Research on exploiting Tran Hung Ha Temple Festival in Thai Binh to serve tourism development

"All classes in society also participate to become a need, an aspiration of the people for many decades" .

In the book “Traditional Festivals” – Phan Dang Nhat said that “ Festivals are a huge historical book, where countless customs, beliefs, cultures, arts and important social-historical events of the nation are accumulated.... Festivals are also places to preserve and accumulate culture (in a broad sense) of many historical periods in the past, compressed for the future ”. Thus, we see that “Festivals” are an inseparable unity. Festivals are a part of ethics and beliefs, a deep spiritual part of each person. Festivals are ritual performances, including folk games reflecting the daily life of the people and a part of personal life to celebrate an important event for the whole community.

1.1.1.2. The relationship between ceremonies and festivals.

Festivals are related to beliefs and religions. Due to limited awareness, ancient people believed in heaven, earth, rivers, and mountains. In villages, there were often temples to worship the Gods of the Immortals, the Gods of the Ancestors, the Gods of the Water, the Gods of the Mountains, and some villages also recognized these gods as the village's tutelary gods. Festivals are collective activities. Without people participating in the organization, there would be no festival. Therefore, festival characters are quite important elements of the festival. In addition to key characters such as the master of ceremonies, the festival committee, the palanquin bearers, the flag bearers, the umbrella bearers, the music troupe, etc., there must also be the admiring contributions of the audience for the festival to be more successful. If the ceremony is a static system with strict regulations held at the communal house, on the contrary, the festival is a free and open folk activity taking place in the yard for villagers to enjoy equally with a series of attractive games and customs that they actively participate in. Festival is a rich and diverse system of games and performances, including the following types of games: martial games, competition games, professional games, entertainment games, fighting games, and custom games. Compared to ceremonies, Festival is an open element, people can move or add or remove games due to material conditions, weather, and human resources without affecting the whole (except for ritual and custom games).

The relationship between ritual and festival is sometimes clearly separated: One side is sacred, the other side is secular; each side seems to have its own role. But in many cases, it is not that simple. In the process of movement, the two elements of ritual and festival have penetrated each other closely, it seems that calling it a ritual is correct and calling it a festival is not wrong. We can take the procession

Maybe you are interested!

For example, here the ritual part is very much and the crowd's participation in the performance is not small.

The relationship between Rites and Festivals is very close, sometimes inseparable, within Rites there is Festival and within Festivals there are Rites. Rites and Festivals are the two main elements that create village festivals. The intensity or indifference between them depends on the characteristics of each place and the nature of each type of festival.

1.1.2. Characteristics of the festival.

1.1.2.1. About time.

Festivals in Vietnam are held most often in the three months of spring and autumn. These two periods are when people are idle. Spring has warm weather, autumn has cool weather, both are favorable for holding festivals. These two basic factors create comfort and joy for festival-goers.

1.1.2.2. About space.

Choosing sacred natural spaces as places to hold annual festivals such as forbidden forests, water sources, village temples, etc. is one of the ways of human behavior. The belief in worshiping nature is one of the wise ways of human behavior. Ultimately, it is the attitude of respecting the natural world of humans.

In the festival, there are natural sacred spaces as well as social sacred spaces. These are architectural complexes associated with sacred natural sites, which can be large or small and have different types. Depending on the place, the people and the subjects. But they are all associated with a certain space, and moreover, those architectural complexes are often associated with the level of development of each historical period. But whether natural or artificial spaces, they all originate from the sacred beliefs of people, so those spaces are all sacred. Those places are places of gods, of Buddha, so the most precious, the most beautiful and the best are all gathered here, making that space even more sacred and important. People have created a space to reach for people to pray, to place their faith and hope. From the pre-trial to the post-trial, the merchants' lower chambers... The sacred spaces of social nature or can be called otherwise as the artificial sacred spaces of the Vietnamese people such as: Temples, Shrines, Communal Houses, Pagodas...

1.1.2.3. About the festival organization process.

Usually, any locality that holds a festival will proceed with the following three steps:

Preparation: Festival preparation is divided into two stages. The preparation stage for the next festival season and when the festival day is approaching. Preparation for the next festival season is carried out right after the previous festival season ends, all preparations have been assigned and assigned to welcome the next year's festival season. When the festival day is about to take place, the work of checking the offerings, costumes, cleaning, opening the relics, carrying water for the bathing ceremony of the statue (moc duoc) and the offerings, changing the costumes and hats for the gods...

Festival: many activities take place during the festival days, which are the sacrificial rituals, processions, incense offerings, and entertainment. These are all the main and most meaningful activities of a festival. Festivals attract many or few visitors to the festival, taking place over many days or one day, completely dominated by the activities during these days.

End of the festival (exit, farewell, farewell): The organizing committee holds a thanksgiving ceremony and closes the relic.

