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The pig chasing festival or "Bat lon Ong Cau", is an unique village
festival in Vietnam.
Every year, on the 5th day of Lunar New Year, villagers of
Phu Tho town, organize a very special festival named
"Mr. Cau
chasing". The festival imitates the "matrix" of Hung Kings' battle,
chasing the pigs to celebrate the winning
of Trung Trac, Trung Nhi (The
two heroines of Vietnam). The pigs for the chasing are carefully chosen
by the villagers.
The pigs must be a male and have black all over
its body: the skin, hair, and even the toes or nose. It must also be
strong,
not too old be able to run very fast so that the chasing would be
interesting.
On the 23rd of the lunar December, 2 families are chosen to
raise the pigs and a ceremony is held for these families. This
ceremony
makes a normal pig becomes Mr. Cau, and the cage of the pig must be
called "Mr. Cau's home". The set up of the
"home" for Mr. Cau resembles the battle field of Hung King's soldiers from the old stories. That's why
the festival is believed to
be celebrated back to the time Hung Kings settled down and built the capital in Phong Chau.
At 1:30 pm on the day of the festival, the villagers gather in front of the
two homes of the Mr. Cau's and do a worship
ceremony there. Mr. Cau
is kept in the iron cage and brought to the village's
playground so that chasing cerimony can start.
While in the cage many people come
up to Mr. Cau and rip out his hair to keep for good luck.
At 3 pm, the
cages are opened. Eight teams from the Hathach village take part in the
chase,
but thousands of people in
neighboring villages come to enjoy the
festival. Mr. Cau, is constanly threatened and taunted by the crowd.
Men are assigned to
stand guard for Mr. Cau so that he doesn't feel
threatened by the shouts of the crowd. After being release he runs very
fast and
the chasing begins.
People believe that the team that catches Mr. Cau will have a lucky
year in their work and in their life. After the two pigs are
caught,
the people from 8 teams bring them to the village's temple and at
midnight, the pigs are killed. All the people
in the village get a
small piece of pork which is considered a lucky gift for the new year.
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Chasing Mr. Luck 
