Cau Ngu Festival

Before the season of wind and waves, a fishing village on the Da Nang coast does what it has done for many generations. The people gather, light incense, pray, and send the boats out to the sound of drums, gongs and singing. This is the Cầu Ngư Festival.

Cầu Ngư simply means praying for fish. It is also a prayer for a calm sea, and a prayer that the people who sail will not lose their lives on the open water. In the fishing communities of the central coast, this festival is not a ritual put on for display. It is something very real. When a whole village lives by the wind and the waves, people need a place to put what they cannot control.

In Da Nang, the festival has belonged to the life of the coastal fishing villages for a very long time. The state has recognized it as intangible cultural heritage. That recognition says that not only communal houses, songs and dances deserve to be kept. The way seafarers pray for one another's safety is also a part of the nation's memory.

The festival usually opens with the lễ rước, when the community parades out to the beach with flags, ceremonial parasols, music and a palanquin that carries the shrine. The mood is solemn and lively at once. Old and young are there, and children too. The smell of incense mixes with the salty sea wind, and the sound of waves far off lies under the whole ceremony.

The center of the festival is the lễ tế thần, the offering to the god. The village presents its gifts to Nam Hải, the god of the sea whom people along the central coast worship. The prayers are not lavish. They ask only for a calm sea, a favorable wind, and for those who set out to come home.

After the rites comes the celebration. This is the time when the whole village breathes out. There is hát bội, a traditional form of Vietnamese theater. There is also hô hát bài chòi. Bài Chòi is an art of central Vietnam that combines music, poetry, acting, painting and literature. There are folk games on the water and on the sand. Those who do not go to sea belong to this festival as well. In a fishing village, every voyage concerns the whole community, not only the one who holds the oar.

Unlike many other festivals, this one does not tell a story from the past. It tells one that is still happening. The sea is still there, the boats still go out, and the danger to those who sail is still real. So each year the festival is not a replay of an old custom. It is a true prayer, sent by people whose loved ones live off the sea.

A fisherman stands before the incense table with his head bowed. Behind him a woman looks out toward the water. A child holds her sleeve and does not yet understand all that the ceremony means. But the child will remember it. This is not a festival people watch. It is one they live inside.

The sound of the ceremonial drum spreads over the water, blends with the waves, and fades into the wind. Those who go to sea look at the sky, look at the water, and board their boats. That is the picture the Cầu Ngư Festival leaves behind, year after year, on the coast of Da Nang.