1.1.3. Festival classification and festival structure.

1.1.3.1. Festival classification.

In our country, festivals are extremely rich and diverse cultural activities, which are often intertwined in both content and form. Therefore, the classification of festivals becomes increasingly necessary in the research process. However, each festival has its own beliefs and has many different purposes such as: Agricultural Festival, Talent Competition Festival, ...

When classifying festivals according to their purpose, the way they are organized also has many differences, but it is based on the analysis and meaning and origin of the village festival. People often divide festivals into 5 types:

- Agricultural Festival: Is a type of festival that describes rituals related to agriculture.

agricultural production cycles with seasonal nature such as: New Rice Festival, Long Tong Festival,...

- Fertility Festival: is a festival associated with fertility and reproduction.

People and animals, crops with fertility beliefs such as: Northwest groom selection festival, Khau Vai love market (Ha Giang),...

- Art festival: A type of folk art singing festival such as: Lim Festival in Bac Ninh, Cheo singing in Thai Binh,...

- Talent competition festival: This is a type of festival that competes in talents such as catching eels in jars, cooking rice, catching ducks in ponds, etc.

- Historical festival: Is a type of festival that reenacts or celebrates

The achievements of the tutelary gods and those who have contributed to the country such as: Hung Temple festival, Co Loa festival,...

Of the 5 types of festivals above, historical festivals are always associated with journeys.

go with a tour guide because all the historical figures are associated with real people such as King Hung, Nguyen Trai, Tran Hung Dao...

In 1989, Dinh Gia Khanh also proposed the idea of dividing festivals into two types based on whether the festival has religious or non-religious origins.

When surveying traditional festivals in Thua Thien Hue region, Ton That Binh divided the festivals here into 4 types:

- Festival to commemorate the founders

- Festival to commemorate skilled masters

- Religious festival

- Seasonal festival

In addition, from a sociological perspective, people also classify activities.

festivals of a national, ethnic or international nature and festivals belonging to specific groups, regions and monotheistic religions.

From that we can draw the following comments:

The above classifications have not drawn any general conclusions.

but only reflect the characteristics of festivals in each region and locality. Therefore, according to author Hoang Luong in the book "Traditional festivals of Vietnamese ethnic groups in the Northern region - Hanoi National University Publishing House", festivals can only be divided into 2 main types:

- Festivals related to the belief of praying for a good harvest:

This is the most popular festival among all ethnic groups. Although each ethnic group has different rituals and ceremonies in a locality, they all share the same content of praying for a good harvest. These contents are vividly expressed in the following rituals:

- Rituals related to the agricultural production cycle, including ceremonies

The festival recreates pre-agricultural economic activities such as hunting, gathering, forest opening ceremony, fishing festival and rituals recreating agricultural production activities such as planting festival, agricultural demonstration.

- Prayer ritual: Pray for favorable weather, worship whale, pray for calm seas.

Commendation ceremony: Offering to agricultural components such as carrying sticky rice and new rice ceremony.

- Rice spirit worship ceremony: Popular among ethnic minorities.

- The ceremony of receiving the profession's virginity: Related to the skilled founder.

- Festival of talent competitions and various entertainments: such as rice cooking competitions and goat catching competitions.

- Fertility worship ceremony: To celebrate the combination of yin and yang for people and things to grow and flourish, such as the cocoon-robbing festival,...

- Love singing rituals: Xoan singing, Vi Dam singing, Quan Ho singing.

The above festivals are all religious in nature, praying for a good harvest, prosperity, and development of industries. Therefore, they cannot be separated into different festivals.

The festival is related to commemorating the merits of cultural celebrities, national heroes, tutelary gods and saints.

This type of festival worships relics related to natural gods and

The gods have contributed to the clearing of mountains and rocks, the construction and preservation of villages, and the saints and Buddhas have contributed to the clearing of temples and pagodas, helping people destroy evil and protect goodness. Note here that the worship of the ethnic groups in the mountainous areas is mainly the power of natural gods. In the plains, it is mainly the power of human gods, which are:

Rituals to worship the gods of the land, forests, banyan trees, and water ports such as mountain gods and river gods in the lowlands.

Procession of cultural celebrities and historical heroes such as Tan Vien Son Thanh, Chu Vi Thanh... festival to worship Hai Ba Trung, Thanh Giong, King Hung...

Festivals take place in connection with heroes who have contributed to the country, such as the Kiep Bac Temple Festival.

Through that we see the purpose of the festival to express the standards and beliefs about a supernatural force .

1.2. Festival tourism.

1.2.1. Concept.

Festivals are a universal spiritual and cultural activity, while tourism is a comprehensive economic activity. In the development process, the tourism industry must also seek out, exploit and use festivals as a cultural product with high efficiency in many aspects. According to traditional practice, folk festivals are often held during the off-season, while tourism is an activity for tourists when they have time, money and many other needs. The meeting of two factors temporarily called supply and demand through tourism activities is called festival tourism. Thus, organizing tours to localities across the country during a certain period of the year that coincides with the local festival opening time. This activity helps tourists learn and appreciate multifaceted values through local festival activities is called festival tourism.

