Healthy and civilized festival

With thousands of traditional festivals taking place throughout the country, people are immersed in preserving and promoting them to multiply beautiful customs, to nourish the soul to be calm and peaceful in a life full of worries and concerns.

In Hai Duong, in January, people are excited to go to festivals and enjoy spring. The whole province currently has over 800 festivals, of which 8 traditional festivals have been included in the list of national intangible cultural heritages by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, including the Con Son-Kiep Bac festival (Chi Linh), Trinh Xuyen communal house (Ninh Giang), Quat temple (Gia Loc), Hao Xa pagoda (Thanh Ha), Suot temple and communal house (Hai Duong city), Cao An Phu temple (Kinh Mon), Tranh temple (Ninh Giang). The provincial level organizes the Con Son-Kiep Bac festival with 2 spring and autumn festival seasons; the district level organizes 10 festivals; the rest are organized by the commune level. The vast majority of festivals are held in the 3 spring months, only a few festivals are held in the second half of the year.

In recent times, authorities at all levels and functional agencies in Hai Duong have strengthened the management of relics and festivals, ensuring that rituals are solemnly organized, along with festival activities with folk games, rich and lively cultural and artistic activities, which have demonstrated the beauty of customs in life, contributing to preserving the national cultural identity, well meeting the needs of cultural, religious and spiritual activities of the people. The new feature is that many traditional festivals in localities are associated with performing arts, folk performances, and social customs bearing the characteristics of each locality. Provincial and district-level festivals organize booths to introduce and display agricultural products, OCOP, handicraft products, typical craft villages to stimulate consumption, and promote tourism products; Coordinate the performance of traditional art forms bearing the cultural imprint of the Eastern region such as Cheo singing, Ca Tru singing, Van singing, and Trong Quan drums... Along with the innovation of festival activities, it is necessary to tighten management and overcome existing problems such as soliciting tourists to tell fortunes, buy goods, burn a lot of votive paper, collect bus tickets against regulations, display small change to serve tourists...

However, to multiply the beauty of the festival, it is necessary to further strengthen propaganda activities about the identity and spiritual cultural values ​​of the festival land; adjust the types of services accordingly. Be more drastic in controlling and handling acts of "overcharging", food safety and hygiene; fortune telling, card pulling; pickpocketing; beggars appearing in front of temples; garbage...

The 2024 festival season marks the first time that the "Criteria for Cultural Environment in Traditional Festivals" issued by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has been implemented in localities towards a safe, civilized and healthy festival season. This set of criteria requires heads of functional agencies and localities to eliminate violent rituals and offensive and deviant behaviors. When organizing festivals, it is necessary to prevent and strictly handle violations, especially acts of taking advantage of relics and festivals for profit, inciting violence, illegally circulating and trading cultural products; not allowing the organization of star offering to dispel bad luck to transform into a service for profit. The distribution of seals must be consistent with the historical origin of the relics and festivals; not allowing subjects to take advantage of and attract crowds at the festival to propagate and promote activities with signs of heresy, superstition, contrary to good customs and traditions, violating regulations on implementing civilized lifestyles...

To contribute to making the festival in Hai Duong civilized and healthy, as an invisible ambassador promoting the beauty, image, and tourism products of each locality and land to friends and tourists near and far, each of us needs to strictly follow the regulations at the festival when going on a spring trip.