Hoi An is one of those paradoxical places: right smack in the middle of traditionally China-hating Vietnam yet if you’re dropped randomly into the town for a look round, you’d think it to be China. Except of course that if you’ve been to China before you’d know better. It’s like a really prettied up version of a Chinatown, what Singapore’s Chinatown would aspire to be when it grows up. It was full of Chinese characters and dragon motifs, yet the odd thing was that no one there spoke any Chinese at all.
My first stop was at the Fujian Assembly Hall, oddly named jin shan si or Golden Mountain Temple in Mandarin. It had such a grand facade that I bet any Chinese trader that would have been suitably impressed.
Other halls were less impressive, like this tumbledown one on the edge of town. Unlike the others, it hadn’t a name and wasn’t featured in the guide book. Still, the dragon motifs were incredibly beautiful.
It looked amazing even in silhouette.
Other typically Chinese places were the temples. The eaves were beautifully, ornately decorated and very impressive to look at.
Not being a frequenter of temples at home, I was taken aback by these very cool joss sticks that were twirled into cone shapes.
As it burned, each joss stick gave off plenty of slightly sweet smoke that wafted past the eaves.
Other traditional houses had craft showcases, like this one with lantern making demonstrations to make the colourful lights still used extensively in the town.
Of course, not everything looked bright and new and restored. Here’s a little courtyard of a shophouse turned museum, looking very similar in style to Peranakan houses in Singapore and Malacca. I think it’s the tiled fountain against the wall that’s so typical of Chinese-influenced houses in the region.
And last of all was the Japanese Covered Bridge, oddly not looking anything particularly Japanese at all. It was quite similar to the one in Hue, just that this one was on the edge of town and not in the midst of paddy fields.
Here, the bridge god was a dog, and a strangely Egyptian-looking one at that. How strange.
eat. drink. cook. travel. 