Kien Bai Communal House is located in Kien Bai Commune, Thuy Nguyen District, Hai Phong City. Formerly, Kien Bai was known as Ho Bai Trang (Ho Bai Village) under Thuy Duong District, Kinh Mon Prefect,
Hai Duong Region. Ho Bai Village had 12 hamlets, in which East hamlet was the most populous. Kien Bai Communal House therefore situated in East hamlet. Here worships following Gods:
- Chinese Telepathy God.
- Thunder God.
According to “Thuy Nguyen huyen than tich” (‘Legend of Thuy Nguyen District’s Gods’) preserved at the Institute of Chinese-transcribed Vietnamese Research in
Hanoi, Kien Bai Communal House worships the twins tutelary gods named Ngoc and Bich. Legend has it that, the twins both were handsome and intelligent at newborn, but died at very young ages. However, they had supernatural power which many times brought good health, security and prosperity to Kien Bai village people. When Chinese Mongolians invaded our country (1287 - 1288), the twin gods in the afterworld supported the King of Tran Dynasty to defeat aggressors. The King then ordered to build the house to worship the twin gods and conferred titles on them as Chinese Telepathy God and Thunder God.
Kien Bai Communal House was built in the late seventeenth century. It has T-shaped architecture with a 5-compartment front hall and a 2-compartment rear hall. In the front hall, except for the middle compartment (the hold of boat), other four ones are formed with wooden walls and boarded floor. On the main posts and beams, there engraved the year of construction and names of merit funded people. The communal house is the typical sculptural and architectural work of Le Dynasty remaining in
Hai Phong. The remarkableness of engraving themes of this architectural work is that apart from the image of dragons, phoenixes, stylized flowers and plants, lightning, scimitar edges, etc. there are also scenes of natural and vivid common activities. It is the scene of dragons following one another; in front of them, there are many 4-leg animals climbing and crawling onto dragons’ fins; in another scene, dragons mingle with 4-leg animals like: lizards, elephants, horses, taro leave-eating pigs; and the scene of a boy sitting onto buffalo’s back, etc. Kien Bai village festival is annually opened from the 10th to 13th of the first lunar month. On these days, local people go to the communal house to make offerings and attend festival activities such as: exchange of “hat dum” (‘local traditional singing’), competition of glutinous rice cake cooking, etc. The prominence of festival activities here is a traditional competition named “cuop cay bong” (‘seizing flower sticks’).
In order to prepare for flower sticks seizing competition, local people must find two longest bamboos and bring to the communal house. The family that has found bamboo will have to bring glutinous rice cake to the communal house to make offerings. The chairman of festival then chooses 10 single young men of over 18 years old or eldest sons of local families to trim branches of the two bamboos; after that, each man makes two 5-meter sticks to put into the communal house for worshiping.
The remains of the two bamboos are cut into two chunks to make flower sticks. Two of ten young men are selected to do the work of making flower sticks. Firstly, the bamboo chunks are skin-scraped, then making flowers at the two tops of each chunk. To decorate flower sticks, colorful papers and threads are winded around each chunk. After that, the two flower sticks are brought into the communal house.
The flower sticks seizing competition are divided into to parts; the first part is seizing from the shrine (without prize), then the second part is seizing prize. In the first part, as soon as the chairman of festival throw flower sticks into the air, 10 young men who wear red pants, red scarves and green belts rush to seize the flower sticks under the encouragement of local people. In the second part, everyone can join to seize flower sticks. This competition is always hilarious and lasts until the next morning.
The person who wins the prize of flower sticks seizing competition will be invited to eat the glutinous rice cake which wins the first prize of cooking competition.
Generally, the winners of flower sticks seizing competition and glutinous rice cooking competition if single would be helped and supported to be a couple by local people. The winner of flower sticks seizing competition is always respected by local people because he is considered to be blessed by Gods. |
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