Hoi An, I love you
The Tran Family Chapel was built for worshipping family ancestors. The architecture is a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese.
Johanna and I have been biking, walking and sweating our way around Hoi An, a small city on Vietnam’s central coast. Despite being quite close to the Vietnam DMZ, Hoi An escaped unscathed from the Vietnam War. The city is beautiful! Hoi An’s Old Town was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. With such credentials, you can imagine the number of tourists in this city. You can also imagine the number of businesses that have popped up to support the tourists. The Old Town is filled with hundreds of old buildings, many of which are occupied by tailors and shoemakers offering to make you a dress or stitch you some shoes for $10 or $15. It’s a little disconcerting.
Nevertheless, there’s a lot to see and do here beyond getting a new wardrobe made. We’ve visited Chinese Assembly Halls (many Chinese fled to Vietnam after the Ming Dynasty fell in the 17th century) and explored restored homes, such as the Museum of Trading Ceramics (not too edifying except for the small section on the history of restoring old Hoi An buildings). One of our most interesting visits was to Reaching Out Vietnam, a fair trade shop where all the handicrafts are made by disabled people. Johanna and I spent about an hour browsing the store and watching the tradespeople make the items sold in the store. According to the Reaching Out brochure, employees receive salaries that are 35% higher than other artisans and also receive health and social insurance. The employees we saw did look happy and interested in their work. It’s heartening to know that a Vietnamese-founded and Vietnamese-run organization has found such success in Hoi An.
And what would a visit to Vietnam be without eating some really good food? I’m not an epicurean but Johanna is – lucky me! We’ve tried all sorts of noodle, fish and vegetable dishes. I’m not the biggest fish person but braised fish with lemon grass sauce was one of my favorites. One of our favorite desserts was fried wonton with fruit and chocolate inside. We enjoyed that one at Mango Rooms, an upscale Vietnamese fusion restaurant where Mick Jagger supposedly once dined. Yes, even Mick Jagger has been to Hoi An.
All in all, I really like Hoi An. It’s easy to get around on bicycles, though the lack of stop lights and stop signs makes any journey a little bit dangerous. You’re constantly dodging motorbikes darting onto the road from hidden alleys and swerving away from bicycles moving into your path. Let’s just say traffic is very, very fluid here; lanes are optional. The people are friendly, though, and the vibe is peaceful. Whenever I visit a new place I always ask myself, “Could I live here?” And the answer for Hoi An is, “Yes. I love it.”
Street outside Tran Family Chapel
Abandoned house near the Thu Bon River
Tran Phu Street in Old Town Hoi An
Johanna inside the Assembly Hall of the Fujian Chinese Congregation
Fish inside the Assembly Hall of the Fujian Chinese Congregation
Dragon inside the Assembly Hall of the Fujian Chinese Congregation
Restaurant in Hoi An
Banana flower salad
Bar at Mango Rooms restaurant
Marvelous menu at Mango Rooms
Wedding pictures in front of the Japanese Covered Bridge
Portraits in the Chinese All-Community Assembly Hall of Chinese resistance heroes in Vietnam who died during World War II.
Get your shoes made here.
Johanna trying on clothes in a tailor shop.
Johanna at Mango Rooms
Figuring out where to go next in Hoi An.
We took a bumpy shortcut to dinner.
View of Hoi An street outside the Mango Rooms restaurant.
Thinking Day | A cross-cultural food experience
One of my best memories of being a Girl Scout in Jeddah was celebrating Thinking Day. This was when Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from other countries living in the city got together for one big hoe-down. Okay, not exactly a hoe-down, but one big cultural exchange.
The day began with a procession of scouts from each country carrying that country’s flag. I always wanted to carry the United States flag. I thought it would be fun to march around in my green uniform and hold the flag straight up. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t drop it. I never got to find out. Instead, I sat on my school gym floor with hundreds of other scouts as groups of girls glided by with flags, including those of India, the United Kingdom, France, Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Girl Scouts fascinated me the most as they appeared to have run to the fabric store and wrapped themselves in bolts of gray cloth from head to toe. Well, except their faces, thank goodness.
What does any of this have to do with these photographs here, apparently taken in the present time, at my present home, without anyone wearing a Girl Scout uniform? (Though that would be kind of cool.) Well, Thinking Day also involved food. And the other night, as Dulce (from Mexico), Ting-Ya (from Taiwan) and I (half from South Korea), cooked foods from our countries, I remembered Thinking Day. How lucky am I that more than 20 years later, I keep having interesting cross-cultural experiences with my friends?
Ting-Ya showed us the massive amounts of preparation that go into creating a Taiwanese dish. I showed them how to make kimbap. Pictured above is the very first one I’ve ever made without my Mom’s assistance. And Dulce made an American salad with ingredients all the colors of Mexico’s flag. Now I’m thinking of throwing a Thinking Day-type dinner party, where everyone brings a dish from a different country. Yum!
(Above: That's me photographing while snowshoeing through a snowstorm. Picture by