My Long Sea Festival

My Long Sea Festival My Long beach offering festival, also known as Nghinh Ong festival or the Cua Nam Hai Ceremony, is a typical traditional folk festival of the Kinh people living by the profession of lowering silver in the coastal land of Tra Vinh. The sea worshiping festival takes place on the 10th to 12th of the 5th lunar month every year at the temple of Ba Chua Xu, expanding throughout the town of My Long, Cau Ngang district, 30 km from Tra Vinh city, to the east. Sea offering has long been a big festival not only for My Long fishermen, people in Tra Vinh province but also attracted a large number of tourists from neighboring provinces such as Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Soc Trang ... to attend.  My Long town, also known as a folk wharf, is a small village along Cung Hau seaport, was founded around the sixteenth - XVII century by generations of original fishermen from the coastal provinces of the South Central Coast. Like many fishing villages throughout the South, when the central fishermen migrated to bring with them indigenous cultural luggage, including whale worship. For the seafarers, whales are the blessing from the Buddha's robes, the Buddha assigned the mission to patrol and be ready to help when there was a boat unfortunate in the middle of the wave of waves. Legend has it that when Lord Nguyen Anh was chased by the Tay Son insurgents to the south bank of Cung Hau seaport, the whale emerged, bringing him and the waves to the banks of Co Chien island safely. After ascending the throne, King Gia Long gave the whale to the Nam Hai nation of the Ngoc Lan clan, also known as the Nam Hai General, worshiped by fishermen in coastal villages. When Monsignor (ie whales died) and drifted ashore, the local fishermen were responsible for organizing the funeral, then set up the mausoleum to bring Di to the worship. The death anniversary of Monsignor became the village festival. However, because the Cung Cung Cua estuary in My Long town was an alluvial mudflat, in history, never had been dysentery, so there was no mausoleum and there was no death anniversary for the fishing village to celebrate the festival. With the existing belief, every year, every year, the lunar month of the lunar calendar is the whole village of My Long sea bottom, the boat to Co Chien islet, across the Cung Hau seaport, expressing the sacrifices with the local people. The sea is wide and wide and waves, plus the chaotic war, the difficult travel is dangerous, so the My Long fishermen gradually invited the spirit of the Monsignor to coordinate at the throne of the Lady of the Lady of the Lord, which had just built in the middle of the Ben Ben Ben Ben village. From the late 1920s, the sea worshiping festival or Nghinh Ong My Long festival was officially carried out solemnly and maintained to this day. Due to being coordinated at the temple of Ba Chua Xu, the festival of My Long beach offering a series of rituals is both a festival and a festival. This is the peculiarity of My Long Beach worship festival compared to festivals of the same form in coastal provinces from Central to the South. Sea offering My Long Beach is a traditional cultural activity associated with whales worshiping the people of My Long town and continuously implemented for nearly a century. Over the years, this festival has been carried out more solemnly, more organized, attracting more crowded people in the province and outside the province and is an opportunity for the children of the homeland to settle, do business, and live abroad to find the source, visit the homeland of the ancestral land. In 2013, My Long Beach worship festival was issued by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to Decision No. 3820/QD/BVHTTDL, included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage.