A line of people holding flags in their hands at an annual Hung temple festival. (Source: VNA)Ho Chi Minh City (VNA) – Scientists and researchers have highlighted the importance of the Hung King worship rituals and its role in strengthening national unity and the spiritual life in modern society at a workshop in HCM City on December 26.
Le Hong Ly, Head of the Institute of Cultural Studies under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, said the worshipping rituals of the Hung Kings has become a national symbol gathering communities and ethnic groups living across Vietnam.
It has also been a symbol for community unity in all places in the world where Vietnamese people live, said Ly.
As a world intangible cultural heritage, the values of the Hung King worship rituals should be promoted, said Ta Ngoc Tan, Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, asking for State management in preserving the cultural heritage.
Nguyen The Hung, Head of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Cultural Heritage Department, said the Hung King worship rituals play an especially important role in the formation and development of Vietnam’s culture characteristics and indentity.
It also helps build up the national traditional cultural value system and the Hung King worship rituals has and will have been the fulcrum of the national unity bloc.
Truong Quoc Binh from the National Culture and Art Institute said the Hung King worship rituals, which develops from the traditional ancestor worship rituals, has been a foundation for unity, love and mutual assistance, spiritual cultural features indispensable in modern society.
Binh said on the path of reform and world integration, the Vietnamese people need to continue preserve and promote precious cultural values and global outstanding values of the Hung King worship rituals in the modern life.
Hung King is the title given to the ancient Vietnamese rulers of the Hong Bang period (2879–258 BC). They were the kings of Van Lang.
The worshipping rituals of the Hung Kings was recognised as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012.-VNA
