Since the middle of 11^th lunar  month, people have flocked to Ba Chua Kho Temple in Bac Ninh province to pay their debt to Ba Chua Kho (Queen of the Stock), which they borrowed earlier in the year.

Ba Chua Kho Temple, 20 km north of Hanoi center, is a typical Le Dynasty temple, with a three-door gate, a big yard, and curved roofs. The building stands at the foot of Kho Moutain, which faces south and overlooks a field winding around the Cau River, a tributary of the Red River. The façade may not be very different from other temples in the area, but there’s something special about Ba Chua Kho, a place that draws thousands of visitors every year.

According to legend, Ba Chua Kho was a queen of one of the Ly Dynasty kings. She was both beautiful and intelligent. During a war against the Tong people from China, the King asked her to look after the country’s cooking store during the wartime against the Chinese Song enemy. After the enemy was defeated, she helped people to rebuild their lives and restore food production.

To do this, the queen called on local people to prepare an area of wilderness for cultivation. This piece of land she named Co Me Village. The queen finally met her end on the 12th of January, 1077, when she was killed by enemy troops while distributing food to local people.

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Villagers in Co Me built a temple on the place where the food had been stored. They called her Ba Chua Kho, which means Queen of the Stock.

Ever since then, visitors have come to the temple to pray for good luck for their business plans. In their prayers, they tell her about their business idea and the sum of money they want to invest in it. At the end of the year, they come back to thank her and pay her back the money (with votive papers) that they had borrow.

VietNamNet captures Ba Chua Kho temple at the end of year:

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Burning incenses to pray for good fortune.

Preparing the offerings at the gate.

Carrying the offerings into the temple.

Locals sell sundries to visitors.

Votive paper products will be burnt or stored at the temple’s warehouse.

Writing petitions to the Goddess of Stock

Changing money service: visitors need small money to put into charity boxes
in the temple so the service to change money is very prosperous.

Some people hire others who are more experienced at praying to pray for them.

The temple is very crowded even in the late afternoon.

Minh Tam