Thousands of people attend the first Com Pounding Festival in Vi Xuyen district

Taking place over the weekend of October 14-15, the first Com Pounding Festival was held at the district level in Mich B Village, Thuan Hoa Commune, attracting thousands of local people and tourists to attend. In addition to the Com Pounding Competition between 11 communes in Vi Xuyen District, many cultural, artistic and sports activities took place within the framework of the festival, such as: Folk art competition, ethnic sports competition, folk games, display of typical products of communes and towns, culinary competition of villages in Thuan Hoa Commune. Through the first Com Pounding Festival in Vi Xuyen District, the unique cultural life of the Tay ethnic people was portrayed, promoting the labor and production movement, and promoting trade of goods among the people.

Despite the rain, the festival still attracted a large number of people and tourists to visit.

The green rice pounding competition was between 11 communes in the district that make green rice, including Viet Lam, Phuong Tien, Tung Ba, Phu Linh, Kim Linh, Kim Thach, Dao Duc, Bach Ngoc, Ngoc Minh, Linh Ho, Thuan Hoa. Each team of 5 people went through the following competitions: cutting rice, drying, pounding green rice, and presenting green rice.

Com is made from local yellow sticky rice variety. When selected, the sticky rice grains must be firm but still have milk at the tip of the grain, and the shell must be blue-yellow.

After completing the rice harvesting process, the competing teams will remove the leaves, arrange the rice into bundles and weigh them under the supervision of the organizing committee.

Before drying the rice, the first step is to prepare the oven to roast the green rice. The oven is built separately with a fresh bamboo woven grid placed on the mouth of the oven. The fire is initially kept large and even to heat the oven, but when drying, the fire must be reduced to ensure a moderate temperature so that the rice grains do not burn.

Before drying the rice, the drying oven is prepared. The drying oven is built separately with a fresh bamboo woven grid placed on the mouth of the oven. The fire is initially kept large and even to heat the oven, when drying, the fire must be reduced, ensuring a moderate temperature so that the rice grains do not burn.

The technique of drying rice requires meticulousness and dexterity. The bundles of rice are turned over and over again by hand so that the glutinous rice grains are cooked, pale white in color, and not burnt. On average, each bundle is dried for 2 minutes.

After each drying batch, clamp each bundle of rice onto a bamboo stick, scrape each flower or use an upside-down bowl to scrape the rice grains apart.

Visitors can witness firsthand the stages of making green rice flakes using the traditional manual method of the Tay ethnic people.

Pounding green rice is an important step, not only to announce a bountiful harvest but also to invite ancestors and gods to enjoy the green rice. The pounding rhythm is gentle and steady, while pounding, there is a certain amount of rubbing and bouncing of the pestle to make the green rice smooth and supple. When pounding, the green rice must be constantly stirred from top to bottom, bottom to top, to ensure evenness.

After each pounding, the rice will be sifted to remove the husk. The process is repeated until the husk is clean.

The pounded green rice is beautifully decorated by the teams in their own style.

Within the framework of the festival, folk art competitions, traditional sports competitions, folk games such as stick pushing and tug of war create an exciting and vibrant atmosphere for the festival.

The booths displaying green rice products such as green rice cakes, green rice, green rice sticky rice, etc. attracted many customers to buy. This is also an opportunity to promote the potential and strengths of local tourism development, aiming to build tourism products for Vi Xuyen district.

Ha An

Source