Hoi An: Hanoi’s Anagram

Modern Vietnamese people live at a hysterical pace; they seem to relax only when they are next to their children. Considering that the local population grew from thirty million just after the American-Vietnamese War to over eighty million in thirty years, that habit is easily explained.

A heartbreaking result of this instant, frantic society is that old customs are hastily disappearing. Traditional Vietnamese food is hard to find nowadays, except for the ubiquitous pho, the Vietnamese version of the Asian noodle soup.

Located at the very center of the town, the excellent Bo Bo Restaurant caters for the many tourists visiting Hoi An. It specializes in classical Vietnamese dishes, preparing them with much care and love.

A good lunch costs less than five dollars, while the dishes themselves are priceless.

The place offers seats by the street and in a colonially decorated interior painted in that bright yellow and green so loved by the locals. The place is comfortable and the service is excellent. The interior seats have some electric sockets nearby, so that it is possible to charge camera and other gadgets while enjoying the meal.

The dishes are of moderate size, the two time-honored dishes described below make a decent lunch for one person.

Cao Lau is a delicious dish made of rice noodles, bean sprouts & pork-rind croutons and flavored with mint & star anise. It is topped with thin slices of pork served with grilled rice flour crackers or sprinkled with crispy rice paper.

Luscious Banh Bao is made of white rose steamed manioc flour parcels of finely diced crab or shrimp, it is flavored with lemon, sugar & nuoc man (sauce) and complemented by a crunchy onion flake topping.

A Vietnamese Coffee is the perfect choice for ending such a traditional Vietnamese lunch; it has a very attractive aroma since it is roasted with butter. The basic preparation technology in Vietnam is gravitational filtration using small metallic filters, with a volume of a double espresso, as those used in parts of France. The filters have a double bottom, both of them perforated, and the lower one, in fact the true bottom of the cup, has a screw to which the second one is attached. The metallic filter is put over a glass cup, about ten grams of coffee are added into it, and then boiling water is poured. A metal lid prevents early cooling of the precious liquid. The dark fluid flows down into the glass, usually over a white layer of condensed milk. At the end of the procedure there are two separated layers, black on white. The lid is then put inverted on the table and the metallic filter put to rest over it. Vigorous mixing causes the milk layer to disappear without significantly changing the coffee’s black color and an awesome cup of one of the world’s best coffees is ready to please the thirsty traveler.

Can a bridge justify crossing the world just for one sight of it?

Usually not; even the idea sounds preposterous. A humble bridge made of old wood and spanning a narrow, irrelevant stream can neither gather enough publicity nor importance to bend a worldwide pilgrim’s plans; it must rely on serendipity. The last often interferes with a traveler’s plans and turns such a silly idea into the most natural event.

It may loose some visitors in such a way, but it gains in the effect created on anyone reaching it, ensuring lifelong memories of the event and ensuring the next generation will faithfully restore it again.

After all, that’s the way it survived four hundred years in a wars plagued country, despite its fragility giving the impression of having been designed for a Shepherd and His sheep. Its humility renders it indestructible, but that isn’t a guarantee strong enough for survival; in addition, a message – probably subtly embedded as a symbol and similar to the one rendering immortality to the Shepherd – must be present.

Vietnamese history is a painful one. Conflicts seem to be the pillars upon which the local culture was constructed. Peace is an alien concept; communion among people an unconceivable idea. Yet, in Hoi An there is a little bridge that gives hopes for a better future.

It doesn’t take an expert on Asian architecture to recognize the bridge qualities. At the very center of a secondary town in Vietnam stands a red Japanese Bridge. Its ascetic, minimal features proclaim its identity; antipodal to the extreme decorations and colors preferred by the local culture.

The Japanese Covered Bridge is the best known structure in the city; it was constructed by the Japanese merchants living in Hoi An at the mid-sixteenth century. Due to its frail structure it has been faithfully reconstructed to its original shape several times since then.

It is located at the western end of Tran Phu Street and spans the tiny stream splitting the town. Within the narrow bridge’s are a collection of stelae and four statues, two dogs and two monkeys, usually said to record that work began in the year of the monkey and ended in that of the dog.

The bridge is also a symbolic link among cultures with few values in common; a bridge connecting people, a viaduct between minimalist ascetics and ultra-colorful animism. It is a bridge which seeks neither conversions nor explanations; a bridge which by its simple existence gives an example of a different reality in which different people can live together in peace; a bridge of hope for the multi-polar Global Village.

Together with Saigon, the De-Militarized Zone is the best place in Vietnam from where the horrors of the devastating Vietnamese War can still be witnessed.

Location

The DMZ spans more than a hundred kilometers east-west near the center of present-day Vietnam.

Reaching the DMZ

Hoi An is a good base for a DMZ tour. It is recommended to take the long tour along roads 1 and 9, which passes through the Vinh Moc Caves, near the old border between North and South Vietnam. Afterwards the tours continue to the Rockpile and the Khe Shan Airbase. The Hien Luong Bridge on Highway 1 and over the Ben Hai River has a touching war memorial and a reconstruction of the original bridge gate.

History

In 1954 the French were defeated by the Viet Minh – the North Vietnamese Army at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and the French Indochina War (1946-1954) ended. Following it, the DMZ, a dividing line between North and South Vietnam, was established by the Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954. The 17th parallel was defined as a provisional military demarcation line; it extended five kilometers from either side of the Ben Hai River.

