VietNamNet Bridge - "Nam Dinh and Thai Binh provinces both have the Tran Temple Festival; one of the two places will have to remove the festival," said Mr.Pham Van Thuy, a senior official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, in an interview.

Festival: old diseases recur 

 

 

Mr. Pham Van Thuy 

How do you comment on the organization of traditional festivals this year?

Visitors often flock to festivals in the beginning of the year, while the festival space does not change. So obviously, the festivals are overloaded and congestion. Moreover, the people’s current cultural enjoyment is higher because they have had a better and richer life. Thus, at a certain time, many festivals are overloaded because the infrastructure does not meet the demand.

Implementing the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s instructions, we have enhanced measures, so the organization of traditional festivals this year is very serious and many negative impacts have been controlled.

However, at the Huong pagoda festival, many restaurants still hang wild animal meat or people still scatter money rampantly on doctoral steles at the Temple of Literature. What do you think about this situation?

In previous years, the state of hanging wild animal meat was very popular. This year, before the lunar New Year, we sent three missions to coordinate with the Hanoi authorities to close many restaurants that sold wild animal meat. Before the festival, I went there to check and saw a family selling goat meat. We asked them to close immediately. At present, our staff are still there to control the situation. At the Yen Tu festival, there is no one that sells wild animal meat.

The habit of Vietnamese pilgrims for many years is putting money on the place where the gods can see. This year we have guided them to not do it, but some visitors still insist on that habit. Therefore, education and communication must be strengthened.

I see that in some places, there are more negative phenomenon because the local government losses management. For example, several days before the lunar New Year, I went to the Ha Temple in Hanoi and saw some people throw money down into a well. I told the organizing board about it and they have arranged some policemen to guard there. A few days later, I returned and did not see anyone throwing cash into the well.

Despite a lot of propaganda, but burning votive at festivals and temples is still rampant. How to prevent this phenomenon?

 

This year the burning of votive papers has reduced at festivals, except for the Ba Chua Kho Temple. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will propose the Government to ban the production and circulation of votive products. Currently, we have only regulations on not burning votive papers at public places because of the environmental impact.

With about 8,000 festivals in the country, what is the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s plans to reduce the size and frequency of the festivals?

Currently, there are 7,966 festivals in Vietnam, including 7,039 folk festivals, in addition to a number of revolutionary, religious festivals or coffee and coconut festivals held by companies to promote Vietnamese products.

We are preparing a festival plan, which will be completed by the third quarter this year. Under the plan, the scale and frequency of festivals will be controlled. The folk festivals that match the current conditions will exist and even some festivals will be restored. But unsuitable holidays will be removed.

The number of folk festivals indeed is great for our country. This is due to history. Many folk festivals overlap in many provinces. For example, Nam Dinh and Thai Binh provinces both have the Tran Temple Festival. One of the two provinces will have to remove this festival.

So how to handle it when local governments want to maintain their festivals to attract customers and to generate revenues?

When the festival planning is finalized, the scale of festivals will be fixed so local governments cannot expand the scale of their festivals. We will assign a locality to organize a festival instead of three localities organize the same festival as before. Decentralization will help enhance festival management, reducing the number and frequency of festivals.

Compiled by Mai Lan