Sacred Mai King Festival

(Baonghean.vn) - As scheduled, at the beginning of Spring, in Nam Dan (Nghe An), the Mai King Temple Festival takes place. The festival is held on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of the first lunar month. This is one of the cultural activities imbued with the identity of the land of "sacred land and talented people" attracting thousands of tourists from inside and outside the province to participate.

The festival is held to commemorate the merits of King Mai Thuc Loan - Mai Hac De - the king who led the people to rise up against the harsh rule of the Tang invaders, establishing the independent Van An country in the 8th century. Through the festival activities, it is an opportunity for people of all walks of life, especially the young generation, to understand more about the history of our ancestors' struggle to defend and build the country, thereby educating national pride, self-esteem, love for the homeland, knowing how to preserve, inherit and promote the moral values ​​and fine traditions of the nation. The Mai King Temple Festival is also an opportunity for people and tourists from all over to learn and enjoy the traditional cultural values ​​and fine customs of a Nghe An countryside. At the same time, it is an opportunity to promote and introduce the Mai Hac De historical and cultural relic complex and the tourism potential of Nam Dan.

Mr. Tran Xuan Giap - Director of Nam Dan District Cultural and Sports Center said: The Mai King Temple Festival is a traditional festival, restored since 1996 along with the organization of receiving the certificate of recognition of the historical and cultural relic "Temple, tomb and temple of Mai Hac De". Since then, the people of Nam Dan and neighboring areas have held the festival every year on the full moon of January. In recent years, the festival has not only attracted the attention of the people in the district and the province but also been known to tourists from neighboring provinces and many provinces across the country through the mass media.

This year, the festival continues to be held for 3 days, from the 13th to the 15th of the first lunar month at the tomb of King Mai (Van Dien commune), the temple of King Mai (Nam Dan town) and the tomb of King Mai's mother (Nam Thai commune), with 2 main parts: the ceremony and the festival. Inheriting and promoting the values ​​of a festival imbued with folk culture, this year the ceremony continues to include traditional rituals such as: the proclamation ceremony, the palanquin procession, the incense offering ceremony in memory of King Mai, the great sacrifice ceremony, and the thanksgiving ceremony.

Along with the ceremony is the festival with rich and attractive activities, combining tradition and modernity such as boat racing, wrestling, stick pushing, swinging, swinging, sticky rice and chicken competition, chess, dragon dance, lion dance and sports competitions such as football, volleyball, art performances, camping. In previous years, on the evening of the 14th lunar month, the contest "Learning about the life and career of King Mai" was held for high school students. This year, the festival also has the Sa Nam Beauty Contest. The contest attracts a large number of female students from high schools in the district to participate. After the preliminary rounds, 10 students will compete in the final round at 7:30 pm on the 14th lunar month at the King Mai Tomb stage.

Another indispensable activity in the festival is the wrestling festival. Legend has it that in the past, Mai Thuc Loan was one of the famous wrestlers in the region. When he became king, he selected soldiers through the wrestling festivals in early spring.

With the meaning of the festival being for the people, in recent years, the Mai King Festival has been organized in the direction of reducing administration and highly socializing the activities in the festival. People and tourists are both the objects and the subjects in all the activities of the festival. Coming to the Mai King Temple Festival, people not only understand, see and hear with their own eyes, but each person seems to relive the sacred and heroic atmosphere of the nation's history through the activities taking place in the festival. That is the factor that has made the Mai King Festival successful in recent years, the festival is increasingly attractive, unique, meaningful, becoming a need, an attractive destination for people inside and outside the district as well as tourists from neighboring areas to go to the festival in early Spring.

And another special thing that makes the number of tourists coming to the Mai King Festival more and more is that in addition to the temple and tomb of Mai King, coming to Nam Dan on this occasion, tourists also come to offer incense and flowers to commemorate Uncle Ho at Kim Lien relic site, visit Phan Boi Chau Memorial House, La Son Phu Tu Nguyen Thiep tomb, explore nearby tourist attractions such as Luc Nien citadel, Duc Son pagoda, Vien Quang pagoda, Dai Tue pagoda, Trang Den lake, Ho Thanh waterfall....

In order to promote its strengths and soon turn Nam Dan into an attractive spiritual and cultural tourism center of the province and the whole country, in recent times, Nam Dan has developed a number of tourism and service development projects, focusing on key tasks such as reviewing, adjusting and supplementing tourism development planning in a reasonable manner. Making detailed plans for a number of areas to call for investment such as Trang Den Lake eco-tourism area in Nam Hung commune, Thanh Thuy Lake in Van Dien commune, Ru Doi Lake in Nam Giang commune, Vien Quang Pagoda - Nam Thanh, Dai Tue Pagoda - Nam Anh and entertainment areas along Lam River in Xuan Hoa commune and Town.

The festival is also an opportunity for Nam Dan to promote propaganda, advertising and tourism promotion through mass media, continue to print and publish VCDs, brochures, introduce typical relics and landscapes in the district, organize tourism promotion conferences inside and outside the province to call for investment and attract tourists to Nam Dan. Strengthen the operation and promote the effectiveness of the Nam Dan website - this is an important propaganda channel to create conditions for domestic and international tourists as well as businesses to learn about Nam Dan - the hometown of President Ho Chi Minh.

Thanh Thuy