Do you love Hội An?

My son, 17, said: “I love Hội An, don’t you.” during a Sunday lunch when we discussed what we should do instead of staying home. The simple question triggered a long stream of thoughts. My name is An, which came from Hội An. My son’s name is An, which came from me. My father was born in Hội An, my grandfather had a mansion in Hội An. A typical summer holiday back in the 80s would inevitably include a two-day road trip to Hội An. Arriving late at night, we would unpack, and then walked straight to the night food market, and ate chicken porridge. It was so good for a ten year old: after a long day of travelling, half carsick, half bored, the porridge went straight through the intestinal lining, into the bloodstream, then into every single cell. And there was more chicken than at home, as things were cheaper in Hội An than in Hồ Chí Minh City.

The next morning we would stop some walking vendor balancing their merchandise on two sides of a bamboo pole on their shoulder for “bánh bèo”. “Bánh bèo” is a very good trick, the same trick they are deploying in Michelin stars these days. The portion is very small, contained in a bowl smaller than half a child’s hand. But one never eats one bowl: the pride was with the stack of empty bowls, who can eat the most. Small bowls, many of them, make less go for more. Back then, labour was cheap and materials were not. Main ingredients are steamed rice flour, some fried spring onion, finely shredded prawn, and the “secret dipping sauce”, which probably was prawn powder plus the right amount of condiments. I would then draw some water from the mansion’s well using rope and scoop, flicking the wrist so that the scoop turned and scooped water. Apparently, this is a life skill, one that I have not used since. Then washing clothes, and free time to explore the mansion and its garden.

Lunch would be cooked in the outhouse using firewood. There would be more fish than I would like, but everybody else seemed to like fish. The afternoon was boring time, some more exploring the garden, perhaps walking down to the bridge/temple, mostly waiting for the sun to get less harsh to go to the beach. How bored was I: we would feed an ant to a sandpit and watch the antlion larva coming up to grab the ant. It was very crude, but back then, it was entertainment. The beach back then was so shallow and smooth, that we would waddle out 100–200m. After the swim, time to be back for another meal. Night treat would include “lục tàu xá”, again, from a vendor chanting their treats while walking past our house.

The house was a big one, sitting at a corner right on the edge of the old town. Back then, Hội An was just a sleepy town with nothing interesting happening. Due to some family dispute, the house was sold, on the cheap.

Then Hội An became a booming tourist town. My mother wanted to buy the mansion back, but it was too late: it was already worth ten times the selling price. Instead, my mother jointly built a mini hotel, and my father was an incidental hotel manager. He loved and hated it in equal amount. He loved talking to tourists in French and English. Back then, the backpackers were tough bargainers: how much for a night? That would be USD15, sir. But we don’t need aircon, make it 12, and we have a deal. Stories like that stay with me. Now we just bargain with the faceless algorithms that set Airbnb prices. My father eventually reunited with somebody from France who was in the same primary school. Imagine that.

At another time, a Frenchman came to my father in a hurry.

“Monsieur, I need a suit. In three hours. C’est possible?”

My father turned and asked the village tailor. The tailor shook his head: impossible. Four hours, maybe.

“Four hours,” my father said. “Four at the earliest.”

“Mais non. In four hours I must be on the road to Huế.”

My father passed this on. The tailor didn’t blink. “No problem. Where will he stay in Huế? We’ll send someone to deliver.”

“He says: tell him your hotel in Huế. They’ll bring the suit to you.”

The Frenchman leaned in and lowered his voice. “Entre nous, monsieur. Can they really deliver? All the way to Huế?”

“Bien sûr,” said my father, and kept the real reason to himself: they had nothing else to do.

Rumours had it that that was the founding transaction of the fast tailored fashion of Hội An.

The joint venture did not work out, and our family broke the link with Hội An.

Now, taking my son to Hội An, I cannot help but feel strange. The tourist hotspot is very much different from what it was in my childhood. The house is now hosting multiple cafés, Bánh Mì Phượng, and the like. The lantern festival is a very recent one, no more simple night food market, very crowded now. Of course my son loves the festive feeling of the town, the fact that it is compact, walkable, with lots of things to see. As for myself, I did not love Hội An when I was a child, because it was boring. I do not love Hội An now, because I know a lot of things are just for show. And one day, in 2019, a street seller told me: “Anh tránh ra tí để em bán cho Tây”, move away please so that I can sell some trinkets to these foreigners. My fault: I spoke Vietnamese with a Hội An accent, so not the kind of customer she thought she could sell to.

So of course, I could not say I love Hội An. But deep down, I still care.