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Hung Kings Temple Festival
Hung Kings Temple festival is one of the greatest national festivals in Vietnam for a long time to honor the first King of Vietnam- King Hung. And the official name of this festival is – Death Anniversary of Hung Kings
Time of festival
Hung King Festival is held annually from the 8th to the 11th days of the third lunar month in honour of the Hùng Vương or Hùng Kings. However, the main festival day is observed on the 10th day of the month and since 2007 this has been a national holiday in Vietnam.
Since 2007, 10th Mar as lunar month all Vietnamese will have a day off for Hung King Festival.
Location
The anniversary takes place at the Hung Temple on Nghia Linh Mountain in Phu Tho Province, some 85km northwest of Hanoi.
Purpose
The main purpose of this ceremony is to pay tribute to the contribution of the Hung Kings who are the founders of the nation and also became its first emperors.
Hung Kings Legendary
As Vietnam legendary, Vietnamese are the descendants of Lac Long Quan and Au Co. After getting married, Au Co gave birth to a hundred children and the eldest son built up his Van Lang Kingdom at Phong Chau, Phu Tho province nowadays. After 18 generations, Hung kings made up the civilization of Vietnamese with well- defined institutions, administrative, social and economic and this contribution created developed Vietnam at present.
Hung Kings Anniversary
Like others festival in Vietnam, Hung King’s festival also includes two parts: the incense-offering ceremony and the recreational activities.
- The incense- offering ceremony is the important part of the Hung King Temple festival which is held at Upper temple in order to express the respect and gratitude of “ Dragon and Fairy Descendants” to ancestors. The sacrifices include Chung cake, Day cake, a lavish five-fruits, pig, goat, etc.
- The recreational activities occur around the temples with both traditional and modern activities. And the most outstanding activities is procession marches, Xoan singing performance, Ca Tru singing performance and many other games ( rice cooking, swinging contest, lion dance etc)