The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine independence and a government for Vietnam. However, France and the North Vietnamese government (DRV) signed the document; the USA and the government in Saigon – backed by the French - refused to abide by the agreement. The violation of the free elections process resulted in the Vietnamese-American War.

The Vinh Moc Caves

Next to the sea, the caves are much bigger than the ones near Saigon, and provide a better insight of the daily life of such a community during the war. Rooms adapted to different activities (dormitories, working rooms, meeting rooms, kitchens) successfully provide the visitor with a feeling of what meant to live underground. The hidden exits to the seashore tell of an immediate element of danger in their lives.

The Rockpile

Any visitor with a military background would appreciate the American decision to place a stronghold on this impressive hill rising from the plains. A small and well equipped defensive force could hold it practically forever. However, any visitor with a political background and social conscience would recognize the futility of military means. The stronghold eventually surrendered to political reality and stands today as a bold reminder that only negotiations can solve political problems.

Khe Shan Airbase

Next to the Laotian border is the Khe Shan Airbase. From here, the Americans bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam and Laos. The trail was a supply line between the northern and southern parts of the country. The base was practically destroyed by the Vietnamese and nowadays the old runaway is barely visible below the vegetation which reclaimed its ownership.

Featuring more than 850 historical structures for a population of less than 100000 people, Hoi An had been rightly recognized as a World Heritage Site. The town displays not only an awesome amount of traditional structures but also a vast cultural richness.

Hoi An’s wonderful preservation of cultures belonging to faraway locations was described in the entry describing a Chinese Assembly Hall. However there is more than that; the close and prolonged interactions between different cultures created complex dynamics that resulted in hybrid micro-cultures displaying fusion architectural styles and proving that people from different cultures can merge peacefully and create new and wonderful cultures. The only requisite is a slow paced, voluntary and well-intentioned process.

Being part of Vietnam, Hoi An’s hybrid micro-cultures include a Vietnamese framework and infrastructure to which things borrowed from other cultures are added. Chinese and Japanese touches are the commonest, but European details can be observed from time to time as well. Moreover, these hybrids provide a wonderful opportunity for observing an intriguing quality of South East Asian cultures.

Except for the ascetic Japanese, the vast majority of Asian societies are based on the principle that "more is more." Adding colours, details and features to a structure or an art work increases its value even if they are in different styles and create negative interactions in western eyes. Minimalism and ascetics are considered there a testimony of a lack of effort in the work, an ugly insult to whomever the structure was dedicated to. Understanding this basic difference between western and oriental aesthetic values makes it easier to appreciate the local art and architecture.

This Eastern value influenced the way hybrid structures were designed. Instead of attempting subtle touches of foreign designs on local structures, most hybrid structures in Hoi An seem to be a random mishmash, chunks of different cultures trying hard to live together. Each style attempts to keep its qualities instead of blending into a new, harmonious multicultural style.

Tan Ky House is one of the best examples belonging to this category in Hoi An. It was built in the eighteenth century by a Vietnamese merchant that added significant contributions from Japanese and Chinese styles. The house is well preserved and typical of the merchants living in the area, with a shop at the front and living quarters at its backside. The interior is fabulously ornate with intricate patterns, poems and words embellished on every free spot.

Most people do not have enough time for wondering about our Multi-Polar Global Village arrangement into countries and nations. Forgetting that countries are a relatively new invention is easy and the multicultural future society seems to be far away and thus irrelevant.

In Western countries, few realize that even nowadays countries are not the only existent type of organized societies; other models share the globe. Several Asian countries – and other entities elsewhere – are organized according to national groups. Regardless efforts, my being a round-eyed farang prevents my getting a Thailand citizenship. As a non-Thai, a permanent resident status would be my best achievement there. This ethnic categorization is typical of East Asia and even groups that migrated long ago retain their original cultural identity.

That is the case with the Chinese communities in South Vietnam, a country which was for a long time under the Chinese rule. The cultural heritage of these communities is so strong that many generations after their arrival they still have congregations arranged by their city of origin.

Few cities offer such a wonderful environment for visiting such societies as Hoi An. Being a now inactive international medieval port created the perfect conditions for that. In the past, it attracted many communities from abroad; some of them stayed after the port declined. In one of those paradoxes of history, the decline assured survival – and preservation – of the original structures.

Several Chinese communities stayed in Hoi An, unlike the European and Japanese ones, and organized themselves in ornate Assembly Halls – one for each congregation. Lacking a western style religion, the Chinese created structures capable of fulfilling the social tasks of churches. The Assembly Halls provided the congregations with a suitable and attractive environment for dealing with their internal issues and helped them keeping their cultural identity for centuries.

Modern countries are increasingly showing unable to provide stable, peaceful, human rights respectful societies and thus will probably change significantly in the future. The Chinese micro-society within the larger Vietnamese one may be a useful model and hint for the global society awaiting us a century or so in the future.

Beyond the complex social angle featured by the halls, they simply are wonderful places for the appreciation of the traditional Chinese culture. In China itself few traditional structures survived the Cultural and Communist revolutions; visiting Hoi An complements thus a visit to China.

One of the best preserved halls in Hoi An is the Assembly Hall of the Canonese Chinese Congregation, at 176 Tran Phu, near the Japanese Bridge. Founded in 1786 it displays an awesome and colourful collection of traditional Chinese art; the humble entry is somewhat deceitful – the most colourful statues were placed in the Hall’s backyard.