Muong Vo Mieu people preserve traditional culture

Vo Mieu - a mountainous commune of Thanh Son district has a large population of Muong ethnic people, accounting for nearly 48% of the population, distributed in 20 residential areas. Over many generations, the Muong people here still strive to protect, preserve and promote traditional cultural values from rituals, costumes, dances, songs, folk performances to rustic and simple dishes. All blend together to create the unique cultural features of the Muong people in Vo Mieu commune today.

In order not to miss even the smallest performance organized by the area or commune, Ms. Ha Thi Mau - Head of the Muong Cultural Club in Trai area urged and reminded 29 members of the club to maintain the Regular Practice and Activity every month.

Using gongs and bamboo pipes as props and singing lyrics as motivation, over the past 10 years, the club has taught hundreds of people of all ages the traditional Vi and Rang songs. The Club currently maintains a set of gongs, 24 sets of male and female costumes and some working tools.

Considered a locality that is always at the forefront of preserving and promoting Muong cultural values in the district, in recent times, Vo Mieu commune has made efforts to implement a project to continue preserving and promoting its identity. Muong ethnic culture and other ethnic minorities in the commune in the period 2021-2025.

In particular, the commune focuses on promoting the Muong ethnic cultural identity in a systematic and extensive manner to the people and Muong ethnic cultural clubs in the area. Mobilize the resources of the entire society to continue preserving and promoting the cultural identity of the Muong ethnic group and other ethnic minorities, thereby creating a strong change in awareness and sense of protecting and promoting traditional cultural values to improve people’s lives. Preserving and promoting good cultural identity goes hand in hand with eliminating outdated customs and practices; At the same time, consolidate and strengthen the great national unity bloc, raising the trust of ethnic minorities in the Party and State.

The work of teaching ethnic culture, collecting and displaying musical instruments, working and production tools of ethnic groups at residential cultural houses and schools is widely deployed in all residential areas. Specifically, the commune has extensively deployed activities to collect rare documents and artifacts that are typical traditional cultural heritage of the Muong ethnic group to preserve and display according to the correct process as instructed by the Project.

Mr. Nguyen Trung Thach, Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Vo Mieu commune shared: "Up to now, the commune has established 15 Muong ethnic cultural clubs, including one club at the commune level, one club at Vo Mieu Secondary School and 13 clubs in the residential area. The clubs focus on preserving the rhythms, costumes, and daily life items of the Muong people... During holidays, Tet, and great national solidarity festivals, residential areas do art performances and display living and production tools of the Muong people at the cultural house. The commune currently preserves 30 artifacts of production tools of the Muong ethnic people, a set of 12 gongs and 12 sets of Muong ethnic women’s costumes”.

Maintaining the activities of the clubs focuses on dancing, Rang singing, Vi singing, gong performance practice, and pipe dancing. Based on the instructions of the Department of Culture and Information, Center for Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thanh Son district, every year, the commune sends members of the club to participate in training classes. The clubs maintain regular monthly activities to improve the quality of gong performances, singing and dancing, typically the Trai and Banh clubs.

Hong Nhung