Tien Pagoda - Tien Well Festival: Unique intangible cultural feature of Lang Son

– Lang Son is a land that converges many unique cultural values, both tangible and intangible, including the Tien Pagoda – Tien Well Festival. This is a festival that contains many unique and beautiful cultural layers of the Lang people. In 2024, the Tien Pagoda – Tien Well Festival was chosen by the City People's Committee as a key festival, with many new and attractive activities.

Tien Pagoda - Tien Well is a relic complex containing many unique cultural and religious values with a system of folk tales, ancient steles, ancient worship statues... According to the book "Dai Nam Nhat Thong Chi" of the National History Institute of the Nguyen Dynasty, Tien Pagoda (Song Tien Tu) was established during the Le Hong Duc period (around 1460 - 1497). Originally, it was a small pagoda next to Tien Well on the slope of Deo Giang - Van Vy mountain (about 200 m from the entrance of Tien Pagoda cave). However, around the second half of the 18th century, due to damage and deterioration, the pagoda was moved into Song Tien cave.

Fairy Well is a cool water source flowing from the heart of the mountain. Although the mouth of the water source is only as big as a large bowl, the crystal clear water never dries up. This well is associated with the legendary story of the Fairy who gave the villagers of Phja Luong precious water to repay the buffalo herders who gave him their meager rice (in the form of a poor old man). The mouth of the well is the footprint of the Fairy stepping on the rock.

Art performance reenacting the story of the Immortal helping people at the annual Tien Pagoda Festival

The Tien Pagoda - Tien Well Festival is held on January 18 every year. This is one of the unique and bustling traditional cultural festivals of the people of Lang Son province, an opportunity for tourists to visit, worship, enjoy, contributing to promoting the culture and image of Lang people to domestic and foreign tourists.

Mr. Hoang Van Pao, Chairman of the Provincial Cultural Heritage Association, said: The Tien Pagoda Festival originates from the belief of stone worship and water worship of agricultural residents. This is one of the very popular festival motifs in Vietnam associated with the story of the Fairy helping people in the area with water in the Fairy well, to escape the great drought.

According to folk legend, long ago, there was a drought so severe that the Ky Cung River dried up, the land cracked, the grass and trees withered, the fields were barren, and the people of Phja Luong village had no water to use. One day, a group of children herding buffaloes in the village met an old man dressed shabbily and looking tired, who came to them to beg for food. The children happily shared their rice with the old man and honestly said: we only have rice for you to eat but we don't know what to offer you to drink because the village has been without water for a long time. Moved by the children's filial piety, as soon as he received the rice, the old man stepped on a rock with his heel, and immediately a stream of clear, sweet water gushed out. From then on, the people of Phja Luong village had enough water to use. Later, the local people believed that the old man was the Fairy who helped the village through the disaster, so they called that water source the Fairy Well. Later, the local people built a temple to worship the Fairy right next to the well on the hillside of Deo Giang - Van Vi. Through the ups and downs of time, people built a pagoda and moved it into Song Tien cave to worship. The Tien Pagoda Festival was born from there.

Nowadays, Tien Pagoda is a well-known tourist destination and attracts a large number of people and tourists to visit and worship every year, especially during the festival held on January 18 every year. In addition to admiring the rare pristine beauty of a cave with unique magical stalactites, the festival is also a meeting place for ethnic groups in Lang Son, where folk games and performances take place such as: O an quan, blindfolded pot-breaking, stick pushing, bamboo dancing, Sli singing, luong and activities bearing the mark of traditional culture of Lang Son.

In order to create a highlight to attract many tourists to the Tien Pagoda festival, in 2024, the People's Committee of Lang Son city chose the Tien Pagoda festival as the city's key festival with many unique cultural and tourism activities.

To promote the value of the Tien Pagoda relic, from 2017 to now, the city has renovated and installed a number of items at Tien Pagoda such as: replacing two Guardian statues at the temple gate, Son Trang palace, sign system, embossed letters of the relic name on Dai Tuong mountain, lighting system in the cave... with a total cost of nearly 500 million VND. Notably, this year, the City People's Committee chose the Tien Pagoda festival as a key festival.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Van, Vice Chairman of Lang Son City People's Committee, said: In 2024, we chose Tien Pagoda Festival as a key festival and restored the water procession ritual on the main festival day to review the traditional customs and beauty of the homeland and show gratitude to our ancestors. To ensure the festival activities take place successfully, the City People's Committee has directed Chi Lang Ward People's Committee to develop a specific and detailed plan for the organization and management of the festival. At the same time, coordinate and participate in inspection and supervision activities to ensure security and order, environmental sanitation, food safety and practice a civilized lifestyle during the festival.

Thanks to investment and renovation, in recent years, Tien Pagoda has become an attractive destination for many tourists when coming to Lang Son. Ms. Hoang Minh Nguyet, a tourist from Hung Yen who visited Tien Pagoda, shared: I have been to Lang Son many times, each time I visit religious tourist attractions, including Tien Pagoda and Tien Well. This is a very beautiful and sacred place. This year, I was very impressed because I saw that Tien Pagoda has been invested in more spacious and beautiful, and I heard about the festival so I arranged my time to attend.

In order for the Tien Pagoda Festival to take place successfully, the People's Committee of Chi Lang Ward has issued a plan and program for organizing the festival, established an organizing committee and sub-committees to serve the festival... Thanks to that, the conditions of facilities and implementation of landscape decoration, layout of the booth area displaying local products, the area for organizing games, art programs imbued with traditional cultural identity such as then singing, Tinh lute, Chau dance to serve the evening of the 17th lunar day for mass art exchange and art performances, art performances reenacting the story of the fairy helping people on the morning of the 18th lunar day of the year Giap Thin have been carefully prepared...

With the efforts and initiative of all levels and sectors of the city, we believe that the Tien Pagoda Festival will leave many good impressions in the hearts of the people and tourists from all over the world. Contributing to the development of the economy, culture, society, especially night tourism in the area.

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