The Sinh village is situated just along the southern bank
of the Perfume river in the district of Huong Tra. The
Sinh village is renowned for its wrestling competition on
the 10th day of the 1st month of every lunar year, the
different wrestling clubs called "Lo" in Vietnamese, come
here to compete for championship.
Every year after Tet holiday, the villagers of the Sinh
village come to the temple devoted to the worship of the
ancestor (founder) of wrestling art "chop trees to have
wood, saw wood to make the scaffolds" at a place just at
the left of the Lai An market. The wrestling festival day
at Sinh village attract much more people and are much more
fun than the 3 Tet days. Beside the youths of the village
there are thousands of boys and girls coming here from the
various districts, and from the Capital Hue. The wrestling
ring platform is an earthen floor of more the one meter
high; each side is about 4 "arms spreads" long built just
in front of the communal house where the founder of this
martial art is honoured.
Two persons directed the competition. One is a young
referee standing on the platform, the second is an older
prestigious person in the village with a black turban and
a long robe as in the ancient times, he accompanies where
phases of the competition with the sound of the drum
before him and seats just in front of the verandah of the
founder's temple. The wrestlers before jumping on the
platform must come before the old person to listen to
instructions which are regulations of the competition. A
competition lasts one day, the morning is for preliminary
rounds, those who can win successively 3 matches can come
to the final. A person must win at least in 8 matches to
take the championship. Those who make bad tricks on their
adversaries were rigorously protested by the people (and
the managers of the competition). It is why the
competition may last an entire day with rare cases of
quarreling and disorderly fighting.
The wrestling competitions of Sinh village is a beautiful
tradition of the spirit of respect for martial arts of the
inhabitant of Hue in the past 6 centuries.
