La Van Village Festival
In this festival, the ceremonial character is not
expressed obviously, instead of, its major purpose is to show original and
cheerful traditional amusements.
The festival takes place in Mien village temple.
Pilgrims come to see very crowded. Actors and Actresses are young men in the
village. The person who is responsible for guiding all activities of the
festival is a healthy and prestigious old man in solemn costumes with pleated
ready to wear turban and yellow court robes. He gathers all actors and
actresses to offer sacrifice to the tutelary god new year. After that,
amusements start. All performers are made up so fancifully, cutely and funny
that when they appear, everybody can’t help laughing.
Some typical amusements are Si - Cong - Thuong and
Nong (the literate - worker merchant - farmer). In the scene of the literate
show's a person plays the part of a teacher who looks majestic in brown
dressing gown, one hand holds a rattan switch, other hand constantly corrects
his turban. Following him is a student whose hands splash ink and holds a
scrinium. Both the teacher and the student take a corner on the ground. The
teacher sits on a sleeping mat, opens book put on the scrinium while the
student presses his palms together with frightened face because he did not know
the lesson. Sometimes, he is punished to lie on his stomach and to be lashed
some whips. Each time the student makes a wry face because of being hurt, the
whole people laugh very loudly.
In the scene of worker's show there is a carpenter
who is sawing zealously a log. He does and blows out his checks, uses his
sleeves to clean sweat as if he has to work very hard.
Or in the scene of merchant's show, a merchant is
carrying a rattan with a pole with not quite well steps. When putting the
rattan down, he exhibits many kinds of commodities and calls out their prices
like in a market. Both seller and buyer play their roles naturally and
cheerfully as in a real exchange. Most original is the show of farmers. Boys
disguise into women who are going to their fields for transplanting looking
very witty and spontaneous. Their appearance makes everybody laugh. And each
time the farmer calls his buffalo, all people also laugh because the buffalo is
a spurious one with his eyes are as big as two orange fruits.
Although these amusements have existed for a very long
time, every year, they still attract a lot of pilgrims. It is said that La Van
festival is originated from the festival of taking to the field. Later, it was
created and supplemented more in order to become the festival like today which
reflects a miniaturization society including four basic sectors to be: the
literate, farmer, worker and merchant. The festival of vocation exhibition of
La Van village has made a share a new and original feature in treasure -house
of art, literature in Viet Nam.
