Ban flower festival in Chieng Khoa commune, Van Ho district.

If peach blossoms are associated with the highlands of the Mong people, then bauhinia flowers are often associated with villages with the lovely stilt houses of the Thai people. “Ban” in Thai means “sweet”, both a noun and an adjective. Every March, the color of bauhinia flowers covers the hillsides, streams, winding along the roads, in the yard, outside the alley, beside the porch of the stilt house, everywhere you can see bauhinia flowers. Thus, bauhinia flowers have been forever attached to the daily life of the Thai people.

Ban flowers are closely associated with the cultural and religious life of the Thai people. They are indispensable offerings in traditional spring festivals, the Xen Ban Xen Muong festival at the beginning of the year, rain-praying rituals, Xen Lau No festival, and bamboo shoot worshiping... Ban branches are decorations that make the festival more solemn, beautify the cultural space, and are also items that the Thai people use to express their aspirations and wishes for a favorable new year with many lucky things.

In culinary life, Ban flowers are an ingredient to make dishes with rich mountain and forest flavors. Ms. Lo Thi Thuong, Co village, Chieng An ward, City, shared: Ban flowers have a sweet taste, very suitable for making salads with bitter bamboo shoots, wild vegetables with a slightly astringent taste, helping to harmonize the flavor of the dish. Ban flowers are also used for stir-fried dishes, soups, and as spices. Processing Ban flowers must be skillful, with moderate heat, and cooked quickly so that the petals do not break, retain the color, and the natural crispness and sweetness to get the right taste.

The Ban flowers bloom in early March of the solar calendar. The Thai people look at the Ban season to calculate the annual agricultural calendar, clearing the fields when the flowers bloom and sowing seeds when the flowers fade. Or they look at the Ban blooming to predict the crop of the year. Every year, the Ban flowers bloom evenly on both banks of streams, hills, and forests, signaling a year of favorable weather and good crops. Therefore, in their subconscious, people always hope for the Ban season to bloom, covering all the forests in white when spring comes, with the hope of a year of warmth, abundance, and happiness.

As a long-time researcher of Thai ethnic literature and folk knowledge, People's Artist Lo Van La, To Hieu Ward, City, said: Ban flowers appear frequently in Thai folk songs, proverbs, especially in the nation's ancient stories. Ban flowers enter folk literature as a familiar image, anyone who is a child of the Thai ethnic group knows or knows more or less.

The legend of the Ban flower is associated with the ancient story "Chang Khom - Nang Ban" of the Thai people, telling about the forbidden love of a young couple, about the desire for happiness and freedom that they exchanged their whole lives to keep their vows. The Ban flower is the embodiment of the beautiful, pure Ban girl, symbolizing the desire for faithful love, for a completely happy life. The Ban flower has also been used in many love songs between young men and women: "We love each other regardless of the season the Ban flower blooms/ Not seeing the day the Ban flower fades/ Not counting the month or year/ Forever like the season when we first fell in love", "We love each other when the Ban flower is still in bud/ We love each other when the Ban flower blooms on the branch/ The Ban flower will wither, hoping that the Ban flower will return to the branch/ The Ban flower will fall, hoping that the Ban flower will fall back to its roots"...

Thai ethnic girl with Ban flowers.

Bauhinia flowers also appear in folk songs and proverbs, which have been drawn from real life associated with the mountains and forests and Bauhinia seasons for generations. That is the production experience "Bauhinia fruits are only burned when they are split/Bauhinia fruits are only planted in the fields when they sprout". Or it expresses the desire from everyday life: "Mothers work hard to raise their young children/ Raising their youngest children, hoping that they will grow up to be good people/ Children will be healthy and beautiful forever like Bauhinia flowers"... wishing to have a strong vitality, despite the arid conditions of the mountains, hills, and rocky crevices, to take root and grow like Bauhinia trees.

In folk literature, the Ban flower is the most beautiful image, representing the desire for a free life, a passionate yet pure love, innocent yet infinitely noble. The Ban flower also appears in modern poems and songs in which each author expresses his feelings and nostalgia for the Northwest sky, as Professor To Ngoc Thanh said: "In our country, there are many places with Ban flowers, but nowhere are Ban flowers as abundant and as white and pure as in the Northwest. Therefore, Ban flowers have naturally become the symbol of this vast and distant land."

Thanh Dao

Ban flowers in the life and culture of the Thai ethnic group (baosonla.org.vn)