Vietnamese hearts turn to motherland on national ancestral day

THE HANOI TIMES — In the third lunar month, from every corner of Vietnam and around the world, millions of Vietnamese people turn their minds to the Hung Kings Commemoration Day - a sacred day that falls on the 10th day of the third lunar month. A time to honor our roots, this cult runs deep in the veins of generations of Vietnamese people.

There is no cries or grandiloquent slogans. Instead, it is a silent but powerful call from within. Wherever they are, in Vietnam or abroad, people feel a deep and unspoken bond with their homeland. It is a pilgrimage of memory, spirit and love for Vietnam that never fades.

Nguyen Thi Kim Thoa, Member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnamese Women's Union in Poland, Mrs. Ao Dai Europe 2022

For us - the Vietnamese living far from home - the Hung Kings Day is more than a tradition. It's a thread that binds the community together. Here in Poland, we come together every year around this time to celebrate the festival.

It's a chance to remember our roots, honor our ancestors, and thank the Hung Kings who built our nation. It's also a way to preserve Vietnamese culture and pass it on to our children and international friends.

Beginning at the end of the second lunar month, our community began preparations for the festival. Cultural centers prepare performances filled with pride and emotion. Clubs and hometown associations prepare ceremonial trays with offerings to be placed in front of the ancestral altar.

The two temples, Nhan Hoa and Thien Phuc, are cleaned and decorated. On the day of the ceremony, we gather there, dressed in traditional ao dai, holding carefully prepared offerings to pay tribute to the Hung Kings.

At home, my family also makes a vegetarian meal and offers it to Heaven, Buddha, and our ancestors. During these moments, we tell our children the story of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, the founding forefathers of the nation, so they can better understand where they came from.

For me, this is more than a ceremony. It is a powerful reminder to all Vietnamese, no matter where we live, that we are all descended from dragons and fairies. It reminds us to stay united, love our homeland, and do what we can to build a better Vietnam.

Ha Minh Trang,  Vietnamese international student in London

I'm sitting in the university canteen in London. One look across the tables and you can see the whole world: Indians eating curry, Chinese slurping spicy noodles, and the English still munching on cold sandwiches.

Next to me, my Muslim classmate drinks only water because she's fasting for Ramadan, the holiest month in Islam - a time to suspend physical needs and focus on the soul.

I look at her, then down at my lunch: a piece of banh chung (chung cake) my mother sent me from Vietnam. The mixed smell of sticky rice, mung beans, and pork is unmistakable. It is then that I remember the history of Banh Chung - Banh Giay. I remember the Hung Kings Commemoration Day.

The Temple of the Hung Kings stands on Nghia Linh Mountain in Phu Tho Province - not so high that it's unreachable, but not so low that it's easy to overlook. Just like our roots: never loud or demanding, but always there.

As I've grown up, I've come to understand how we Vietnamese preserve our heritage through legends like Prince Lang Lieu making chung cake, through lullabies, and through proverbs like:

"Whoever goes far or near, remember the 10th of the third lunar month."

Here in the UK we celebrate this day in a quiet way. Families gather to prepare the meal. Children listen to stories of the hundred eggs and the fairy mother, their eyes shining with wonder.

These children are growing up far from home. They learn about Vietnam from family meals and fragments of old stories. But this very distance makes them curious about who they are and where they belong. Many go on to study Vietnamese, and some have returned home. A few choose to live in Vietnam. The longing to reconnect with something unfinished remains with them.

I am not one of them. I was born and raised in Vietnam. For me, the Hung Kings’ Commemoration Day is not something I had to seek out. It was always there, a part of my childhood, like knowing your own name or birthday.

What I feel is not a search for something lost, but gratitude for something I’ve always had.

German scholar Jan Assmann calls this "cultural memory" - the stories, rituals, and symbols that are passed down over time and shape a people's identity. Chung cake is more than a food. It's a spiritual map, wrapped in green leaves, that guides us back to where we come from.

Ramadan for my friend and Hung Kings Day for me, two very different paths, but both lead to the same place, where people don't get lost in a fast moving world. Instead, we find ourselves through the shared memory of our communities.

In a canteen filled with food from every country, the scent of chung cake becomes the most distinct “taste of home.”

Just one bite, and I remember: being a child of the Hung Kings isn’t just a phrase from a textbook. It’s something alive in every choice we make to honor our roots.