Quang Ninh currently develops quite a lot of highland fairs, which have become attractive destinations for locals and tourists. The highland fairs of poor and hard Ha Lau (Tien Yen district), Quang An (Dam Ha district), Dong Van (Binh Lieu district) commune has contributed to fall the poorness and preserve, bring into play local cultural values.

Though communes have blotted all poor families out according to the national criteria, the problem asked how to make locals who can not become poor again. One of the solutions is boosting produce, expanding the agriculture product business market, and bringing into play mental cultural values of people. Many places have organized and expanded fair scale to grip local and travelers visiting and shopping. Hence, local people partly changed their small scale farming and breeding minds to manufacture on a large scale, creating a numerous number of high-quality products to serve visitors.

Quang An commune (Dam Ha district) is the most successful local in setting up this model with the Ba Nhat fair opened monthly. It usually has about three tens of local booths. The items sold at the fair were made by local people such as forest honey or bamboo, ginger, chicken, buffalo, long “chung” cake…

It must be acknowledged that people’s lives improved a lot after the fair models appeared. In the past, people did not dare to plant any trees because there were no consumed sources. But based on the fairs, farmers or ethnic people have great motivations to further cultivate and grow their production. 

Along with that, the fair is an ideal way to maintain and show local’s ethnic traditions. For example, Quang An commune has established a Dao minority people custom-embroidered club with 16 members. Not only does this club sell its products, but also they promote them to domestic and foreign visitors.

Ha Lau commune (Tien Yen district) also holds a highland fair program taking place at the last sunday monthly, with lots of lure traditional activities, such as “Sai Ma” exchange of commune’ men. This is one of the special interests of Tay people, constituting joy smiles and responded enthusiatically by everyone.

The market also makes a space for people to perform their traditional songs like San Chi people sing Soong Co, Tay people sing Then… From here, locals feel more excitement in establishing their clubs singing conventional songs. “Then” melodies have been closely knitted with us from childhood and became a youth of many people. We brought the culture’s beauty to the fair to make local visiting more interesting and always remember the Tay people’s abundant culture. “ Mr. Ly Ngoc Xuan, a member of “Then” club of Ha Lau commune said.

Quang Ninh Tourism Information Promotion Center