HOI AN, VIETNAM

2016-10-19, 12:44, JASON

BUDGET

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Our story of Hoi An begins with the bus stop that runs into Hoi An from Da Nang. I imagine before the tourism industry arrived, the number 1 bus was an inconspicuous intercity route that took you to the colonial quarters. When the foreigners came, it became the cheapest and most 'authentic' way to get to Hoi An via Da Nang without shelling out a bunch in taxi fares (although, 'a bunch' is only a relative term).

As mentioned before in many of my posts regarding developing Southeast Asia, I'm always intrigued by the tenacity of its young people. They're hungry for that next opportunity out there, and they're incredibly savvy and well-educated. This is especially true in countries that have settled down following some larger, disrupting event (e.g. dictatorships, wars). There were two other westerners sat at the bus stop with us, neither of us willing to exchange eyes with the other since it would have been plaguing to do so, God forbid there were more than one set of tourists going to Hoi An... So, we left it at some tacit agreement that we were just not that special that day. A young man approaches the bus stop and sits next to Thorin.

He introduces himself as Danh. His English is broken, but he has a courage in approaching Thorin that is admirable and enviable. A confidence but not cockiness found in the young in Southeast Asia. When we get on the bus, Thorin sits next to him as I cram into the back next to a mother and her daughter on my left, and a brother and sister on my right. Danh continues to talk to Thorin. About 1/3 of this bus is tourist. The lady collecting the fare tariff tries to charge them extra for bringing luggage onto the bus. They try to refuse but end up paying the extra fair, mindful of the fact that they've technically been overcharged, but the actual amount is negligible since they are tourists. When we arrive to Hoi An, Danh introduces himself to me, and we start chatting, catching up with any conversation he's had with Thorin. He's a solid character, despite his short stature, exuding a sense of self confidence and perhaps, ever so slightly, a winsome quality that is admiring and appreciable when engaging in conversation with him. He leads us down the main path towards the colonial quarters. Tells us to friend him on Facebook sometime, but leaves us no information to actually friend him on Facebook. Lol. We part ways.

The walk into Hoi An is noticeably different, architecturally, compared to Da Nang. The houses have that pasty eggshell white to it, and look more colonial and shophousy. We stop by for a bite to eat on that road. Once you enter Old Town Hoi An, it's clearly French. The buildings go from white to pastel yellow, and all the streets are surrounded with buildings in that color. Some older houses are preserved in the original Vietnamese tradition (that slightly resembles Chinese architecture) and some have been retouched to maintain the antique facade but also appeal to modernity. In terms of things to do, I wouldn't say necessarily that Hoi An is popping, but it's more of an experience. You get to see how the French aristocrats used to relax and why they picked the spot to develop it to their liking. There's a tacit inclination for people to migrate towards bodies of water since so much of our existence depends on it. In the biological sense, it makes sense to settle near water since it's an essential nutrient to our existence. But even in a social sense, I find it interesting how people cluster near water-related things for leisure as well (Raging Waters in the U.S., aquariums, white water rafting, etc.). It's this universality of water to our existence as animals that makes people settle down next to bodies of them, whether it be in lake, riparian, or oceanic form. So, it's no surprise, on basis of my theory, that Hoi An has a small river that runs through it, and offers the place a certain charm. It's also no surprise that the bridge that connects the two parts of Old Town Hoi An is a tourist attraction. At night, it is meant to be marvelous, although we were only stopping in for the day. 

Nevertheless, as strong as colonial influence goes in the developing world (we might as well call it the colonized world so we recognize the history), the essence of the locals bleeds through. What I mean by that is, even though the governance and 'style' of colonialism was relatively similar by each colonial country, in their respective colonial territories, what distinguishes independent countries is really how colonialism bleeds into local culture. and how the local culture molds it despite being under their jurisdiction. Sometimes the influence is stronger, at other times it's weaker. It's the degree of cultural penetration and resistance that ultimately dictates the ambience of the place. They dictate the space. 

