Over the past time, Binh Giang district (Hai Duong province) has actively restored and preserved local traditional cultural beauties. Trong quan singing is one of the unique intangible cultural heritages of Binh Giang district (Photo: Ngoc Hung) Realizing the 9th Central Party Committee’s Resolution (11th term), the district will continue to attach special importance to and intensify the preservation and promotion of cultural values. Letter Character Ceremony is a unique traditional cultural feature of the people in Nhuan Dong hamlet, Binh Minh commune. Members of the hamlet’s Letter Character Ceremony Team arrange themselves into Cantonese characters one after another with the meaning of praying for the people’s lives to be united and peaceful. After each character is formed, members of the formation will bow to conduct ceremony. When commanding drumbeats resound, the lineup will be displaced to arrange the next character. The number of people for each character depends on the number of lines that each character comprises. The character ceremony has existed for a long time but fell into oblivion. In 2003, Vu Duc Cuu, over 80 years old then, gathered some locals and restored the ceremony. Since then, the character ceremony has still been organized annually by Nhuan Dong hamlet residents. “38 – 40 members of the character ceremony team jointly contribute paddies or cash to raise funds for operation. Though busy with household chores, all of the team members are dedicated to preserve the local traditional cultural feature,” shared Nguyen Thi Quy, who started learning from the very first days and is now one member of the character ceremony team. Since 1983, Nhan Quyen commune has formed and maintained an art group of nearly 20 members frequently participating in performances to celebrate major holidays of the year locally. The oldest member of the art group has already been over 80 years old, and the youngest one is around 30. Many teenagers and youngsters have also actively taken part in Cheo (old traditional type of singing operetta) singing turns as backup dancers. Having identified himself with the art of Cheo singing for over 40 years, Bui Xuan Sang (83 years old) in Bui Xa hamlet shared: “There are Cheo singing turns in almost all local art exchange programs.” The commune encourages divisions and unions to sing Cheo at meetings, conferences, and other types of exchanges. The commune Radio Station and radio systems of hamlets also actively broadcast Cheo songs and tunes of numerous famous artists. Hence, Cheo singing has not only been preserved through many generations but also become an ebullient movement in Nhan Quyen. Implementing the 9th Central Party Committee’s Resolution (11th term), Binh Giang district has taken a lot of measures for comprehensive development of culture and human in the period of accelerating industrialization, modernization, and international integration. Accordingly, Binh Giang has intensified investment, development, and perfection of cultural institutions from district to grassroots levels; continued to encourage and create favorable conditions for clubs, poetry societies, and art groups of communes to compose and perform works to serve the people. The district has mobilized each commune and district town to set up at least one public art group and maintain regular operations. Such festivals and traditional art forms as cheo singing, ca tru (ceremonial singing), van singing (spiritual singing), trong quan singing (a kind of alternate singing between men and women), doctor village festival in Mo Trach hamlet, Tan Hong commune, boat racing in Cay hamlet, Long Xuyen commune, etc. will be further preserved. “To preserve and bring into play traditional cultural values, it is necessary to mobilize combined strength from multiple sources, thereby contributing to improving the people’s spiritual life and creating a momentum for local economic development and political stability,” said Vu Thanh Khiet, Vice Chairman of the Binh Giang District People’s Committee. LE XUYEN
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:48:57 +0000
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