The traditional cốm pounding festival will take place on October 3-4 in Tuyên Quang Province. — Photos nahang.tuyenquang.gov.vn

TUYÊN QUANG — The traditional cốm (young green rice flakes) pounding festival in Côn Lôn offers an insight into the cultural life of the local Tày community, with traditional rituals and a range of cultural and sporting activities.

The 2026 cốm pounding, specialty product display and promotion festival will take place on October 3-4 at the Côn Lôn Commune’s Stadium in Tuyên Quang Province.

The festival gives residents and visitors a chance to experience customs and rituals associated with the farming cycle and community life that have been passed down through generations.

Côn Lôn is home to wide rice fields surrounded by mountains, providing favourable conditions for agriculture, particularly the cultivation of glutinous rice.

The 'Hoa Vàng' glutinous rice variety has been grown in Côn Lôn for generations and remains closely associated with the lives of local people.

When the glutinous rice begins to ripen, the Tày people hold the cốm pounding festival, also known as the Moon Welcoming Festival or Hội Hai. Held in October, the festival celebrates the moon and the new rice harvest and marks preparations for the Lunar New Year.

The festival is a long-standing cultural tradition of the Tày people in Côn Lôn. Held in autumn as the scent of new rice fills the fields, it marks the start of the harvest and brings the community together to share the joy of the harvest, exchange cultural traditions and strengthen community ties.

The festival also has spiritual significance. After the harvest, freshly made cốm is offered to ancestors as an expression of gratitude, while people pray for favourable weather, good harvests, peace and good fortune in the year ahead.

A team competing in the cốm pounding contest at last year's festival.

Making cốm is one of the main activities of the festival. Rice stalks are divided into smaller bundles, placed on woven trays made from fresh bamboo and held over a stove. Local women turn the bundles continuously to ensure the grains are evenly cooked.

The roasted rice is then left to cool before being pounded in a mortar. The process requires care at every stage. If the grains are still warm, they must be pounded gently to prevent them from being crushed or sticking together.

The finished cốm is bright green, with a delicate fragrance and the soft, sweet taste characteristic of glutinous rice. It is traditionally wrapped in banana or dong leaves to preserve its aroma and texture.

Fresh cốm is also used to make a variety of dishes, including cốm sticky rice, cốm cakes and cốm pork patties, adding to the distinctive flavours of the northern mountainous region.

Beyond cốm-making, the festival features traditional costumes, folk performances and sporting activities. The sound of pestles pounding rice mingles with laughter and conversation, creating a lively community atmosphere.

The programme also includes the 'Côn Lôn Autumn Colours' art programme and a display promoting local specialities at the commune stadium.

The festival aims to preserve and promote traditional cultural values, while restoring and honouring a folk festival closely associated with the spiritual life of the Tày people and other ethnic communities in Côn Lôn.

It also provides an opportunity to promote the locality and its distinctive products, helping introduce local cultural values to visitors.

Currently, several localities in Tuyên Quang Province still organise the cốm pounding festival. Notably, the Tày people's cốm pounding festival in Chiêm Hóa was added to the List of National Intangible Cultural Heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2024. — VNS