The next few hours are us just walking around and taking pictures of various spots that we find attractive or (mildly) artistic. There is a 'Buy 6 passes and visit any 6 sites" ticket style thing that allows you to pick and choose your own Hoi An experience, and so we do that. Most of the things to see are traditional houses and pagodas, so we do that. I know you'd think by now we would have grown weary of visiting another temple, but still, each temple does have unique bits. Perhaps architecturally they're similar but the interior displays and arrangements are all unique. 

We even stop by the river multiple times to get some good angles of the architecture, and the river life. 

Where should we have spent our first tickets? Japanese bridge. It's pretty much the postcard picture of Hoi An and has become a symbol for Hoi An. It was constructed back in the 16th century by the Japanese community to connect it to the old Chinese quarters. So here we have the modern Vietnam (the nation state, bound by its man-made borders and contained within it, its cultural practices), ruled by the French at some point, with the iconic structure built by the Japanese to connect to the Chinese community. If that's not enough mixed history for you, I don't know what is. It's landmarks or imprints of history like this that remind us about the fluidity of culture beyond borders, almost knocking -- if not trying to break -- the idea of modern nationhood defined often geographically, and always politically. 

What was inside you ask? Some dog gods, monkey gods, a shrine, and some cute Japanese style architecture. I don't want to spoil the rest for yous Really though, I'm sure the cultural significance outweighed - far outweighed - the actual physical impressiveness. But, isn't it the former that really ought matter more? Just look at the Copenhagen mermaid.

What's next to spend our tickets on? We chose hold off (don't spend all your bucks at once) and take more random shots around the city. It's a hot day, but there's a nice breeze that occasionally trickles in and even the slightest is enough to cool you down.

We are deciding whether or not to go into this temple when a guy pops up next to us and says hi. It's Danh, our ephemeral friend from earlier who left without leaving Facebook deets, back on a bike, with a friend. He asks us how we're doing and how we're enjoying the city, and we say it's great. After a few more minutes of small talk this time I tell him to leave me his Facebook URL so we can stay in touch. And, as quickly as he showed up, he left shortly thereafter. His friend never said a word to us, we think he didn't know much English. But, Danh said they were college friends.

After that, we decide to go check out one of many other temples that are sprinkled throughout the old town. Now, you see the heavy influence of Old Chinese religion in these temples, with the parallel columns upholding an elaborately bricked roof decorated with an eloquently (and to us unintelligible) couplet in traditional Chinese characters. Some of them have additional side courtyards that are quiet resting spaces for the workers at the temple. I do not know the intricacies of each different sect of Buddhism / Taoism, but some of these temples are also known to be Fujianese, a Chinese ethnic group very common in Southeast Asia. I'm not sure architecturally what distinguishes the temples but the fact that they take the time to make distinctions could either mean the differences are appreciable or, perhaps they wanted some sort of religious autonomy from each other. Anyway, as a secular tourist happening to stop by on this random Augustan day, we could only appreciate the feeling you get when you walk in, the cultural relics within, and the Temple itself. 

After that, we checked out some old persons original house. The lady that gave us a tour was not having it. She gave us the most unintelligible description of the place and showed us around. It reminded me of one of those 1950s show hosts who just didn't care about their job. I loved it. I tried asking a question about the tapestry that supposedly took weeks to weave:

"Do they still make these here by hand?"

"Yes."

"Oh, cool, can you explain the process?"

"No, it's very complicated."

Aite aite, I get it, let's keep moving. We go upstairs and this wooden house is beautiful. It has emphasized the four cardinal directions and the placements of the objects, the bedroom locations, and orientation of the furniture all have some auspicious motive. She trodges through these explanations. Even better, some of the posters hanging up are really old and have been hanging there since the inception of the house. At least, that's the impression I get, I could be completely wrong on that front. There is one large balcony window that faces the main street. A grid of light shines through into the second floor of the wooden house and it's enough to light up the faces of the women who are sitting there selling trinkets. The upstairs has turned to a tiny market with ladies selling fabrics and clothes, but there is still a sense of community in this house. All women, running the tours, selling their things, sharing their stories, weaving their complicated tapestries. 

