The "unique" Kitchen Turn-Off Festival in Da Nang City

“Turning off the stove” is a unique festival, only held in Tra Kiem village, Hoa Phuoc commune, Hoa Vang district, Da Nang city.

According to the elders in the village, this festival has existed for a long time, through many ups and downs of history, but this festival is still maintained until today. The festival is an opportunity for everyone in the village to meet, exchange and share production experiences. It shows the high spirit of community solidarity and the desire for a more and more prosperous life.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Quy, Head of Tra Kiem village, said that the whole village has 180 households. Before the festival takes place, the village will hold a meeting to decide the scale of the festival. In the past, families would bring their own food to contribute to the common feast, but today, the entire cost of the festival is based on the spirit of voluntary contributions from households. After that, the village will assign some people to go to the market and at the same time choose the best cooks in the village to participate in cooking the feast.

Activities at a festival. (Photo: Nhat Anh/VNA)

In the afternoon before the main festival day, the village will slaughter cows, pigs, chickens... to make offerings to the village guardian spirit. The offering ceremony is held at the village communal house in the first moments of the Tat Bep festival. During the festival day, no family is allowed to light a fire and everyone will gather at the village cultural house to participate in preparing food and playing folk games such as sack jumping, duck catching, tug of war... That is why the festival is called "Tat Bep."

During the evening of the festival, people will be able to watch a cultural program, with performances staged and performed by the youth union, women's union, and farmers' union.

Mr. Nguyen Kien, a villager, recalled that during the war, the festival was still maintained but organized simply. As soon as the country was liberated, the Tat Bep festival was organized very large and emotional because many young people joined the army, many people who were separated by the war were lucky to return home to reunite with their relatives. There were also many families that could no longer gather all their members because their children and grandchildren had sacrificed on the battlefield.

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Quy, the Tat Bep festival only takes place for one day but is an indispensable cultural and spiritual activity for the people here. The atmosphere of the village during the festival is like “a big family”, so the children of the homeland, even though they work far away, try to return to attend the festival.

Although the urbanization process in Da Nang city is taking place strongly and spreading to many rural areas, the people in Tra Kiem village still always cherish and preserve the good cultural features left by their ancestors. Currently, Tra Kiem is one of the leading villages of Hoa Vang district in the process of building new rural areas (the village has achieved 16/19 criteria) and is also a typical village of the whole country with 17 consecutive years of being recognized as a "cultural village."

During this year's Tat Bep Festival, villagers were very excited about the results achieved in the process of building new rural areas. There were many bright examples in the village of helping each other develop production, replicating effective economic models, voluntarily donating land to expand roads, maintaining security and order in the village... honored on this occasion./.

According to (Vietnam+) -LC