Row Skiff Racing Festival Hue

Row Skiff Racing Festival Hue

At the beginning of every Spring, Row Skiff Racing Festival is organized in Hue. This popular Hue festival dates back to 15th century, which originated from the practice of praying for rain from the primitive time by inhabitants mainly living on agriculture. Thus, Row Skiff Racing Festival, Hue began as a ceremonial ritual of praying for rain, for fishing with the wish of getting abundant crop.

During the Imperial rule, the royal court organized the custom of yearly skiff racing on the Perfume River, every coming spring, including all the ritual worship before ordering the race to begin. a high-ranking Mandarin is the chief of ceremony.

The altar platform for the race is set up right in the middle part (the navel) around which all the rowing skiffs should turn first, then carry on for the race. There are usually ten phases in the whole race: the first one called "trao cung" is reserved for rituals, the eight following ones are concerned with money prizes and the final one is called "trao pha".

As per the rules of the race, each phase comprises of three rounds with six turnabouts. The only exception to this is the "trao cung" which consists only of one round for getting the four tickets at four stages, named after the four walks of life: scholar, peasant, worker and trader.

This competition tests the physical strength as well as talent, skillfulness and experience of the Thua Thien-Hue people who are very efficient at this job and use this festival as a forum to display it.



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