• Vu Lan 0 Dong Market: Giving 700 gifts to people in difficulty
  • Vu Lan Festival – Spreading filial piety and kindness

For Vietnamese people, Vu Lan festival is mainly held at Buddhist temples. As for the Chinese community in Ca Mau , the festival is not only held at Buddhist temples, but also at most temples. Based on this characteristic, Vu Lan festival does not necessarily have to take place on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month, but is held right from the beginning of the 7th lunar month; some temples hold the ceremony on the 2nd, 12th, 13th or the last day of the month..., becoming a unique local festival.

The ceremony of opening the gates of hell by offering offerings and leaving a basin of water for the wandering souls to bathe and celebrate Vu Lan festival.

The ceremony usually has two main parts: organizing a vegetarian ceremony to pray for the souls of the deceased; organizing "thi gian" (also known as "giất gian") to give rice and gifts to the living. Therefore, Vu Lan ceremony is also called "te am, thi duong" ceremony, both to pray for the souls of the deceased to be liberated, and to organize alms giving for the living to do good deeds.

To perform the Vu Lan ceremony, one of the important rituals is to erect a flagpole (similar to the Northern pole), made from a green bamboo trunk with leaves still intact, on top hangs a flagpole with the words "A Di Da Phat" or "Nam Mo Tiep Dan Dao Su A Di Da Phat". However, the size of the flagpole does not depend on how high it is, but on the scale of the Vu Lan ceremony, small or large. If the ceremony is large, with many offerings, the flagpole must be placed high, if it is small, it must be placed low. Because according to Chinese folklore, if the flagpole is hung high, the wandering souls from many places will see it and come in larger numbers, so the offerings must be large enough to have enough to eat, otherwise, the wandering souls will destroy it. Usually, the flagpole is erected in front of the temple yard, the average height is 5-10 m.

The flag hung during Vu Lan ceremony has the meaning of inviting the souls to listen to the sutras and receive alms food.

Vu Lan Festival has a part of organizing "thi gian" (or "giất gian") because in the past, along with the prayer ceremony, on the last day of Vu Lan Festival, pagodas and temples also built a 3-5 meter high platform, on which there were many offerings. In addition to vegetarian food, there are other offerings for the platform through tossing cards. Tossing cards is a form in which people standing on a high platform throw randomly mixed cards to the crowd to grab the platform. On each card is written the name of the winning offering such as: rice, salt, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, candy, betel and areca nuts attached to lucky money envelopes, pork leg... Whoever wins a card will receive the offering according to that card.

Organize a vegetarian ceremony to help the souls of deceased soldiers to be liberated.

However, this form of offering has now been abandoned by many pagodas and temples, because it creates a chaotic scene of fighting and often causes accidents due to jostling to grab the card. Instead, it is the form of distributing rice coupons (from 5-10 kg/coupon) and completely abandoning the offering of the platform.

Offerings for the scaffolding ceremony.

Compared to previous years, the Vu Lan festival of the Chinese community in Ca Mau has changed a lot. In particular, many pagodas and temples have boldly shortened the time of holding ceremonies and praying for the dead from 7 days to 2 days, limiting the burning of votive paper which causes waste, environmental pollution, and unsafety due to the risk of fire and explosion. At the same time, they have used that money to buy rice for poor households, buy fish to release...

It can be said that Vu Lan festival is truly a beautiful custom, demonstrating filial piety, educating traditional culture and also an opportunity to spread love in the community.

Lam Kiet Tuong

Source: https://baocamau.vn/net-rieng-le-vu-lan-cua-nguoi-hoa--a122087.html