Giong Festival

Giong Festival is a big and unique festival commemorating Saint Giong, one of the "immortal" saints of Vietnamese folk beliefs. It is also one of the most famous and biggest festivals that has existed for thousands of years of history.

Right from about 2-3 weeks before the opening day of the festival, the villages participating in the festival have started preparing for the festival. According to the content written on the stele number 6 of the 8-sided stele, the assignment of procession of offerings in festivals of the villages is distributed in the following order: Ve Linh village (Phu Linh commune) procession of bamboo flower baskets, villages Duoc Thuong (Tien Duoc commune) procession of elephants, Dan Tao village (Tan Minh commune) procession of betel nut and areca nut, Duc Hau village (Duc Hoa commune) procession of ivory, Yen Sao village (Xuan Giang commune) procession of elephant grass, Yen Tang village (Bac Phu commune) procession of the general.

The main ritual on the main day of the Giong festival is offering bamboo flowers at Soc temple and cutting enemy generals. Bamboo flowers are made of bamboo sticks about 50cm long, about 1cm in diameter, the ends are sharpened and dyed. After the flower-offering ceremony, bamboo is released in front of the temple yard for festival-goers to take for good luck. Slashing enemy generals is done by cutting a statue, re-enacting the legend that Saint Giong used bamboo and ivory to kill the leader of the enemy, Thach Linh.

Time: 8th - 9th April (Lunar month)

Place: Gia Lam District