John Gittings @hanoi: Email

We kept ourselves at a distance from the excited group of young men taking a fiery-necked fighting cock out of its wicker cage. Like everyone else in Tho Ha, a village in the Red river delta not far from Hanoi, they were very friendly.

The government had just banned cock fights because of the bird flu epidemic, although this did not seem to matter in Tho Ha. It was festival day, and the fighting birds were the biggest attraction on the dusty square before the ancient dinh (community hall).

In the villages of northern Vietnam, the dinh is even more important than the Buddhist temple, and Tho Ha's - built 300 years ago - is a stunning example. Its four tiled roofs, decorated with dragons, cover a building of 500 sq m divided into separate halls (for meetings, sacrifice and prayer) by tall colonnades of hardwood pillars, all built without a single nail.

Inside the dinh we found a cheerful gathering of older folk, dressed in the dark blues and greens of the long ao dai garment, with men and women sitting separately.

"Our oldest member is 95 years old," explained Mr Duong, the master of ceremonies. "We have invited our friends from the next village for the festival."

There is a tradition of neighbourliness in Vietnamese villages, and an atmosphere that seems more harmonious than rural China, where life is often rough and nervy.

One explanation is that Vietnam was "too busy fighting off invaders" to plunge its people into upheavals like China's cultural revolution. Even though the US dropped stray bombs in Tho Ha, its social continuity was preserved.

Tho Ha is an island on the river Duong - a tributary of the Red river: its name means "earth and water", said Mr Duong, "just like a husband and wife."

The village specialises in making rice paper for spring rolls, and the sheets of paper hung drying on iron racks over the lanes, shading them from the sun.

Tho Ha is also famous for quan ho, a form of antiphonal singing between groups of young men and women, usually on themes of love and desire. I Wish We Were Living Together is one popular title. The festival opened with singing from a boat: pairs of men and women serenaded each other, accompanied from the shore by bamboo flute and two-stringed Vietnamese lute.

Villages in the north often claim to have been founded by some heroic figure from the imperial past - usually someone who defeated the Chinese. Tho Ha's claim goes even further back. "We were founded by Lao Zi (the sage of Taoism)", said a village elder. "This (the dinh) is his hall, and we worship him here".

There is an eclectic range of sages to worship in Tho Ha. We were shown the temple to the Great Buddha, almost as large as the dinh, where hopeful amateurs were gathering for another song contest.

Then we were taken to meet general secretary Tuat of the Workers' (communist) party. Mr Tuat led us straight to the shrine for Ho Chi Minh. "His merit in protecting the nation will be remembered for countless years," read the banner over his portrait. The building used to be the temple of Confucius - relocated to a pleasant spot by the river.

Mr Tuat is very keen to revive another local industry and has built a traditional kiln in his backyard. "We can simply dig down into the fishponds for clay," he said, showing us a sample incense burner.

Crowds were arriving on small boats, almost awash before grounding on the island. The festival offered simple pleasures: there were stalls selling balloons, haberdashery and wooden whistles. There was open-air table-tennis, and even open-air chess played with iron tripods on a stone floor.

When asked why Lao Zi should have chosen this place to settle, another villager replied without hesitation: "It is because of our harmony with nature: this is a good place to live."