Go to Quan Xuyen to see the art tower.

To this day, the festival still preserves many unique cultural values of the countryside along the Red River, such as the rituals of carrying the sacred image, carrying the water for the ritual, and the wrestling match.

Legend has it that the village's patron deity, Vu Quang Chieu, created the wrestling game to mimic the precarious life on the river of his sworn brother, Pham Cong Nghi.

The wrestling match involved 72 people, divided into two teams of 36 each, dressed in blue and red. One team represented the Upper Village, and the other represented the Lower Village.

The wrestling team is led by three people elected by the villagers to manage the match. One person acts as the chief commander (overall commander), and two people act as flag bearers, each commanding a team.

The wrestling arena was chosen from a rice field in front of the communal house. Every year, when the village prepares for the festival, the villagers stop plowing and cultivating that field. The arena is 65m long and 45m wide. The surface is flat and consists of 3 wrestling pits, including one main pit and 2 smaller pits.

The main pit is twice the size of the smaller pits. The main pit is dug in the center of the courtyard, 1.2m deep and 1.5m in diameter. The two smaller pits are dug at either end of the courtyard, each 0.6m deep and 0.8m in diameter. The distance between the main pit and the smaller pits is 30m.

To begin the game, each team selects their strongest, quickest, and most skillful player to go first and grab the tower. The flag bearer signals, and the person in charge strikes a gong to start the match. Two wrestlers run as fast as they can and jump into the pit below the tower. They rely on their strength and skill to grab the tower and bring it back to their team.

While transporting the stilt house from the main pit to the field, the player uses their hands to hold the stilt house close to their chest. All other players are not allowed to use their hands but only the muscle strength of their legs, back, or buttocks. Players push off the ground with their feet as a pivot point, transferring force through their back, shoulders, or buttocks, gradually moving their body forward and pushing the stilt house towards their team's field. The winning team is the one that gets the stilt house into their team's pit.

Due to the terrain of the playing field, without head coverings, spectators would have difficulty distinguishing players from each team because everyone would be covered in mud. With the belief that the winning team will bring good luck to their village for the entire year and, conversely, the losing village will experience bad luck, nowadays, teams often aim for a draw.

The wrestling match at the Quan Xuyen communal house festival is competitive but not overly fierce, and is enthusiastically cheered on by villagers and tourists alike. Beyond its martial spirit, the competition also holds significant symbolic meaning for folk beliefs in agriculture , emphasizing unity and cooperation among team members and the community as a whole.

Heritage Magazine