Festival tourism is also the coordination of organization and action between tourism businesses under the coordination of many agencies and localities to organize tourism festivals, tourism festivals, and cultural and artistic festivals. This is also an opportunity to promote the locality where the festival is held and an opportunity for tourism companies to bring tourists to participate in activities taking place before and during the festival. Tourism companies and travel agencies that organize to bring tourists to participate in festivals are also part of the process of bringing together different populations with culture, customs, and practices... helping them to exchange and learn about each other. This reflects the inevitable trend of the internationalization and globalization process in the development of human society.

Traditional Vietnamese festivals are a particularly important component in the treasure trove of national cultural heritage. It is a special cultural product that in the development process, the tourism industry itself must seek out and exploit its multifaceted values to serve the tourism business. It can be said that traditional Vietnamese festivals as a unique cultural product, a cultural product

Specially attractive tourism is a unique feature of Vietnamese tourism in the process of international integration.

1.2.2. Characteristics of festival tourism.

Festival tourism is a tourism activity associated with the opening time of the festival, so like festivals, it only takes place according to the season: every year it usually focuses on the spring months and late autumn. This is not the season when many international visitors to Vietnam come, so it is necessary to have a tourism program with content suitable for the majority of domestic visitors and the number of overseas Vietnamese visitors returning to their homeland after Tet. At the same time, it is necessary to organize and build tourism festivals in the fall and winter when many international visitors come to Vietnam to serve this especially important potential market.

Festival tourism often takes place in a certain space and time, so tourism organizers must have a firm grasp of the time and space of the festival along with the activities of that festival to exploit them in the right direction and effectively.

During the festival tourism organization, the service conditions of accommodation, transportation, and food will be strongly affected by the difference between supply and demand, so it is necessary to have measures prepared in advance. There are synchronous measures, based on the construction of contingency plans to deal with natural disasters (epidemics, terrorism, ensuring absolute security and safety for tourists while traveling to the festival, etc.). It is necessary to have a firm grasp of the activities in the upcoming festival, prepare specific conditions for tourists to be able to directly participate in festival activities such as games taking place in the festival. When traveling to the festival, due to the large number of people, the festival only takes place for a certain period of time concentrated in a narrow space, which often leads to the loss of tourists, or the arrangement of the program is not in accordance with the expected time and plan, from which it is necessary to have appropriate measures to manage visitors.

Currently, some travel companies only stop at festival tourism business in the form of tourist transportation business through car rental without exploiting the multifaceted values of this unique cultural phenomenon in tourism business. With festival tourism, the current number of visitors is mainly domestic visitors, so it is necessary to pay more attention to promotion and marketing to the international tourist market. The source of visitors for festival tourism in Vietnam is currently mainly domestic visitors. In the process of development, Vietnamese people have more and more conditions in terms of time, economy, and entertainment needs are also constantly improving... This is an important customer group that tourism

Vietnam needs to pay attention and have a suitable and effective business strategy. In addition, there needs to be a "long-term strategy" in organizing tourism business aimed at international visitors, an important and indispensable group of Vietnamese tourism.

1.3. The role of festivals in human cultural life and in tourism.

1.3.1. The role of festivals in cultural life.

Traditional Vietnamese festivals are the products of wet rice farming residents, so they have great spiritual and material significance in the community. Festivals contain great values of community connection. Through this value, people become closer, understand and love each other. Through that, the village community is firmly affirmed. Village relationships are enhanced after each village festival, understanding between ethnic groups is increased, sharing is strengthened between members of the village, and localities are increasingly consolidated and developed.

The festival is also an occasion to commemorate heroes who have contributed to the country, helping future generations understand the heroic fighting tradition of the nation, love their homeland and respect their ancestors.

The festival is an occasion to demonstrate community strength, as well as relationships, behaviors, and communication in all three dimensions: individual - individual, individual - community, community - individual.

For the community, this is a convenient opportunity to demonstrate and prove one's power. For individuals, this is an opportunity for the "nameless self" to integrate into the "common self". Each member expresses his or her attitude of responding and participating at various levels of emotion and attitude towards the community in which he or she lives and is attached.

Nowadays, when material life is increasingly developed, in addition, people always have to live within the rules, not be relaxed, spiritual life is limited, so they have turned to festivals to balance spiritual life, emotions, and harmony with human love. Therefore, the worries, aspirations about present and future life, as well as daily life are expressed vividly and concisely in the form of direct symbols of art or ritual, solemn or mundane in the rituals, games or performances and competitions.

1.3.2. The role of festivals in tourism.

In Article 79, the Law on Tourism clearly defines that the State organizes tourist guide and tourism promotion activities with wide communication and propaganda contents.

Research on exploiting Tran Hung Ha Temple Festival in Thai Binh to serve tourism development - 2

Comment