Rebirth of Water Buffalo Festival Finds Vietnamese Relearning to Have Good Time

The ancient water buffalo festival was reborn in the town of Do Son this year, a sign that Vietnamese are increasingly finding the means--and government permission--to have a good time.

Local people say the festival, during which pairs of bulls lock their mighty horns in an open arena until one concedes and runs away, dates back a thousand years in this town of fishermen and rice farmers.

It was stopped during the war against the French and later against the Americans. This year’s festival, which concluded at the end of September, was Do Son’s first real water buffalo fight since 1946.

“I remember this game from when I was 20,” said Dinh Dinh Rong, a 69-year-old retired fisherman and civil servant. “We were all happy when we learned the government was allowing us to restore this festive day.”

The bullfight was a raucous affair, with about 10,000 people crammed onto crude benches in a simple stadium.

Members of the local Communist youth organization carrying brightly colored banners solemnly led each pair of bulls into the stadium.

To the wild cheers of the audience, the animals cracked their heads together. Slipping around in deep mud, one pair locked horns and crashed through a wooden fence, sending squealing crowds scrambling for safety.

A policeman waved his baton, trying to keep order, but spectators just laughed, screamed and ran.

Amid the pandemonium, one boy tried to keep his bull from running away by grabbing its tail and was dragged, apparently unhurt, through the mud.

Do Son, a town of 27,000 people on the Gulf of Tonkin near the northern port of Haiphong, is about 80 miles east of the capital, Hanoi.

A 62-year-old rice farmer, taking a break during the bullfight from his ringside job of banging a metal gong, described how living conditions had improved in the town.

Clad in long black tunic, white baggy trousers and a conical straw hat, Hoang Vu Ky said things are better for farmers since the government launched a new policy a couple of years ago allowing them to pay tax, but keep most of their produce.

Previously farmers had to sell all their rice to the state at an artificially low price.

“It’s better now that there are no subsidies, so every farmer is trying his best to produce more,” he said, gesturing with a drumstick made from a dried orange.

“It’s better now. . . . There are more brick houses and TVs and radios and electricity.”

One young civil servant from Hanoi said Vietnamese people now have more money to go to the movies or theater, or to travel around the country and visit friends.

“The living conditions now are better. People can relax a bit,” he said. “If you don’t have enough money, you can’t think of such things.”

Communist Vietnam remains one of the world’s poorest countries and police keep a close watch on people’s behavior. But shops display many more consumer goods than they did a few years ago. And there are other signs that life is getting better.

A French businessman who has been visiting Hanoi since 1985 said during a recent trip that he was struck by the number of people wearing brightly colored clothing, compared to the drab gray trousers almost all men and women wore a few years ago.

“People smile more now,” he said.

Back in Do Son, the villagers who collectively owned the three winning bulls were smiling too.

First prize was 2 million dong--about $380, but a huge sum here. The second was 1.5 million dong and the third, 1 million dong.

Dinh Dinh Rong, the retired fisherman who helped organize the bullfight, said the villagers had another reason to rejoice.

Squatting on his haunches under a broiling sun at the edge of the ring, he said they would later slaughter and eat the losing bulls.

And the winning bull?

He broke into a wide, toothless grin.

“We eat that one too. We’ll buy more next year.”