Muong Hoa Preserves and Spreads the Muong Cultural Identity

With ethnic Muong people accounting for nearly 99% of its population, Muong Hoa Commune still preserves intact its traditional cultural beauties, ranging from attire and cuisine to folk games and traditional crafts. This is identified as a vital bedrock for the commune to maximize the cultural identity of ethnic minorities coupled with tourism development, thereby creating livelihoods and lifting citizens' quality of life.

The residents of Muong Hoa Commune safeguard their traditional handicrafts.

Blending into the bustling streams of people converging from every corner upon Muong Hoa, we were present at the Muong Hoa Commune Culture Festival and Chua Ke Festival in 2026. An identity-rich cultural space of the Muong ethnic group opened up before the eyes of visitors. Along the festival entrance, locals displayed and sold dishes heavily imbued with Muong culinary identity, such as stream fish, steamed wild vegetables, com lam (bamboo-tube sticky rice), and banh uoi (traditional Muong cakes). Stalls selling bamboo and rattan handicrafts also attracted a large number of citizens and tourists.

The most vivid highlight of the festival was the colorful traditional brocade patterns on the dress waistbands of Muong women busily attending the event, which radiated brilliantly across showcase stalls. Notably, all activities within the framework of the festival were heavily imbued with Muong cultural identity, highlighted by a majestic Muong gong performance by 250 artisans and duet singing competitions. Folk games such as crossbow shooting and stilt walking also contributed to a lively and complete recreation of the locals' spiritual life.

Mr. Dinh Son Tung—Vice Chairman of the Muong Hoa Commune People’s Committee—stated: "Organizing the Muong Hoa Commune Culture Festival and Chua Ke Festival in 2026 aims to effectively execute the targets, tasks, and solutions of the Scheme for Preserving and Promoting the Values of Muong Ethnic Culture and the “Hoa Binh Culture” for the 2023–2030 period. Concurrently, it elevates national pride, encourages all strata of citizens to enthusiastically compete in labor and manufacturing, and promotes the traditional cultural beauties of the Muong group and the broader communal ethnic block to tourists inside and outside the province." This stands as one of the prominent activities organized by Muong Hoa Commune following its administrative establishment to realize the goal of safeguarding ethnic minority identities.

Following administrative mergers, Muong Hoa Commune has unlocked a brand-new space and headroom for development. The commune is planned within the core zone of the Hoa Binh Lake National Tourism Area. This presents a massive opportunity and potential for the locality to shift its economic structure from pure agriculture toward a tourism and service-oriented economy. The Resolution of the Muong Hoa Commune Party Committee Congress also defines maximizing ethnic minority cultural identities coupled with tourism growth as one of its four strategic breakthroughs for the new tenure.

Post-merger, Muong Hoa has paid deep attention to investing in physical facilities and equipment, while efficiently executing projects related to preserving and promoting the Muong ethnic cultural space. The commune focuses heavily on restoring customs, habits, festivals, handicrafts, Mo Muong, written scripts, spoken languages, traditional attire, stilt-house architecture, and folk song melodies. Training local residents to operate community-based tourism is actively accelerated, serving both to protect culture and boost local incomes.

The commune places heavy emphasis on combining identity preservation with the growth of community-based tourism and experiential cultural tourism, while aggressively promoting its potentials to attract travelers. Particularly, the locality concentrates on accelerating tourism and service development along the Da River reservoir area in tandem with preserving Muong cultural values, integrated with unlocking the values of the Thac Bo Cave, Hoa Tien Cave, and Bung Hang Special National Relics.

Muong ethnic cuisine becomes an attractive highlight drawing tourists to Muong Hoa.

Muong Hoa currently hosts 5 eco-resort and tourism projects that have been or are under construction. Among these, one project has officially entered operation, generating regular employment for around 40 full-time workers and hundreds of seasonal laborers. The building and marketing of the local image combined with tourism development have been step-by-step elevated. The image of the land, people, and characteristic cultural identity of Muong Hoa is being powerfully communicated to a large audience of domestic and international travelers.

According to Vice Chairman Dinh Son Tung, Muong Hoa is heavily prioritizing the development of signature tourism products tied to spiritual festivals and traditional culture to create highlights, elevate experiential values, and upgrade local magnetism. Step-by-step, the commune strives to transform tourism into a vital economic sector, contributing to economic restructuring, generating revenues, reducing poverty, and creating regular employment and stable incomes for workers.

The commune strives to welcome over 100,000 arrivals by 2030, yielding a targeted revenue of approximately 30 billion VND. Muong Hoa will focus on efficiently preserving and unlocking traditional cultural values and the Chua Ke Festival, step-by-step executing the digitalization of data regarding relics, festivals, and traditional cultural values.

With a vision to 2045, Muong Hoa aims to become a comprehensively developed locality in terms of both economy and culture. It will successfully safeguard and promote ethnic cultural identities, forge a healthy cultural environment, enrich the spiritual life of its people, and closely integrate cultural development with community-based and eco-tourism, thereby lifting the livelihoods of the entire population.

Duong Lieu