YEN DUC VILLAGE – THE DRAGON’S PEARL CRUISE JUNKS

YEN DUC VILLAGE – THE DRAGON’S PEARL CRUISE JUNKS

YEN DUC VILLAGE – THE DRAGON’S PEARL CRUISE JUNKS: Yen Duc village is in Dong Trieu town and 60km West of Halong city. The village was recognized as a national relic in 1993. Yen Duc is a beautiful village with poetic scenery, charming rivers, historical mountains and sacred legends and relics related to Ly and Tran dynasty.

ABOUT YEN DUC VILLAGE

Yen Duc village is in Dong Trieu town and 60km West of Halong city. The village was recognized as a national relic in 1993.
Yen Duc is a beautiful village with poetic scenery, charming rivers, historical mountains and sacred legends and relics related to Ly and Tran dynasty.
Considered as a “Stone wall” under the war, the village was a cradle of revolutionary movements with many brave, ingenious heroes and local people sacrificed to protect their hometown. Over the years, their names are still alive together with each famous mountain, river and pieces of land here.
Similar to other rustic countryside, the local people here are very diligent, gentle and optimistic.
Currently, Yen Duc village is one of the few villages in the Delta still retain traditional agricultural features and beauty with the golden rice fields in harvesting time, the gardens of areca trees in the sun and the ponds below the green gourd platforms.

Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

CANH HUONG PAGODA

Canh Huong means beauty spot pagoda. The pagoda offers the visitor a chance to escape the busy streets and sample the atmosphere of rural Vietnam.

This is an ancient pagoda which was built under Tran dynasty (XIII-XIV century). The pagoda bears legendary stories of Vietnamese King Tran Nhan Tong leaving the court to follow a religious life. During his Buddhist life, he built a lot of pagodas near around this area

The pagoda has been destroyed and restored many times, most substantially in 1664 and then again in the mid 19th century, although these restorations retained the style of the original structure. Canh Huong pagoda used to be a local hospital for the wounded soldiers and guerrilla fighters under the wars.

Located in the center of the village, Canh Huong pagoda is a sacred place that every local villager comes to pray for the good health, good weather and safety and bumper crops.

Canh Huong Pagoda Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

Canh Huong Pagoda Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

"73 CAVE"

Located in the Canh Mountain, “73” cave is the symbol of the local people’s courage and heroic sacrifices over the years.

By 1950s, Yen Duc village was invaded by the colonial enemy. However, they had difficulty in the countryside because of guerrilla fighters. The enemy underestimated the effectiveness of the Vietnamese guerrilla fighters because they used relatively simple weapons compared to the more advanced weapons of the enemy. 

Understanding that, they could not fight again the enemy with the simple weapons while the enemy tried to destroy most of the Vietminh strongholds in the village, therefore the guerrilla fighters and local people disappeared in to the cave to hide themselves.  The superior enemy’s weapons were useless against the guerrilla fighters who could not see. 

The enemy found that, the guerilla fighters relied on local villages for food, water and other miscellaneous supplies.  So to defeat them, the enemy needed to take away village support for the guerillas, and convince the Vietnamese people not to assist the guerrillas. On another hand, the enemy forced the local villagers to chop down the trees, destroyed the houses, the pagodas for fencing the cave.

In 6 days, the guerillas fighters were lack of food, water and weapon, they had to suffer from many difficulties and become tired while the enemy never stopped shooting and bombing into the cave, but the guerrilla fighters constantly tried to fight against.

On the 7th day, impatiently, the enemy used wood, straw and gas to fire the cave from all the entrances in order to kill all the hidden guerillas fighters and villagers. Facing the death, the guerillas fighters and villagers still showed no fear. They tried to fight against and hand in hand to sing all the songs about Vietnamese revolution and country by their last breath.

All 106 guerillas fighters and villagers were died inside the cave. Then, the enemy got into the cave to pulled 73 bodies out and buried them in the same hole.

In order to honor the merits of the guerillas fighters and villagers, either a memorial monument and a grave were built here in 1980 to dedicate the heroic local people who died in the war

VEGETTABLE GARDEN

Vietnam culture is built on the agricultural civilization. Vietnam's life associated with village. Vietnam traditional village with green bamboo, thatched roof and a plow had become so familiar in the heart of Vietnam.

Like many other villages in Viet Nam, Yen Duc is an agricultural village should not be missing the rice fields. Rice associated with Vietnam especially the farmers. Rice brings not only fulfilled but also the beauty of cultural life. Rice, conical hats, hardworking farmers is indispensable picture of the village in Vietnam now and forever.

