Gau Tao Festival (Grauk Taox Cha)

Unique Gau Tao Festival of the Mong people in Lai Chau Gau Tao Festival is the largest and community-scale festival, associated with the spiritual and spiritual life of the Mong community. Gau Tao Festival is an opportunity for Mong people to express gratitude to their ancestors and gods for giving people good health, good harvests, and full livestock. Wishing for a peaceful and prosperous new year, with good weather and wind, where we meet together, have fun, sing love songs and dance together, getting drunk with cups of early spring wine. The festival includes a ceremony and festival part with many rich and diverse contents, imbued with Mong ethnic cultural identity such as: tree worshiping ceremony; Competitions for pounding banh giay, cooking men menen, and winning competitions; plowing competition; climb poles, play folk games... Gau Tao Festival (Grauk Taox Cha) is a unique and typical cultural heritage of the Mong people, always looked forward to by the people here at the beginning of Spring. “Gau Tao” in the Mong language means “outdoor play” or “hill play festival,” often organized by the Mong ethnic people from the 8th of Tet to the 15th of January. According to tradition, Gau Tao Festival originates from praying for blessings, thanking heaven and earth, gods for blessing, praying for blessings, praying for people to have a good harvest in the new year, good health, and a prosperous and happy life for the family. Gau Tao Festival usually has a ceremony and a festival part. The ceremony is the ritual of worshiping the tree. The festival part is community games, showing the attachment and solidarity of the Mong ethnic people. In the ceremony, there is the opening ceremony of the festival, the opening ceremony of singing and dancing with musical instruments. The festival takes place with many rich and diverse contents imbued with the cultural identity of the Mong people such as artistic competitions, thang co cooking, banh giay pounding, gong beating games blindfolded, duck catching blindfolded, pao throwing, bamboo climbing and traditional folk sports competitions... The festival is an opportunity for people of all ethnic groups in Lai Chau to exchange cultures, increase understanding, and at the same time serve as a link between ethnic communities. Thereby, contributing to building a joyful and healthy cultural and spiritual life, promoting the strength of the great national unity. Through traditional cultural and sports activities, it contributes to propagating and promoting patriotism and national pride for generations to be aware of the responsibility to preserve and preserve traditional cultural identity. This is also an opportunity to honor and promote the unique cultural values ​​of the Mong people in particular and ethnic groups in Lai Chau province in general, contributing to preserving and promoting the fine traditional cultural values ​​of ethnic minorities in association with tourism development, gradually creating attractive products to attract tourists to visit and experience.