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| The festive procession of the Cau Ngu Festival at Phương Dien village, Thuan An ward. Photo: Anh Le |
The festival is bound to the veneration of the village deity Truong Quy Cong, the pioneer who claimed the land and taught the local people the crafts of fishing and trading by battened-sail fishing boats. However, what matters most is that in the community’s consciousness, he is not only a historical figure, but also a symbol of indigenous knowledge - knowledge of the sea, of the environment, and of how people adapt to nature to survive. Therefore, the Cau Ngu Festival is, first and foremost, a ritual of gratitude to the one who opened the land, to the sea itself, and to the community that together built a way of life.
Placing the festival within the broader landscape of Thuan An, one sees more clearly the deeper layers of this heritage. Thuan An is not only Hue’s most geographically significant sea inlet, but it is also the strategic gateway to the Imperial capital throughout the Nguyen Dynasty. Here stands Tran Hai Thanh, the fortress built by Emperor Gia Long in 1813 to defend the coastline, the traces of Hanh Cung Thuan An, a rest palace used during the emperors’ coastal journeys, and the scenic vista of Thuan Hai Quy Pham, listed by Emperor Thieu Tri as one of the twenty finest landscapes of the Imperial Land. Today, the great Thuan An sea overpass bridge stretches boldly across the water, opening a new axis of development for Hue toward the ocean.
Within this structure, the Cau Ngu Festival of Thai Duong village forms a layer of community cultural sediment that complements the royal heritage system, completing the whole of Hue - a heritage city with not only historical depth but also cultural breadth.
Following the custom of “Tam Nien Dao Le” (the custom that arrives every three years), this triennial festival is celebrated on a grand scale, drawing villagers home from near and far, including overseas Vietnamese. It is not merely a religious activity but a cultural mechanism for restructuring the community. During those days, the communal house blazes with light through the night. Solemn rituals of procession, prayer for peace, and the central offerings are performed with reverence. Boat owners in traditional dress come forward one by one to make their offerings before the deity. In those moments, people stand before the sea with full humility and faith — a philosophy of life belonging to those who live by the water.
The most distinctive feature of the festival is the ritual dramatic performance of the Cau Ngu, in which the entire economic and cultural life of the fishing village is reenacted: casting nets, hauling fish traps, squid fishing, and the bustle of boats buying and selling. Seen through the lens of heritage, this is a “living museum” of maritime culture. There is no boundary between performer and spectator, between past and present. The young generation learns the trades of their ancestors not from books but through gestures passed down across many generations. Those who have gone far away find their way back to their roots. Visitors come to understand that behind every haul of the net lies an entire system of cultural values.
Most precious of all is that the true subject of the festival has always been the community itself. Local people contribute funds and labor voluntarily, and organize and transmit the rituals across generations on their own. This is the very essence of intangible cultural heritage, whose subject is the local community - at once creator, practitioner, and beneficiary.
In the present context, as Hue enters a new era of development as a centrally-governed municipality, the story of the Cau Ngu Festival of Thai Dương village offers an important suggestion for development strategy: Heritage must not merely be an object of preservation — it must become a resource.
The Thuan An area is being positioned as Hue’s opening toward the sea, a zone for coastal tourism, service economy, and ecological urbanism. But for that development to carry character and be sustainable, the core element remains community culture. The Cau Ngu Festival is the foundation upon which experiential tourism products rooted in fishermen’s ways of life can be built. It is the raw material for crafting Hue’s maritime cultural identity. More importantly, it is the environment that nurtures human values.
At the heart of this festival lie qualities that any city in the new era will deeply need: a spirit of community solidarity, a consciousness of living in harmony with the natural environment, a tradition of gratitude toward one’s origins, and faith in the future.
Attending this January’s Cau Ngu festival of Thai Dương Ha village, I was once again witness to images of rare beauty and profound symbolism. As dawn broke, a fleet of boats performed the ceremony launching the southerly fishing season. Five-colored flags blazed across the surface of Tam Giang Lagoon. Festival drums rolled across the vast, open space of the sea inlet. In that moment, past and present met. Heritage was no longer an abstraction — it had become a living energy.
And in festivals such as this, one comes to understand something: Hue does not only face inward toward the Perfume River, Ngu Mountain, and the Imperial Citadel. This city is also turning toward the sea with the full depth of its culture.
The Cau Ngu Festival of Thai Duong village, therefore, is not merely a spring festival. It is a cultural declaration by the people of the sea inlet, a symbol of community vitality, and an essential piece in the vision of building Hue into a heritage city intertwined with a maritime economy, where the past is not locked away in museums, but continues to exist and generate energy for the present and for the future.