Talking about Cot village today, many people probably immediately
think of this as a village specializing in producing votive offerings with
the nickname "the banking village of hell" but few know that this is also a
land of learning, since ancient times it has been named the village of
scholars with 10 doctors, 9 bachelors and nearly 30 village chiefs.
Cot Village (or Ke Cot) is the name of two long-standing Yen Quyet villages,
Ha Yen Quyet and Thuong Yen Quyet. This used to be a rural area with a
tradition of learning and mandarin examinations, located in the "four famous
villages" (Mo, La, Canh, Cot) with 10 doctors and nearly 30 village
officials in the Later Le period and 9 bachelors in the Nguyen period after
Ve village (Dong Ngac). Cot Village in the ancient capital had a
satisfactory education promotion system.
At that time, the village had a custom: set aside 3 acres of rice fields to
give to those who passed the doctoral exam or higher; on the day the
doctoral candidate returned home in glory, the whole village brought flags
and umbrellas to welcome him and congratulated him with 100 Quan. Those who
passed the bachelor's and bachelor's exams were also rewarded with land by
the village. Cot village still has a communal house rebuilt in the 13th year
of Minh Mang (1832); the family temple of the doctors Hoang Quan Chi, Nguyen
Nhu Uyen, Nguyen Xuan Nham - a symbol of the tradition of successful
learning of the villagers.
However, until now, very few people know about Cot village with the title of
"village of scholars" instead of people just thinking of it as the "bank of
hell" village. The reason why Cot village is associated with that nickname
is also originated from the old profession of making a living of some
villagers. Mrs. Nguyen Thi Huyen, a resident of Cot village, said: "People
in the village have been doing this job for a long time. Since the time in
Thuong Yen Quyet village, there was a profession of making paper and fans.
After a while, due to the increasing tastes of the people, this profession
has flourished." According to the concept of the ancients, the dead are like
the living: houses, food, clothes, vehicles, and... money. That is why the
burning of votive paper was born. So on the day of "pardoning the dead", the
whole village is bustling with people, vehicles, and votive paper offerings
(TVs, refrigerators, motorbikes... paper) being carried everywhere for
consumption.
In the past, people who made votive paper offerings printed by hand had to
apply ink to the mold, place paper, dry it... to produce a product.
Nowadays, people only need to press the button, the votive paper making
machine in Cot village is a real printing machine. In just a moment, the
producer has produced tens of thousands of beautiful products. In the past,
Cot village was large, making all kinds of votive paper offerings, from
traditional sacrificial items such as horses, hats, shoes... to modern
objects such as computers, cars, motorbikes, refrigerators, televisions, and
hell dollars. Each house did it differently, some stacked dollars all the
way to the roof, some stacked computers. Now the village has become the
city, so the houses are cramped, so the village's products have also been
narrowed, cars and motorbikes have given way to paper money (traditional
style) and dollars (modern style).
Currently, Cot village's hell money has been distributed to almost all the
Northern provinces and even to the Central region such as Ha Tinh, Quang
Binh, etc. It is not that people in these areas do not trade in hell money,
but the hell money here they trade in designs, colors and materials cannot
be compared to Cot village. Therefore, people still like to buy votive paper
from the merchants in this hell village.
One of the most famous producers and traders of votive paper money in Cot
village, said: “The family's votive paper products were previously mainly
consumed at Dong Xuan market, but now they have expanded to other provinces
and cities across the country. Currently, the number of workers making
votive paper and printing at home is about a dozen people. Talking about the
printing formula, the family has inherited it from their ancestors for three
generations. Nowadays, there are modern machines to support, but the final
steps still have to be done manually, such as cutting and trimming. This
item is spiritual, in the past, many families in Cot village made and
developed it, but now it has almost disappeared, many families have given up
the profession to switch to other businesses with higher income. Currently,
the village has only a dozen households still doing the job and they are
always trying to preserve and promote the profession.”
She added: “The difficulty of this votive paper making business is the
output of the products, selling a lot of products only on the 15th of the
7th lunar month every year and on the occasion of Lunar New Year. During the
year, people only buy on the 15th and 1st of the lunar month to worship at
home or go to the temple... Therefore, maintaining the salary for workers is
difficult, while the capital outlay is also relatively large, causing people
in this profession to always have to think to find a way to retain workers
and sell products...".
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