Page 56 - Taste_and_Travel_International

DESTINATIONS TASTES OF HOI AN

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PORTUGUESE TRADERS VISITED HOI AN IN THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY,
the first Europeans to set foot in Vietnam. The bustling port at the mouth of the Thu Bon River Ũ
had been hosting merchants from China, Japan, India and Arabia, and other fortune seekers Ũ Ũ
for more than 2,000 years. Hoi An, or Fai Fo as the Portuguese called it, was a prosperous, Ũ
open-minded society where people of many different cultural backgrounds mingled. Ũ Ũ Ũ
The establishment of a French concession at Da Nang and the fall of the outward-looking ($)3#(!Ũ ð("Ũ
th
Nguyen Dynasty at the end of the 18 century spelled the end of Hoi An’s golden era. Traders ü)Ũ#(Ũ )#Ũ (c-Ũ
followed the money, deserting Hoi An for ports further north, leaving the river to silt up and the (., &Ũ' ,% .XŨ
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town to fall into slumber. While the rest of Vietnam embraced Western trends of modernization,
Hoi An remained a traditional Vietnamese community, continuing its ancient ways with little ")/- -Ũ&#( Ũ." Ũ "/Ũ
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interference from outside until UNESCO recognition open the doors to tourism.
Hoi An’s cosmopolitan past resulted in an exotic combination of Chinese, Japanese and
European architectural and cultural influences. Most of the Old Town’s historic shophouses and
godowns have been repurposed as restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques and lodgings, but a few
remain family dwellings or places of business with lineages going back hundreds of years.
Incense-filled Chinese temples and Japanese timber-frame houses sit side by side with Parisian-
style cafés, shops with antique Portuguese signboards, art galleries, tailor and leatherworkers’

54 TASTE;5TRAVEL INTERNATIONAL5 JANUARY–MARCH 2018