Cheo art and An Chau traditional boat racing festival are intangible heritages with special historical and cultural values.

The Cheo singing class for the grassroots by the Center of Culture, Information and Sports of Tan Yen district in collaboration with Ngoc Thien commune in 2024.

Bac Giang ancient Cheo is one of the four famous localities recorded in the history of Vietnamese Cheo art. The well-known traditional Cheo singing areas are found in the districts of Yen Dung, Tan Yen and Viet Yen.

The art of Cheo consisting of folk songs, folk dance, folk music, performance and classical drama has become a unique culture in Northern Vietnam. Cheo melodies in Bac Giang were also taken from Quan ho folk songs or combined with Then songs to create a unique feature that cannot be found anywhere else.

An Chau traditional boat racing festival takes place in An Chau town, Son Dong district, Bac Giang province. The center of the festival is in Che communal house, Chai temple and Luc Nam river.

The boat racing festival is said to date back to the 15th century attached to the name of General Vi Duc Thang in Later Le dynasty. He was the father of Vi family, who followed King Le Thai To in Lam Son uprising.

He was promoted as one of the national founders and contributors and assigned to protect the frontier area of An Chau valley.

The people in An Chau town holds the boat racing festival annually on the 8th, 9th and 10th day of lunar April to imitate the training of the navy and army in the mountainous areas led by General Vi Duc Thang to fight against invaders.

Boat racing on An Chau River at the rowing festival.

The festival includes many special activities. After the offering ritual performed by the elderly to express thanks to gods and national contributors for protecting the locals is the boat procession and launching ceremony and cheerful boat racing competition.

Each boat consists of 10 racers, who are strong men selected from residential groups to compete on the river.

The inclusion of Cheo folk art performance of Bac Giang province and An Chau traditional boat racing festival in the list of national intangible cultural heritages will provide good conditions for the cultural sector and localities to strengthen implementation of the measures to preserve and promote the tradtional historical, cultural and artistic values in the new era.

Le Thanh