It takes two kilometers to go from Tuy Phuoc town, which is 20 km far from Quy Nhon, to Vinh Thanh village, the birthplace of Dao Tan, the ancestor of Tuong (Vietnamese classical drama).
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The Vinh Thanh village entrance. Photo TTO
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The ancient Vinh Thanh communal house and Dao Tan’s tomb located on Huynh Mai Mountain are well-known relics in Binh Dinh.
Coming towards the Thi Nai lagoon, visitors will see Long Song church, one of destinations Portuguese missionaries used as a seminary when they came to Quy Nhon in the 17th century.
The road to the Vinh Thanh village meanders through rice fields and tile-roofed houses which are peacefully located under areca trees. The village entrance still remains intact even though it was built many years ago.
Dao Tan was an incorruptible mandarin, a poet, and an outstanding Tuong playwright in the 19th-20th centuries. After he had passed away, villagers built a temple worshipping him as the god of the village.
Many activities often take place and his plays are performed at the communal house when his death anniversary comes. The Dao’s ancestral temple, the tomb of Dao Tan, and the communal house now become a historical complex attracting many people.
Long Song church is another attractive destination in Tuy Phuoc district. It is located among fields and rivers in Phuoc Son commune.
Under the kingdom of Champa, their southern capital at Vijaya (present-day Thi Nai lagoon) was a large trading port in the 11th -15th centuries. Missionaries, including Portuguese ones, came to the place in the 17th century.
Cristophoro Borri, an Italian missionary, retold that he was warmly welcomed by an official in Quy Nhon district (today’s Quy Nhon city). He was permitted to build a church to carry on missionary work.
The church was built using the Gothic architecture, which is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe.
The church also has distinctive features of Gothic architecture, including the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress.
No one knows when the church was built. It is said that a ceremony was held to mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Long Song seminary on Jan.14, 1964. Surely, it has existed for at least 165 years.
The Vinh Thanh village and Long Song church are only two of many historical and cultural vestiges in the central region. Their unique features and stories about them will offer tourists unforgettable experiences.
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