The Muong ethnic group in Quang Lac commune (Nho Quan) has its own unique customs and practices, creating a rich and diverse cultural identity. These beauties have been distilled by the locality and included in the village rules and regulations so that all people have the responsibility to implement and preserve them.
Quang Lac Commune has over 70% of the population being Muong ethnic people. Although there are many traditional cultural features that need to be preserved, there are also many bad customs. In recent years, the locality has made many efforts to "filter out the bad and bring out the clear" to promote the unique cultural features of the Muong ethnic group, while boldly eliminating bad customs, aiming to build a new cultural lifestyle, especially in weddings and funerals.
Mr. Bui Hong Y, former Village Chief, a long-standing prestigious person in Dong Bai Village. Mr. Y said that for the Muong ethnic group, the wedding ceremony is a very important event, with a high level of community cohesion, but there are also many outdated customs. The host of the wedding does not care about economic issues, but only tries to organize a happy and complete wedding ceremony. The ceremonies for a wedding are quite cumbersome, including: the engagement day, the dowry day, the betel day, the wedding request day... and after each ceremony, the host has to prepare dozens of trays of food to entertain the village. Therefore, a wedding usually takes from 1 to 2 weeks to organize. Organizing a lavish wedding is a waste of time, effort and money.
To have the conditions to organize a wedding for their children, some families have to borrow money or borrow money from pigs. It is a custom that whether the family is well-off or poor, they have to organize it the same way. Therefore, for many families, besides the joy and happiness of organizing a wedding for their children, there is also a worry that is difficult to share with anyone. Besides, in the past, the custom of early marriage and forced marriage was still common. It was rare for boys and girls to get married through love. Mainly because the parents of both sides found the marriage "compatible" and arranged it when the couples were still very young. Not to mention, a lot of cigarettes were used in the wedding, affecting health, the economy, and the environment.
But that was a story many years ago. Now, the Muong people in Quang Lac have eliminated many backward customs in weddings and funerals thanks to closely following and effectively implementing Directive No. 27-CT/TW dated January 12, 1998 of the Politburo "On implementing a civilized lifestyle in weddings, funerals, and festivals" (abbreviated as Directive 27) and consider this a useful "handbook" to accompany the Party Committee, government and people of Quang Lac in the fight to eliminate backward customs. The core contents are distilled for the villages and hamlets to include in the village regulations so that people can understand and responsibly follow them.
Thanks to that, Quang Lac commune has now completely eliminated a number of backward and cumbersome customs and practices, shortening the wedding time to only 1 to 1.5 days. The traditional wedding ceremony has only been reduced to 2 to 3 steps: proposal, engagement and wedding. In weddings, many unique cultural features have been restored such as: singing duets, love songs, wearing traditional costumes...
In particular, the Law on Marriage and Family is strictly implemented in terms of age for marriage: men from 20 years old and women from 18 years old. In many villages and hamlets, organizations have promoted their role in implementing civilized lifestyles such as no smoking at weddings, helping many families save unnecessary expenses. Another positive change is that parents have paid more attention to the happiness of their children's couples, by creating conditions for their children to freely learn about and marry on the basis of love.
Recently, Quang Lac commune has also coordinated with the district's functional departments to restore the traditional wedding of the Muong people. Young people today can admire and experience a traditional wedding imbued with the Muong ethnic color with many elaborate procedures, but without the backward customs of the past.
Mr. Bui Van Gac, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Quang Lac Commune, shared: In recent years, villages and hamlets where many ethnic minorities live have paid great attention to propaganda and education work to help people understand and preserve their ethnic cultural identity. In particular, the villages have promoted the role of community self-management in participating in the construction and implementation of conventions and village regulations, including specific contents and regulations on the preservation of cultural values.
On the basis of the village covenants and regulations that have been built by the villages, every year the commune actively directs the villages to amend and supplement the village covenants with contents on cultural behavior and new rural construction. Contents and regulations that are no longer suitable will be replaced by new contents that are more suitable for modern and civilized life. From there, community awareness, solidarity, responsibility as well as attachment and neighborly love in each residential area are nurtured and aroused. Backward customs are significantly reduced. People are more excited and more aware of complying with the Party's guidelines and policies and the State's laws.
In particular, to preserve and promote traditional cultural values, for many years now, the villages of Quang Lac commune have established Muong ethnic cultural, artistic and sports clubs. The clubs have attracted a large number of members of all ages. Club members voluntarily contribute funds to strengthen the gong team, buy costumes and perform on holidays, Tet and village festivals.
Ms. Bui Thi Thuy, Village Chief, a prestigious person in Dong Bai Village, shared: During holidays and Tet, many fun activities took place at the village cultural houses, traditional cultural activities of the Muong people such as: gong playing, stick pushing, stilt walking, duet singing, throwing con... were loved and enthusiastically participated by the people. In particular, in recent years, the unique culture of the Muong ethnic group has always had great appeal to domestic and foreign tourists. Cultural identity also opens up opportunities for us to do community tourism through exploiting unique cultural values, creating resources for economic development and improving the quality of life. Not only performing for local tourists, the Club also accepts invitations to perform at many events of other localities in and outside the province.
With these efforts, the Muong people in Quang Lac have now restored many unique cultural features that were once at risk of being lost. Specifically, the Muong people have brought the sound of gongs back into community cultural activities. Over 80% of the Muong people wear traditional costumes when participating in community activities; 90% of Muong households regularly communicate in the Muong language in daily life, focusing on organizing teaching activities for generations of youth, teenagers, and children...
Dao Hang
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