(AG Provincial E-Portal) - On the evening of May 28, in Chau Doc city, An Giang Provincial People's Committee (PPC) organized the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival 2024 - combined with celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Festival being included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage list (2014-2024). Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of An Giang Provincial Party Committee Le Hong Quang, Head of the Steering Committee for major festivals in An Giang province, attended and directed the opening ceremony. Also attending the ceremony were Permanent Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Le Van Nung; Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Festival Organizing Committee Le Van Phuoc, members of the Provincial Party Standing Committee; leaders of Military Region 9 and Navy Region 5; leaders of provinces and cities; Leaders of districts, towns and cities inside and outside the province and thousands of people and tourists from across the country attended.
Delegates attending the Opening Ceremony of the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival 2024 - combined with celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Festival being included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage list (2014-2024)
The opening performance of the Festival
Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of An Giang Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Festival Organizing Committee Le Van Phuoc delivers the opening speech
Awarding Certificates of Merit from An Giang PPC to collectives and individuals who have made many contributions to preserving and promoting the value of the national intangible cultural heritage of Ba Chua Xu Festival of Sam Mountain
Awarding Certificates of Merit to Chau Doc City People's Committee to groups and individuals with outstanding achievements in preserving and promoting the value of national intangible cultural heritage through the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival in Chau Doc city
Giving flowers and Certificates of Merit to units contributing to the 2024 Sam Mountain Goddess Festival program
Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of An Giang Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Steering Committee for major festivals in An Giang province Le Hong Quang performs the drum-beating ceremony to open the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival 2024 - Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival being included in the list of National Intangible Cultural Heritage (2014-2024)
Dronelight performance to celebrate the opening ceremony
Performances of the festival's opening entertainment program with the theme "Sacred Land of Thousand Fortunes"
Chau Doc City - the land of "Three rivers in front, seven mountains behind" with the Sam Mountain National Tourist Area complex has many historical and cultural relics ranked at national and provincial levels. Goddess Temple in Sam Mountain, one of six historical and cultural relics ranked at national level in Chau Doc city, is a temple built, existed and developed for nearly 200 years. Associated with the Goddess Temple relic is the Sam Mountain Goddess Festival, attracting millions of tourists to visit and worship every year. The traditional festival of An Giang province has been recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage and aims to be a representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This affirms the festival's position in the spiritual life and community religious activities not only in the South but also in the whole country and has the connection with the international community.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of An Giang Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Festival Organizing Committee Le Van Phuoc emphasized, An Giang has more than 100 large and small festivals and the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain is one of the traditional festivals with unique spiritual cultural values of Chau Doc region in particular and An Giang in general. The Goddess Festival in Sam Mountain, taking place from the 22nd to 27th of the fourth lunar month, is a major festival, imbued with the cultural identity of residents of the Southern river region, reflecting religious practices and spiritual culture of local residents, with a high sense of community. The festival demonstrates the identity and continuity of the Vietnamese community in the process of cultural exchange with the Khmer, Chinese, and Cham ethnic communities. The festival honoring the Goddess is also an opportunity for people to show their love, gratitude, and respect for those who have contributed to the people and the country. Every year, the Goddess Festival attracts millions of visitors from inside and outside the province to visit and make pilgrimages.
With those typical values, in 2014 the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain was registered by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Recognizing the importance of protecting heritage, over the past 10 years, the Party Committee and government of An Giang province have always paid attention to leading and directing the work of preserving, protecting and promoting cultural heritage values in the cause of socio-economic development; considering this an important task, one of the driving forces to create identity and endogenous strength in the province's development process.
Up to now, the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain has organized 02 domestic and international conferences. In 2023, at the Vietnam - India Economic and Cultural Exchange Forum, the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain was honored as "Typical cultural activity in Asia - Pacific" for its positive contributions to the development of Vietnam's tourism industry.
Notably, An Giang has been approved by the Government and submitted to UNESCO a dossier to register the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain on the list of representative intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The dossier is expected to be considered and approved at the 19th meeting in December 2024. This affirms the value and importance of the Festival in the spiritual life of community religious activities not only in South Vietnam but also the Vietnamese people and has the cohesion of the international community.
On this occasion, the People's Committee of An Giang province awarded certificates of merit to the Party Committee, government and people of Chau Doc city, the Management Board of Sam Mountain Goddess Temple and 6 individuals who have made outstanding contributions to preserving and promoting the value of the national intangible cultural heritage of the Goddess Festival in Sam Mountain over the past 10 years. Chau Doc City People's Committee also rewarded other outstanding groups and individuals.
Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of An Giang Provincial Party Committee Le Hong Quang performed the drum-beating ceremony to open the Festival of Sam Mountain Goddess in 2024 – combined with commemorating the 10th anniversary of the festival included in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List.
Immediately after the opening drum ceremony of Provincial Party Committee Secretary Le Hong Quang, there was an extremely unique and impressive light performance of more than 300 dronelights. Images of the Goddess Festival of Sam Mountain and historical figures, unique landmarks of Chau Doc - An Giang through the 'light party' of more than 300 drones have brought a Eye-catching performance for the audience present at the ceremony ground.
This is also the first time Chau Doc has applied this modern technology to open the festival. The festival is even more sparkling and magical with a combination of light effects - musics and fireworks lasting more than 5 minutes at the ceremony yard.
This year, along with the solemn opening of the Goddess Festival in Sam Mountain, the scale also includes a series of other important activities to preserve and promote the value of the Festival's heritage such as: Street Festival to describe the moment while Famous General Thoai Ngoc Hau surveying the new route for food transportation, commemorating the 195th anniversary of the death of the Famous General Thoai Ngoc Hau (1829-2024) and the 200th anniversary of the completion of Vinh Te Canal (1824-2024) combined with the 198th anniversary of the death of Ms. Chau Thi Te (1826-2024)… Through activities, An Giang wishes to promote and introduce to domestic and international friends the potentials, strengths, landscapes, historical and cultural relics, and people of the beautiful border region, to attract more investors and visitors, contributing to the increasingly development of the home province’s tourism industry./.
News by Phan Huu – Trung Cang
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