Quan Nhan Communal House

According to steles and royal edicts still preserved, the communal house was built in the 22nd year of Chinh Hoa (1701) during the late Le dynasty. Quan Nhan Communal House worships Trung Nghia Dai Vuong Hung Lang Cong, a skilled general and descendant of King Hung, who rallied villagers to fight the Nam Chieu invaders and won many victories (in 863). Thanks to his spiritual power and benevolence, he and Lady My Nuong helped the people of Moc village eradicate epidemics and be exempted from corvée and taxes. Once, when surrounded by enemies, he drowned himself to preserve his integrity. To show reverence, villagers honored Hung Lang Cong as a deity. The main sanctuary of the communal house is dedicated to the deity (Trung Tuc Dai Vuong Hung Lang Cong), and the communal house received royal edicts from six dynasties.

Below the worship hall is the place where Holy Lady Trương Mỵ Nương, a princess who was the daughter of Quan Nhan village and the wife of village deity Hung Lang Cong, is worshipped; she took her own life after hearing of her husband's sacrifice.

Worshipping two notable figures who were also husband and wife in one communal house is a distinctive feature of Quan Nhan village communal house.

Every year local people organize a festival, and every two years palanquins of Saint Husband and Saint Wife are carried to Hoi Xuan communal house for the spring festival on the 11th day of the second lunar month, a custom also called 'procession of saints for spring outing'.

The communal house has a rather imposing and spacious architecture; in front is a lotus pond, surrounded by many fruit trees and large shade trees such as pines, longans...

The architectural items were built in the 'inner public, outer private' style, including the communal house gate, Left and Right shrines, Dai bai (great worship hall), Hau cung (rear sanctuary), Ong muong (tube house), stele house, and system of courtyards, flower gardens, and enclosing walls. In addition, on the left side adjacent to Dai bai is Tau Voi (Elephant Shed), where the ceremonial elephant is kept for festivals. The place of worship of the village tutelary deity is located in the most solemn place called Hau cung.

The gate of Quan Nhan Communal House was built in the style of a nghi mon with pillars, consisting of two main pillars, then two low walls decorated with 'trien' character patterns, then two small side doors. Between the two main pillars is a wide entrance to the communal house courtyard. Next to the courtyard is the porch of the Dai bai hall, with a blue stone step in the central bay and two stone nghê facing inward on either side, forming a balustrade for going up and down. Dai bai was built with five bays and two lean-tos in the style of closed gable walls with tay ngai, then two phong images and two biểu pillars, one side with a dragon and the other with a tiger, and on the two biểu pillars are nghê facing each other.

The structure of the Dai bai hall is consistent with its trusses in the thuong gia chien ha ke chuyen style; the wooden architecture here is flexibly and gracefully crafted with many lively and refined folk carving themes, focusing mainly on dragons, four sacred animals, clouds, waves, flowers and leaves...

Past Dai bai, the Thieu huong (incense burning house) is a longitudinal architectural section with three bays connecting Dai bai with Hau cung, also called the Ong muong house. Here the trusses are simply structured, decoration focusing on the cốn panels with many traditional decorative themes, giving a dignified and solemn appearance to the sacred area leading to the rear sanctuary door where the village tutelary deity resides. The floor of the Thieu huong is raised higher than that of Dai bai and paved with floral bricks (early 20th century); the longitudinal central part of Thieu huong is built higher than the Thieu huong floor to form a platform where local people and visitors can conveniently place offerings during the village festival. The Thieu huong has many worship objects and elaborate, beautiful decorations. The Hau cung, together with the Thieu huong and Dai bai, form a cong (工) character shape, quite common in traditional communal house architecture of the 17th-18th centuries. Hau cung is a three-bay, two-wing building at the innermost end, parallel to Dai bai, where the altars of the Tutelary Deity and the civil and military mandarins are arranged along with many worship objects. The Hau cung building is made in the style of closed gable walls, with simple trusses and few carved motifs, concentrated mainly in the altars and the front eave cốn panels of Hau cung with themes of the four seasons, flowers and leaves, fret patterns... Behind Hau cung is the stele house and horse shed, simply built, where the communal house's rear steles and a pair of votive horses are placed. Outside on the left of Dai bai is the Elephant Shed. The elephant is carried in processions during village festivals. Quan Nhan Communal House preserves many valuable relics, including a stele erected in the 22nd year of Chinh Hoa (1701) under King Le Hy Tong; a bronze stele engraved in the 6th year of Tu Duc (1853) recording the legend of the worshipped deity; in addition, there are a system of inscriptions and royal edicts; a system of horizontal lacquered boards, parallel sentences, and altar curtains; bronze bells; bronze gongs; and many other worship relics.

The very place of the communal house's Elephant Shed was a Japanese tax rice warehouse where the National Salvation Youth organizations, the Self-Defense Team, and the masses organized the seizure of rice to distribute to people around the region for famine relief on July 21, 1945. News that the Viet Minh had successfully destroyed the Japanese rice warehouse confused the enemy, and the people trusted the revolution even more. Also here, in mid-December 1946, comrade Vuong Thua Vu directly organized, encouraged, and established a squad of soldiers defending the capital and attended the oath-taking ceremony 'Quyet tu cho To quoc quyet sinh' (Determined to die for the Fatherland's survival) of the Ve quoc doan soldiers. The solemn and heroic atmosphere of the Ve quoc doan quickly spread to the self-defense forces and the people of Nhan Chinh at that time. Before the National Resistance Day, basically, the army and people of Nhan Chinh were in a ready posture to fight the enemy, protect the Fatherland, and protect their homeland. The communal house was ranked by the State as a Historical and Architectural Art Relic in 1989. On August 27, 2006, the people of Quan Nhan and Nhan Chinh had the honor of holding a ceremony to receive the Decision of the Hanoi City People's Committee and attach the Revolutionary and Resistance Relic plaque to Quan Nhan Communal House. On May 27, 2021, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued Decision No. 1727/QD-BVHTTDL announcing the inclusion in the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List of the FESTIVAL OF THE FIVE MOC VILLAGES in Nhan Chinh Ward, Thanh Xuan District and Trung Van Ward, Nam Tu Liem District.