Besides the rice fields, the image of a vegetable garden is also stuck with Vietnamese villages. This is an important part of the house in the countryside, provided vegetables and may be improved living environment; creating open space for the house, especially in addition to shows household’s character. In the garden, people plant many kinds of vegetables, herbs ... which is extremely close and practical for the daily life of local people, such as:

Water spinach: A specific vegetable of Yen Duc village. Called by many names as water spinach, water Morning glory is often grown in the tropics and subtropics. Does anybody remember the spinach comes from; it is grown in water or in mud. People often fried with garlic. It is also indispensable dish in the meals of the people of Vietnam. So a sentence has:

                                                                       Home to his memory

                                 Remembering, morning glory soup and sour egg-plants with soya sauce

Gourd espalier: Its’ image stuck with the Vietnam villages. Gourd is used in soup - is delicious and cool in summer. Gourd can be boiled, stir fried with shrimp or beef; cooked soup with shrimp, crab or mussels. All these simple went into the poetry and becoming a memory of all people:

                                                                      Shrimp cooked with gourd

                                         The couples (the husband & the wife) give good compliment

Moreover, in sense of Vietnam, gourd espalier is also a symbol of the faithful, happiness in each family.

Corn: Corn is one of the main crops of Vietnam. It is used for soup, sticky corn, pop-corn… or can be used in processing food for livestock and poultry.

Vegetable Garden Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

Vegetable Garden Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

LOCAL HOUSE

From ancient times, building house is one of life's three big important things: buying buffalo, getting married, building house. With the concept has a good resident has good career inovation, that means stable accommodation then career is concerned; that the reasons why everyone tries to get their own house as particular property. The rural architecture of Vietnam houses is always synonymous with the village culture.

All houses are including the main house, the side (the horizontal, kitchen), barn, yard, garden, pond and fence, wall surround, gates. The main house is usually divided to parts by odd numbers (1, 3 or 5 part) and often turns to the south because of catching the sun when it's cold and cool in the summer.

Almost houses have semicircle or circle pond in front - follow the “Feng Shui” theory. The pond is not only a place to growing fishes, snails but also all the daily activities taken place such as washing clothes, washing vegetables, washing dishes……..

All houses have an ancestor altar. Ancestor worship beliefs – worshiping the death is very popular in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia nations and particularly in the Vietnamese and Chinese culture. For Vietnamese, it's almost become a religion.

It is always a garden surrounded by areca row in front and banana at the behind; the house - the garden creating the village with its law as a unified community and life has existed for thousands of year’s history.

Unlike the Western, Asian in general, and people in rural villages of Vietnam in particular tend to live three even four generations in the same house.

In Vietnam village, you are very easily to find items being made from things which are extremely familiar with normal life, such as: Areca fan; Coconut cup…

Local Houses  Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

QUAN HO SINGING

Quan Ho folk song formed quite long ago by Viet people (Kinh people) in 49 Quan Ho villages and some other neighboring villages belong to Bac Giang and Bac Ninh province now created.

Quan Ho singing is a Vietnamese folk music style characterized both by its antiphonal nature, with alternating groups of female and male singers issuing musical challenges and responses, and by the fact that most of the songs in the repertoire deal with topics of love and sentimentality experienced by young adults.

Quan Ho Singing Yen Duc Village – Halong bay Cruise Junks

The Quan Ho singing style originated in what is now Bac Ninh Province and was first recorded in the 13th century, and has traditionally been associated with the spring festivals that follow the celebration of Tet (the Vietnamese New Year). Historically, the singing began on the evening before the festival, but today it is much more common for the singing to occur on the main day of the festival.

According to the tradition, only young people used to sing Quan Ho songs, as the major body of song texts centers on the subject of love and sentimental desire among young adults. Nowadays, many elderly singers participate in the singing as well in response to the Quan Ho movement initiated by the provincial government. Originally, Quan Ho singing were exchange songs between two mandarins' families. Gradually, it spread out and became popular among the northern people. Groups were formed just for singing, and many marriages were formed at these get-together. After centuries, it became the most significant Vietnamese folk-song type

In general, an initial "challenge phrase" from the known body of songs is sung by a pair of female singers, following which a pair of male singers will respond by selecting and singing a "matching phrase", which must repeat the melody of the challenge phrase. Once they are finished, the order is reversed, and the men will issue their own challenge phrase with a different melody. While in the past the singing was unaccompanied, it is common today for the singers to be accompanied by instruments, whether traditional Vietnamese instruments or modern ones such as electric keyboards.

There are a huge number of Quan Ho singing melodies, with thousands of different songs having been recorded and written down in score form.

On 30/09/2009, Quan Ho singing was recognized as the Intangible Cultural Heritage by the UNESCO