national action plan to preserve and develop the value of the Giong
festival, which has been recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage
of Humanity by the UNESCO.
The plan was announced at a ceremony held in Phu Dong commune, Gia Lam
district of Hanoi to receive the certificate of recognition of the
UNESCO title.
At the ceremony, UNESCO Chief Representative in
Hanoi Katherine Muller-Marin stressed that the Giong festival has been
deeply impressed in the life of residents in the Red river delta as a
part of their characteristics, passing from generations to generations.
The recognition of the festival as an intangible cultural heritage of
humanity is expected to accelerate humans’ creativeness and dialogues
between cultures.
The ceremony was held in an open air of a
northern countryside with an incense offering to Saint Giong at the
beginning and then, the performances of ceremonies of the festival.
UNESCO
officially honoured Vietnam’s Giong festival as an Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity at a meeting of its Inter-Governmental Committee in
Nairobi, Kenya, on November 16, 2010.
The festival was Hanoi’s third heritage honour presented by the UNESCO in 2010.
The other sites include 82 steles engraved with names of doctorate
holders for centuries in the Van Mieu-Quoc Tu Giam, Vietnam’s first
university, which have been recognised as Documentary Heritage of the
Memory of the World programme. The central site of the Thang Long Royal
Citadel has won the title “World Cultural Heritage”.
The
Giong festival is held annually in several parts of northern Vietnam,
most typically in the Phu Dong and Soc Temples in Hanoi, to commemorate
Saint Giong, one of the immortal quartets in the Vietnamese legends.
Legend has it that under the sixth King Hung’s reign (around 500 BC)
Vietnam was threatened by the Kingdom of Yin, to the north of Vietnam.
A little boy, who was unable to crawl, roll over and say a single word
at the age of three, had surprisingly grown up to a giant man in just
several days after getting news on the foreign invasion. He used local
bushes of bamboo to defeat aggressors and flew into the sky with his
iron horse after the final victory.
In order to show their gratitude to the hero of Giong village, people proclaimed him Saint Giong.
The festival meets all qualifications for an intangible cultural
heritage of humanity as it has been conserved by the community as part
of the national cultural identity, handed down from generations to
generations, holds creativeness of humanity and represents aspiration
for prosperity by every family and peace for the nation and the world./.
