(VOVworld) - The Tich Dien New Year plowing festival opened in Doi Son commune, Duy Tien dictrict, Ha Nam province, on Thursday.

Tich Dien festival is a national heritage

The highlight of the festival is a ritual creating King Le Dai Hanh’s act of ploughing to begin the year. It symbolizes the King’s sharing of joys and sorrows with the peasants and encourages the people to work for prosperous, happy lives and a peaceful nation.
This year’s festival is linked to the provincial program of building a new rural area. After 3 years of implementing the program, Ha Nam province has more than 1,800 kilometers of new rural roads and 40 kilometers of irrigation networks concretized. Nguyen Van Hung, a local, said: “This is a traditional ritual to my homeland. I hope that it will be preserved and practiced regularly to encourage local people develop new rural areas.”  

The annual plowing festival takes place on the 7^th day of the 1^st lunar month. Historical documents record that in 987 King Le Dai Hanh held a Tich Dien ritual in Doi areas of Ha Nam province. After a ritual to pray for favorable weather and bumper crops, the King went to the field to plow it for a new crop. The event was a milestone in Vietnam’s wet rice civilization as he was the first King to perform this ritual.