A traditional market is located alongside the side of Hoi An, and so we head into it to find some food. Thorin and I buy some - and I'll use th eEnglish term since my Vietnamese is rusty - delicious veggies wrapped in rice paper with some egg and yummy sauce. And some glass-ish noodles with amazing sauce. How's that for a description? Yes, we were so astonished by the potentially good tasting flavor that we just started eating it as separate components. The woman behind the counter who had prepared the meal laughed modestly, and kindly came around the side to show us how to eat it. After she did, the dish blew our MINDS. She smiled and then went on her way to prepare the food for the other patrons. Outside in the market, we bought mangoes. When we told the people we wanted to eat them immediately they did this fancy trickery with the knife and sliced the mango in such a way as to make it easy to eat with the hands. Still, the flavor and the juices ran down our hands and made them sticky by the end, but that was the sweetest mango we'd ever had. 

There is one thing Hoi An is known for, aside from being a popular spot for tourists, and that is their tailoring of clothes. Again, run by women, they hang out in groups alongside the roads soliciting foreigners. I get a certain immunity to this because they think I am a local, but hanging with a Westerner we always get approached. As an Asian American guy I'm sure the Asian-American audience can agree that when people ask 'where you're from' it's always a loaded question. What they mean is what is your ethnicity. They want a face color to match the ethnicity. So when I usually say U.S. they say OK.. and I think they get it because there are plenty of Vietnamese Americans, especially post Vietnamese War. What I try to say instead though is just Taiwan, so they're like, oh, ok, an Asian person from Taiwan. So I say I'm from Taiwan. And the conversation usually follows as such:

"Oh really? You look like you're Vietnamese!!"

I don't know what to say to this, so I just say without thinking, "I do? Thank you!" Maybe it adds some cultural capital under my belt.

"Yeah, you look so much like Vietnamese... How about you, where are you from?"

Thorin joins in, "England"

"Oh, England, welcome!"

A linger. Then, the next question being, "Would you like to buy a suit?" And we say we have no money, blah blah blah. But these ladies are so well versed in English and they talk circles around us, trying to get us to buy a suit. No thank you, No thank you, we really are not here to buy clothes. It eventually turns into us slowly grazing away while they linger and look, trying one last time to get us to buy a suit. Honestly, if I　would consider it.

We take the bus back, and head into town. Now we're back in Da Nang. I friend Danh and then immediately he hits us up, it's about 19:00 back in the city. He asks us if we want to go get some coffee, so we agree to meet at some place. We show up and his friend and him are playing Chinese Chess when they stand up to greet us. Lin, his friend, is a classmate of Danh and he had heard about us that day and so he was coming out to join us. We chatted in English the whole way, with them making their way through their sentences and us listening. We covered topics like soccer (football), education, local Asian politics, and Vietnamese culture. The courage for them to speak English and work in a second language to accommodate us was a kind gesture. When we'd finished, they offered to pay but we treated them as they were still students. Then, we said we were hungry so we we were going to eat.

They asked us what we wanted, and we said local. As local as they come by. So, they took us to a random street corner to a local stand that they usually eat at. We sat down on the famous small red stools, made of plastic, around a plastic table, and the lady served us. The best meal we'd had in Vietnam was that night. Two local guys, full of ambition, showing us the local Da Nang style. By the time we'd left, I was just such in awe of the youth here. They're really out to accomplish something. A few weeks later, I saw that Lin had posted something on Facebook about America's First Presidential Debate. His thoughts on the matter. And therein lay the difference between the young in the developing world and the U.S. The desire the former have to follow foreign politics and to be engaged with what's happening in a country outside their own. The Ameri-centric view may argue that this is because America has a "world presence" and is still powerful, but as that kind of jingoist thinking perpetuates domestically, a complacency develops in the worldly development of America's youth. Ever so, I encourage America's youth to model themselves on the developing world - there's some humility and passion there whose genesis is severely hindered in the - and I use these synonymously - developed, secure, colonial, sheltered, and perhaps most poignantly, ignorant world.

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