Unique cultural features of the Cham people in Bac Binh

Located in the north of the province, Bac Binh is a land of mountains, seas, and deserts, but the main feature is still the rice plain. There are more than 40,000 Cham people living here for a long time, including Cham Muslims (Bani) and Cham followers of Brahmanism.

Bac Binh is a land of mountains, hills, and sea, but the main feature is still the rice plain.

Cham villages in Bac Binh have the characteristics of a rural village and the flavor of the sea, mainly growing rice, vegetables, making pottery and going offshore to sea. Continuing traditional customs, Cham people in Bac Binh still mold household pottery: jars, vases, pots, and even statues of gods all with their bare hands, without any supporting tools, quite different from the Vietnamese way of using a turntable. Pottery is fired with firewood and straw, not built in kilns like people in other regions.

The Cham people in Bac Binh still mold household pottery: jars, vases, pots, and even statues of gods with their bare hands.

Tourists admire pottery making in Bac Binh.

Along with making pottery, growing rice or growing trees on the hills, the sophisticated culinary features hidden through the fish sauces of the Cham people here are also extremely unique, such as: steamed fish sauce, fermented fish sauce... And not to mention many other dishes such as grilled fish, fish soup... also invented by the Cham people to enrich the daily meals. Bac Binh with the places Phan Ri Thanh, Phan Ri Cua, Cho Lau, Song Luy... from there brings a salty breath with famous seafood specialties throughout the country, typically fish sauce and dried seafood.

Banh tet and gingerbread are indispensable during the holidays.

Every year, the Cham people in Binh Thuan have traditional customs and festivals that attract domestic and foreign tourists. The social life of the Cham people in Binh Thuan still has quite special ways of life, showing the characteristics of their cultural identity such as: gentleness, respect for promises, loyalty, honesty, order and especially the tradition of studiousness.

During the fourth month of the Cham calendar, Cham Muslims often celebrate Ramuwan.

Anyone who comes to Bac Binh is impressed by the red and golden sand dunes stretching in Phan Ri, Tuy Phong... This is also the uniqueness of the natural heritages here. During the fourth month of the Cham calendar, the Cham Muslims often organize the Ramưwan festival, similar to the Vietnamese tomb-sweeping festival. The Cham tomb-sweeping ritual truly creates a magical picture when hundreds of people, old and young, men and women, dressed in colorful costumes, solemnly appear in the cemetery to worship and pray. Ramưwan, along with the Kate festival of the Cham Brahmins, has become a national cultural heritage.

Bac Binh is a place where many unique features of Cham culture in the plains and coastal areas converge. It is not by chance that Bac Binh has become a prosperous district in terms of economy, strongly developing cultural tourism with the Cham cultural heritage center displaying extremely valuable antiquities from several hundred years of formation and development of the Cham people. The Cham community has been attached to Binh Thuan land for many centuries and together with other ethnic groups in this land, has contributed many valuable heritages to the culture of the province in particular and of Vietnam in general. Preserving and promoting the cultural values of the Cham people in the process of building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity is an important requirement, always receiving special attention from the Party Committee and authorities at all levels in the province.

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