A glimpse of a wild sunflower area
Overcomeo An Khe, before our eyes is a majestic space. No one would think that they are at an altitude of 800 meters above sea level. The terrainGia Lai is almost flat, the plains stretch far and wide with immense rubber and coffee forests.
Along both sides of Highway 14, the wild sunflowers bloom bright yellow. It is unclear how captivating the beauty of this flower is, but there are countless legends about the wild sunflowers, and writers, poets, and musicians have spent a lot of effort and ink on them.
It is not by chance that Gia Lai Newspaper chose Wild Sunflower as the background on the invitation for the "15th Conference of Party Newspapers in the Central and Central Highlands Regions" with the theme "Local Party Newspapers with propaganda work on preserving and promoting indigenous identity". Nghe An Newspaper participated in the discussion "Preserving and promoting cultural values in the period of national integration". Lam Dong Newspaper asked the question "What to do to preserve and promote indigenous culture?". Binh Thuan Newspaper with "Contributing to propaganda to eliminate bad customs", Phu Yen Newspaper emphasized "Educating the young generation to preserve and promote indigenous culture"... In general, the discussions of the newspapers all focused on the concerns in preserving the traditional cultural features of our ancestors.
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Farewell night at "Conference of Party Newspapers in the Central Region" |
During the conference, the echoes of the International Gong Festival held on November 12-14, 2009 still lingered in the heart of the highland city. On the winding, wave-shaped roads, there were banners about the festival, and everywhere we saw enlarged photos of ethnic groups in the Central Highlands beating gongs. Right after the festival, a conference was held on "Preserving and promoting gong culture".
It is worth mentioning that the indigenous identity here is maintained and preserved in a respectful and non-formal way. At the city's intersections, reliefs are built with bold Central Highlands culture. In the massive works with modern architecture of the developing city, we still encounter traditional indigenous culture, such as the communal houses, the houses of the Ede, Giarai, Gie Trieng people...
At Dong Xanh Park, about 4 km from Pleiku City, visitors will admire the wooden statue garden reflecting the working and spiritual life of the Ede people, and visit the communal house model and living and working tools of the ethnic groups in the Central Highlands.
It feels like in Gia Lai, every object is associated with a legend. Even the name Pleiku is the same. The story goes that one day, the father felt weak so he called his two sons and announced that he would organize a hunting contest, whoever won would take over the land from his father. In the end, the younger brother won. After his father passed away, the younger brother took over the land his father left behind and established a village named Pleiku. In the Ede language, "Plei" means village, and "ku" means younger brother. Pleiku means "The Village of the Younger Brother".
Not only in Gia Lai, the imprint of indigenous identity is also strongly imprinted in the provinces of the Central Highlands that our delegation passed through, namely Dak Lak and Lam Dong. In Dak Lak, Trung Nguyen Coffee Company invested in building a Central Highlands museum on a 2-hectare campus. Indigenous identity is shown in the fact that people clearly annotate in two languages, Kinh and ethnic languages, related to the exhibits. In order to not only access the exhibits, visitors have the opportunity to learn about a new culture - indigenous language culture. In Lam Dong, XQ Company also dedicated 2 hectares to build a tourist attraction in Da Lat City to introduce to visitors the basic features of the cultural life as well as the spiritual life of the ethnic groups living together in this land.
It is worth appreciating that although modern life is developing strongly in the Central Highlands, customs and practices such as buffalo stabbing festival, new rice celebration, grave abandonment ceremony, tomb house statue carving; musical instruments such as T'rung, K'rong put, K'ni, Alal, gongs...; dances, recitations such as the epic poem Dam San, Xinh Nha... are cultural features with strong Central Highlands characteristics that are still preserved, maintained and protected.
The issues heard in the workshop and what we witnessed with our own eyes in the Central Highlands still linger in us when we think about the remaining and lost issues of indigenous identity right in our homeland...
Nguyen Ngoc Duc
