Sea festival comes to float

Thanh Hoa Province yesterday held a festival that attracted thousands of local fishermen and tourists to come and pray for a year of good luck.
The annual Sea Festival of local fishermen in Ngu Loc Commune, Hau Loc District, has been a tradition hundreds of years. Fishermen, no matter how long theyve been gone or far away they have traveled, always come back home on this day to attend the festival and pray for a good year with happiness and success. Since 2005, the festival has been acknowledged by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Vietnam as an intangible cultural heritage.
The festival began with a Long Chau Boat (the most important offering of the festival made from paper) being carried from Bac Tho Hamlet into the communes stadium where the ceremony took place in a solemn manner for fishermen to express their solidarity among fishing villages and show their sincerity to the gods.
During the festival, family clans of the commune participated with the procession of the Long Chau Boat to pray for good weather, national safety, a new successful fishing season and a comfortable life for the fishermen.
The festival is followed by many traditional cultural and sports activities of the sea villages which involve squid fishing, net drawing, Chinese chess competitions, hat giao duyen (love song duets), and a traditional musical performance.
To close the festival on April 6, the Long Chau boat will be burnt and its ashes spread to the sea in hopes that this will be a good year for fishermen and that they will be protected by the sea gods.
Thien Truong – Van Tuan