Giỗ tổ Hùng Vương

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Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương (giỗ: death anniversary, Tổ: ancestor) is the Vietnamese festival to worship Hùng Vương. Since 2007, it has been a public holiday in Vietnam celebrated on the tenth day of the third lunar month.

[edit] Philosophy

This festival is representation of coordinating between two concepts: country and nation.

The term for "country" in the Vietnamese language is đất nước. Đất means "ground" or "soil" and nước means "water." Đất and nước is the pair of two factors in the nature of yang and yin. According to the tale of "Con Rồng cháu Tiên", đất (or mountainous area) is the homeland of Âu Cơ and nước is the fatherland of Lạc Long Quân. That means country, to Vietnamese people, is the unity of two contracditions for further development: delta people and mountain people, majority ethnic group and minority ethnic groups, etc. Practically, 15 Vietnamese ancient tribals associated with one another to form the first Vietnam's state: Văn Lang. It is just unity for damming up against the annual flood of the Red River but not war or conquer of more strong tribal forming Vietnam country in pre-history. Over thousands of years, many disharmonies were overlooked for the country's benefits, for example between Trần Quang Khải and Trần Hưng Đạo.

Nation means not only a community that lives together in the same country but also people who have blood- relationship. Although there are 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam, speaking languages in five language families, according to the tale of "Con Rồng cháu Tiên", all people of 54 ethnic groups are in the same descent. Hồ Chí Minh said that Vietnamese people are đồng bào (đồng: the same/common, bào: egg): people all were born from the Mother Âu Cơ's magical egg.

There is a Vietnamese saying:

Bầu ơi thương lấy bí cùng,

Tuy rằng khác giống nhưng chung một giàn.

(Meaning: Ethnic groups like winter melon and gourd that usually are grown on the same trellis though they're different species, so that, they must love and help each other).

That solidarity of people with various ethnic, fatherland, authority, oppinion forms Vietnam as a united nation-country. Country means nation and nation means country. Vietnamese people have acknowledged a common ancestor: Lạc Long Quân, Âu Cơ and Hùng Vương; they're not ancestor of a line of descent but are the ancestor of a nation, a country. They're hold death anniversary, called "Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương", on the 10th day of the 3rd lunar month in Hùng temple, Phú Thọ province.