LIM  FESTIVAL

The Lim Festival, organized in Lim village located 18 km from Hanoi, where Quan Ho, the special folk songs  performed. It takes place every year on 13th day of the 1st lunar month. Tens of thousands of visitors come here to enjoy the dialogues performances between  "lien anh" (male singers) and "lien chi" (female singers), the country's most skilled Quan Ho singers. These are male and female farmers who sing different types of songs in the pagodas, on the hills, and in the boats. Besides this, visitors can come to the Lim Festival to enjoy the weaving competition of the Noi Due girls. They weave and sing Quan Ho songs at the same time. Like other religious festivals, the Lim Festival goes through all the ritual stages, from the procession to the worshipping ceremony, and includes other activities.
The Lim Festival is a special cultural activity in the North. The festival celebrates the "Quan Ho" folk song which has become a part of the national culture and a typical folk song that is well loved in the Red River Delta region.
The Lim Festival is also celebrated with traditional temple games. In one game, teenage girls must mind a stranger's baby, chew pieces of sugar cane in order to create fuel with which to start and maintain a fire, cook rice, and prevent a frog from jumping out of a circle marked on the ground. If the baby cries, the fire goes out or the frog escapes, the girl is disqualified.

HUNG TEMPLE FESTIVAL

Hung temple is located on Nghia Linh Mountain, Hy Lang Commune, Phong Chau District, Phu Tho Province. Every year, this national festival is held to worship the Hung Kings, who were instrumental in founding the nation.

The festival lasts for 3 days from the 9th to the 11th of the 3rd lunar month. The worship service is held on the 10th day and commences with a flower ceremony with the participation of state representatives. Held in Thuong Temple, where the Hung Kings used to worship deities with full rituals, the ceremony consists of a lavish five-fruit feast. Cakes and glutinous rice dumpling are also served to remind people of the Lang Lieu Legend (the 18th Hung King who invented these cakes), and the merit of the Hung Kings who taught people to grow rice.

Next to the stage procession for deities, there are several marches in the procession, such as the elephant march followed by the procession chair. These procession marches are conducted in Tien Cuong, Hy Cuong, Phuong Giao, and Co Tich Villages. The procession marches are followed by a Xoan song performance (a classical type of song) in the Thuong Temple, "Ca Tru" (a kind of classical opera) in Ha temple, and other activities.

The Hung Temple Festival not only attracts visitors from all over and allows visitors to participate in special traditional cultural activities, but it is also a sacred trip back in time to the origins of the Vietnamese culture. People usually show their love and pride of their homeland and ancestral land. This religious belief is deeply imbedded in the minds of every Vietnamese citizen, regardless of where they originate.

Hai Ba Trung Day

This has been a special day for women in South Vietnam and celebrates the anniversary of the death of the Trung Sisters. The two sisters led a revolt against the ruling Chines and won freedom for Vietnam in A.D. 41.

The driving force for their leadership was provided when one of the sister’s husband was killed by the Chinese and in retaliation the successfully formed the revolutionary army which defeated the Chinese.

The sisters made Me Linh in North Vietnam the capital of the freed country. Their reign was short-lived, however, only three years. The Chinese recaptured Vietnam and the sisters, in deep sorrow, drowned themselves in the Hat Ciang River.

An interesting monument stood at the foot of Hai Ba Trung Street in Saigon on the waterfront commemorating the two sister. Many people said the face of one the sisters was that of Madame Nhu, the disliked sister-in-law of President Ngo Dinh Diem. According to a Vietnamese writer, on this holiday Madame Nhu once rode in a parde atop an elephant, as one of the Trung sisters. On the successful coup d’etat of November 1, 1963, jubilant mob tore the statue apart. They did this because of their dislike for Madam Nhu, not because of the Trung sister’s history.

Trung Nguyen (Wandering Souls' Day)

This is the second largest festival of the year (Tet is first). Though it falls on the 15^th day of the seventh month, its celebration may be held at any convenient time during the latter half of the month. The festival is celebrated throughout the country, in Buddhist Pagodas, homes, businesses, factories, government offices, and Armed Forces units. It is not just a Buddhist holiday, but one celebrated by all Vietnamese who believed in the existence of God, good and evil.

Many Vietnamese believe that every person has two souls; one is spiritual (Hon), and the other is material (Via). When a person dies, his soul is taken to a tribunal in hell and judged by ten justices. When judgement is rendered, the soul is sent to heaven or hell, as a reward or punishment for the person’s conduct on earth.

They believe that sinful souls can be absolved of their punishment and delivered from hell through prayers said by the living on the first and 15 of every month. Wandering Souls’ Day however, is believed to be the best time for priest and relatives to secure general amnesty for all the souls. On this day, the gates of hell are said to be opened at sunset and the souls there fly out, unclothed and hungry. Those who have relatives fly back to their homes and villages and find plenty of food on their family altars.

Those who have no relatives or have been forsaken by the living, are doomed to wander helplessly through the air on black clouds, over the rivers and from tree to tree. They are the sad "wandering souls" who are in need of food and prayer. This is why additional altars full of offerings are placed in pagodas and many public places.

This is a day that the oldsters have said, "the living and the dead meet in thought," and traditional rites should be respected by all. Weather permitting, the services should be in the open air. Otherwise, the largest room in the house should be used so that there is room for many wandering souls.

During the ceremony, huge tables are covered with offerings which basically consist of three kinds of meat: boiled chicken, roast pork, and crabs; and five fruits. Other foods may be included such as sticky rice cakes, vermicelli soup, and meat rolls to satisfy the appetite of the wandering souls who are supposed to be hungry the year round.

Money and clothes made of votive papers are also burned at this time.

Butcher shops are especially careful to observe this holiday, because many people believe in reincarnation and butchers are afraid that they might have killed some poor person.

Also, Vietnamese believe it is extremely bad luck to die away from home, so transportation carriers who have had fatalities among its passengers strictly observe the ceremonies.

Trung Thu, Mid-Autumn Festival

This is a delightful festival for children and most pleasant for the adults to watch. Many weeks before the festival, bakers are busy making hundreds of thousands of moon cakes of sticky rice and filled with all kinds of unusual filling such as peanuts, sugar, lotus seed, duck-egg yolks, raising, watermelon seed, etc. They are baked and sold in colorful boxes. Expensive ones in ornate boxes are presented as gifts.

Also made in advance are colorful lanterns made in the form of boats, dragons, hares, toads, lobsters, unicorns, carp, etc. These are sold for weeks on the streets of every village and city. The children begin playing with them long before the holiday. They light little candles and place them inside the lanterns made of cellophane paper and swing them around on sticks, all in the darkness of the evening. It is one of the most beautiful sights to see in Vietnam during the year.

On the night of the festival, children form a procession and go through the streets holding their lighted lanterns and performing the dances of the unicorn to the accompaniment of drums and cymbals.

There are many legendary origins of the festival, but the one most accepted in Vietnam is that it began during the reign of Emperor Minh Hoang of the Duong Dynasty. Legend says that he took his empress, Duong Quy Pho, to a lake called Thai Dick on the 15^th day of the 8^th lunar month where they admired the moon. When the moon was at its brightest, the emperor composed a poem and explained it to his wife. He loved to read the verses in the moonlight.

Moon cakes were supposedly used at other times in Chinese history. Secret messages were placed inside the cakes to inform the people of a revolt to be held against a hated ruler during one of the many internal wars in China.