(VOVworld) – This year’s Hung Kings death anniversary was held not only in the historical relic site of the Hung Kings Temple in the northern province of Phu Tho but other places inside and outside the country. The Hung Kings worshiping ritual is in the hearts of all Vietnamese people.

Offering specialties including Chung cakes to Hung Kings

This year, Nguyen Thi Hoi’s family in Dat Do district, Ba Ria-Vung Tau province, were asked to make 500 Tét cakes as offerings to the Hung Kings. Ms. Hoi’s family are famous in the region for making cylindrical cakes of glutinous rice rolled in banana leaf  with a meat or vegetarian filling. Since the beginning of this month, she has used more than 200 kilos of sticky rice, 50 kilos of green beans, 50 kilos of black beans, and 100 kilos of banana leaves. Everything was ready for April 15^th, the sixth day of the third lunar month, when Ms Hoi and five others wrapped 250 cakes with black bean filling and 250 cakes with green bean filling. To cook the cakes perfectly, the time of cooking for both kinds of cakes had to be carefully calculated. Cakes with green bean filling were boiled for 7 hours and black bean cakes for 8 hours. Ms Hoi said making Tét cakes to offer to the ancestors is a way for the descendants to express their gratitude. She said ‘I feel honored to be assigned to make Tét cakes to worship the Hung Kings. I did my best to fulfill the task.’

Today all the cakes made by Hoi’s family were transported by the delegation from Ba Ria-Vung Tau province to be offered to the Hung Kings at Nghia LInh Mountain  in Phu Tho province. In addition to the Tét cakes, specialties of Vietnam’s three regions were also offered to the Hung Kings. Following a worship ritual in Thuong or Upper Temple, activities were organized across the country to commemorate the kings. To date, people nationwide have donated money and land to build 1,500 temples to worship the Hung Kings, the founders of the nation. Pham Ba Khiem, Deputy Director of the Phu Tho Provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said 'the worship of the Hung Kings has been practiced throughout the country. Phu Tho province alone has 326 places that worship the Hung Kings.

Nguyen Thanh Liem, an overseas Vietnamese living in the US in San Jose, California, has built his own temple to worship the Hung Kings. He even organized a Hung Kings festival which attracted more than 1,000 overseas Vietnamese. Unlike Liem, many other overseas Vietnamese have returned home and gone to Phu Tho to pay tribute to the founders of the nation. Le Van Nguyen has been living in San Jose for 40 years 'We are proud to be Vietnamese and children of the Hung Kings. Although we live far away, we always turn our hearts and minds to the homeland.'

The worship of the Hung Kings, whether done at home or abroad, reflects the country’s tradition of remembering the source of the water we drink.