In the city, the old seasonal rituals or hometown customs are gradually simplified, giving way to quick, convenient options to keep up with the hustle and bustle out there. But no matter how busy, there is a saying "loyalty to the dead is loyalty to the end", no matter what the circumstances, no matter how different the form, the sacredness of a human journey remains intact. My family lives in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, somewhere there are still fields, gourd gardens, squash gardens... Every time someone passes away, the trees in the house also hang white mourning wreaths. My neighborhood has a shrine to Ba, the aunts in the neighborhood still call it "Ba Ngu Hanh shrine" (the way to call the shrine in the Southern dialect - PV). When the funeral procession passes by the shrine, the burial team also stops to bow a few times, regardless of whether the deceased usually goes to the Ba shrine or not... That is the custom in the neighborhood, which has not changed since the time of my grandparents and parents until now. My mother often told us that this was the way our grandparents taught their children and grandchildren to bow their heads and be grateful to their ancestors. They also bowed to the deceased one last time.
Communal houses or shrines are a type of architecture belonging to folk beliefs, which almost every village has. Because this is where the “Thanh Hoang Bon Canh” (also known as Than Hoang Bon Canh) is worshiped, the Lady… is the person who founded the village, established the hamlet, and protected the village in peace. These folk belief activities are passed down from generation to generation, and a stick of incense with a bow of gratitude has become a good and eternal morality of the nation.
For many years now, with the deep integration into the global community, the influence has been clearly seen, causing many ancient cultures in the world to fade away. People have begun to look for the original values, because every good value is formed and mobilized from the lives of the people to create the identity of a village, contributing to the identity of a nation and people. The children in my neighborhood have grown up and caught up with technology, social networks, foreign languages, etc., so that each of them has a dream of starting a business or becoming a global citizen, far different from their half-urbanized, half-rural neighborhood. But whenever they hear the sound of drums at the communal house worshiping ceremony, the playful children put down their phones and run after the adults out of curiosity, then learn to look at the adults, bow their heads, burn incense, and go to the temple.
The funeral "bowing" across the temple, or the drumbeat at the communal house every time Ky Yen, is not only a folk custom, or a story related to beliefs and spirituality, but it is a heritage value belonging to humanity. When we still know how to bow our heads to remember our ancestors, even though life has many ups and downs..., people will not easily become corrupted, when gratitude is still there!
Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/dau-de-ma-hu-khi-long-biet-on-con-do-post803551.html
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