Many Vietnamese culture experts have expressed their support for the continuing of the Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival in Haiphong City despite the recent fatal accident.

A man was gored to death by his buffalo at Do Son Buffalo Fighting Festival 2017.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on September 9 held a forum on measures to improve the organising of the festival. 

The event was held following the ministry’s decision to temporarily halt the festival after a local man was gored to death by his fighting buffalo. 

However, Haiphong City still wants to continue the festival, saying that the activity was a traditional and spiritual event without any commercial purpose.

At the forum, Professor To Ngoc Thanh, chairman of the Vietnam Folklore Arts Association, said that the festival should not be banned, but it needs to be held in a more closely-supervised way. Measures should be done to prevent it from being turned into a commercial event.

Professor Nguyen Chi Ben, former director of the Vietnam Institute of Culture and Information, shared the same opinion with Thanh, adding that a new model for organising the festival should be worked out to ensure the safety.

Meanwhile, Professor Tran Lam Bien from Vietnam Heritage Magazine said that it was a folk festival so it should not be banned. He, however, thought that killing buffaloes for meat after the festival should be removed. In the past, buffaloes were not killed after the festival.

Dr. Tran Huu Son, vice chairman of Vietnam Folklore Arts Association, said Haiphong City should take advantages of the festival to develop it into a local tourism product.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed reducing the number of buffaloes for the festival and each ward of Haiphong City is allowed to bring one buffalo to participate in the event from 2017.

Under the ministry’s proposal, the qualifying round should be removed so the festival will have the only one round scheduled to take place on every the 9th of the lunar month of August.

The ministry also asked Haiphong City’s Do Son District to ban killing buffaloes for meat after the festival.

At the meeting, representatives from Do Son District’s authorities said that they will add regulations on the organising of the festival. Buffalo owners must be selected by the public for the festival participation.

The organising board will also set up fences around the fighting area and form a body to check the buffaloes’ health.

dtinews