STROLLING WITH GHOSTS OF VIETNAM
Despite a history of conflict, Hue’s culture is ancient and welcoming — and delicious
The morning mist slowly rises off the Perfume River and floats, like an undulating dragon, over the rice fields surrounding Vietnam’s former imperial capital of Hue. From my perch on an old American bunker on a hillside overlooking the city, I see the blending of linear patterns created by the ripples of boats on the river.
It all might have felt like an exercise in meditation — if it weren’t for the ghosts.
In many ways, Hue is a city of spirits and memories. The city sits just below what was once the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam and was, during the Tet Offensive in 1968, the site of some of the fiercest fighting during the “American War,” as it’s called here. Spirit houses — dollhousesize shrines outside homes and businesses, designed especially for dissatisfied spirits who may not be settled — are tended with care, usually filled with incense and offerings, for those who were never recovered.
Despite this part of Hue’s history, its residents are welcoming and quick to move beyond the past. When I descend from the hillside and wander back into town toward the ancient Citadel, a smiling schoolgirl grabs my hand and tours me through the crumbling, century-old walls, asking as a reward merely to practice her English.
Hue first rose to prominence as the seat of the Nguyen lords in the 18th through 19th centuries. The emperor Gia Long (born as Nguyen Phuc An) took over the city in 1802 and established Hue as the capital of Vietnam. It’s his landmark, the Citadel — surrounded by thick walls and the Perfume River — that lures visitors to the Purple Forbidden City, which at its height, was compared to the Forbidden City in Beijing.
It’s a place where history and a focus on the future are naturally intertwined, merging and crisscrossing like the sets of ripples on the river.
The ritual begins in the middle of the night, when most of Hue is sleeping. Peppers, bamboo shoots, pineapples, ginger, lemongrass, fish and crabs are all methodically unpacked and set out in baskets and containers in the eastern end of Cho Dong Ba, known as the Dong Ba market.
The market opens at 3 a.m., and while the bustle of opening is an interesting way to see the soul of Dong Ba, the flood of shoppers arrives after 6 a.m., then ebbs by lunchtime.
Originally located outside the Citadel’s Chanh Dong gate, the market burned down in 1885, and after reopening two years later, was moved in 1889 to its current location. It’s one of the largest markets in central Vietnam, and its denizens find a way to cram goods for sale into every possible space.
Starting inside, deep in the market’s heart, I pass through the maze of stalls and colors along displays of hats, hardware, chopsticks, shoes, paper lanterns, tea sets, costume jewelry, comic books and stuffed toy animals. Items spill out of the concrete building and into the surrounding alleyways. In the eastern end (you’ll know by following your nose), the food market is home to piles of fresh produce, fish and meats.
Following a friend’s advice for breakfast, I head toward the ladies stationed around the perimeter of the market, serving thick noodle soup — banh canh — from metal pots. But when I spy a pot of bun bo Hue, the spicy soup the city is known for, I ask for a bowl of that instead. The soup begins with pork and beef bones, adds annatto, lemongrass and shrimp paste, and then a final addition (like tossing up all the fireworks at the end of a show) of herbs, lime, sliced brisket, crab balls and a cube of congealed pig’s blood.
The woman hesitates a moment, looks at me for one last affirmation that yes, I know what’s in that dark cube, and plops it into my breakfast. She pulls a plastic stool from behind the pots, and I devour the bun bo Hue sitting among the soup ladies, who take turns smiling at me and nodding like proud mothers.
The flag of Vietnam, with its red field and single yellow star, stands out over the Citadel in the now-dissipating mist. I cross the Perfume River with visitors in colorful plastic rain ponchos, and then my “guide,” Tu Hoa, makes herself known. Clad in her school uniform of navy skirt, button-down white shirt, and tennis shoes, she claims me as her English lesson for the day. “My English is very good,” she asserts, as she grabs my hand. “I hope it will be OK if I show you around. No charge. Just let me speak English with you.”
I toss my guidebook into my bag, willing to get a lesson in Vietnamese history, as well as insights of importance to Hue teenagers, such as cutting school to practice other languages.
Together we walk through the Ngo Mon Gate, the south entrance to the Citadel. Inside, the emperor’s residence, temples, palaces and main buildings of state sit within three circles of ramparts — from the Citadel to the Imperial City to the Purple Forbidden City.
While some highlights within the Imperial Enclosure have been restored, such as the To Mieu Temple Complex (complete with three-tiered Hien Lam Pavilion and the Nine Dynastic Urns), what’s left is only a fraction of the original, due to extensive bombing during