers.

*This morning, February 15, at the Xuong Giang Victory relic site (Bac Giang), a large number of people and tourists from all over attended the Festival commemorating the 586th anniversary of the Xuong Giang Victory, commemorating the great contributions of the heroes in the historic battle of Chi Lang - Xuong Giang.

The Xuong Giang Festival was opened in Bac Giang in 1998, based on the victory of Chi Lang - Xuong Giang in 1427 by the Dai Viet army and people against and defeated nearly 100,000 invading Ming troops and has been maintained continuously since then.

After the procession from Ke village communal house, Thanh village, Ve village... to Xuong Giang citadel area, the incense offering ceremony was held at the festival center very solemnly.

In addition to the "ceremony", the "festival" includes folk music and dance programs; sports competitions and folk games such as: football, tug of war, traditional wrestling, chess, ball throwing, bird fighting, blind man's buff...

* Previously, on February 13 (the 4th day of Tet), Keo Pagoda relic site in Duy Nhat commune, Vu Thu district, Thai Binh province held the 2013 spring festival.with many attractive cultural activities. In the first days of the new spring, along with Keo Pagoda festival, one of the typical and central cultural activities of Thai Binh province, there is also Tran Temple festival (Hung Ha) taking place from the 13th to the 18th of January. This is an opportunity for people to commemorate the great contributions of the Tran kings and exchange between cultural regions.

According to (Chinhphu.vn) - LC