Silk village – treasure of Hoi An

If you are fortunate enough to take in the splendor that is Hoi An ancient town in Quang Nam Province should not miss a new tour to Lang Lua (silk village) by QuangNamSilk Company at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street.

From an idea of an original Quang Nam people who has long time attached to silkworm and mulberry tree in Duy Xuyen Commune of Dai Loc District, the village was born to restore the culture of weaving fabric career and to provide tourists more knowledge on the history of this traditional career. Hoi An in the past was a port shipping silk to the world. Local people take pride of the place where the silk road on the sea took shape. The village is where tourists can get a glimpse into the making process of Quang Nam’s traditional silk and Cham people’s brocade cloths. Tourists to the venue can study 40 kinds of mulberry, ancient styles of looms and silkworm breeds, among others. “The Silk Village is where we preserve a precious collection of related items to the weaving fabric career and a collection of ruong houses (traditional houses in Quang Nam architectural styles). Additionally, we also make Quang Nam silks here,” said Le Thai Vu, director of QuangNamSilk Company. “For over ten years, I have put effort on collecting ruong houses nationwide, hundreds of years old mulberry kinds and ancient looms to equip for the village,” Vu added. Tourists can also admire a collection of old costumes by 54 ethnic minority people in Vietnam displayed in ancient houses there. Those who wish to have a tailored costume or eat traditional Quang Nam food like cao lau (a soup made with noodles, pork and greens), mi Quang (noodles in Quang Nam style) and com nieu (rice cooked in earthenware pot) can ask artisans at the village. Silk Village is located on the road leading to Hoi An ancient town. This tourist and cultural site is 30km away from Danang downtown to the Road 607. Tourists can take a 30-minute bus which costs them VND20,000 (around US$1) to get to the site. For further information, contact the QuangNamsilk at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, Tan An Ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, tel: (84-510) 392 1144

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300-year silk village amid Hoi An ancient town

VietNamNet Bridge - After a long time in oblivion, the silk village of more than 300 years old has suddenly revived in the old space, and it is now open for the discovery of domestic and foreign tourists in the hub of Hoi An.

Duy Xuyen silk village has been resumed at No. 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh, Hoi An, Quang Nam province to bring to tourists the miniature of a big trading port of over 300 years ago, which contributed to create the Vietnamese silk road on the sea.

This silk village used to be very famous. But there were periods of time it fell into oblivion because weavers could not find materials and sell their products. But now, thanks to the cooperation with the tourism sector, silk weaving artisans hope to maintain the famous silk village.

In another area, silkworms are bred by mulberry leaves from ancient mulberry trees of the ancient Champa people, in the high mountains of Quang Nam province. These silkworms will make yellow cocoons.

This material is only available in Duy Xuyen silk village.

Water in the pot must be 80 degrees Celsius so the silk cords will be smooth.

The village has about 10 artisans who both weave silk and introduce to tourists about how to make silk and the unique features of materials in Hoi An.

Champa silk is weaved by ancient looms, which are collected from various localities, to show the acculturation between Champa - Vietnam.

Not merely producing silk, artisans also make embroidery products, silk cloths, etc. as souvenirs for tourists.

The commemoration house displays 100 traditional costumes of 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. It is being extended to host visitors overnight to see silkworms eating mulberry leaves, making cocoons ... source:VNE

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One man’s quest to revive Hoi An tradition

Hoi An is no longer about just lanterns: an audacious businessman is trying to revive the town’s centuries-old tradition of silk production by creating a “silk village” with a million dollars of his own money. Le Thai Vu, director of the Quang Nam Silk Company, spent more than 20 years studying the silk-weaving industry, which he describes as “romantic,” before creating the village as a symbol of ancient rural Vietnam.

It opened to tourists in early August, offering an interesting and intimate insight into one of the country’s traditions. Vu, who has sunk more than VND20 billion (US$960,000) in the village, said it is yet just the first stage. He hopes to bring back a time when, 300 years ago, Hoi An was also a bustling port from where silk-valued as much as its Chinese counterpart in Japan and Southeast Asia – was shipped. He says he did not actually have to create anything, just revive the “golden” traditions. For the silk Vu spent a lot of time looking for seeds of the Cham mulberry tree which has become rare in Vietnam. He chose this variety since the tree is believed to make for the best silk in the country. There were several reasons silk from Quang Nam Province – in which Hoi An is situated – was chosen to offer to kings in the past, and one of the most important was the Cham mulberry tree. His efforts paid off when early this year he found a tree on a mountain in Que Son District. It had been there for very long, but locals did not realize its worth. They showed him 40 other trees in the area, each thought to be around 500 years old and some more than 10 meters tall. He uprooted all of them and planted them in the village. Old Cham women from Ninh Thuan Province, the home of Cham temples on the south-central coast, were employed to operate the looms there together with some younger women. The village’s main products are silk cloth and brocade pieces, the latter a typical garment worn by the Cham. Vu says the village is home to some precious silkworm varieties besides the Cham mulberry, but he hopes it will one day become more than just a mere museum. “It can grow into a silk production center, win back fame for Vietnamese silk which has for decades now lost out to Chinese products,” he says. Creating the village was like going through a course in advanced culture, ethnography, and architecture, he says. He read books, consulted leading architects and researchers about the structure of the ruong – the old wooden Vietnamese house – the looms used by the Cham in the area for more than 1,000 years, and those brought by the Kinh, the country’s predominant ethnic group, from the north. “Putting up the houses felt wonderful. “Each house is like a person. It needs to have its spirit and serves the same purpose as our ancestors once used it for. “I want to make modern people love the houses because Vietnamese houses are very beautiful.” The artisans live and work in the houses now. The 2.1-hectare village at 28 Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, 800 meters from the town center, is an amalgam of the Vietnamese and Cham cultures of the peoples who used to live there. Apart from the old houses are areca ranges, banana gardens and a main path bordering lotus ponds. Visitors are allowed to participate in different aspects of the silk-making process – like picking mulberry leaves from the garden to feed the cocoons. They can buy products from the village, rent silk costumes to put on and walk around, and see dozens of costumes from the early 1900s worn by the country’s 54 ethnic groups at a museum. They can listen to folk songs from of the region sung by young women working at their looms, and enjoy Asian and European buffets served from baskets on shoulder poles like in the past. Visitors are welcomed at the village gate by a small stall selling che, the popular sweet soup, and nearby is an altar house to worship Doan Quy Phi, a woman famous for developing silk-making and dyeing in the region 300 years ago. Vu hopes visitors could experience the same feelings that he himself has, explaining that the village changed him, making him mellow and serene. source: thanhniennews.com

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Hoi An Accommodation and Shopping

One shall find his accommodation options ranging from lowly affordable motel rooms as low as $8 per day to the world-class 6-star top-of-the-line allegedly-best-in Southeast-Asia Nam Hai resort nearby, which starts at a whooping $600. Vietnam may be small, but there will always be an extra bedroom for the staying- over guest. These days, the guests may well outnumber the homeowners however. True to its origin, Hoi An today still boasts a booming trade.
Of the things sold in town, there are only 3 different categories. First is souvenir, the second being clothing and the last is food, both western and Vietnamese. The souvenir is not something to write home about, since offerings are limited in diversity throughout the country. Hoi An is better known for its tailor shops, which mostly service personal bespoke orders. Tourists circulate rumor that people stay in this little sleepy town for entire weeks doing nothing, waiting just to have their shirts made to the perfect fit. Most designs are traditional Vietnamese in nature, with some offer contemporary twists and touches of foreign taste as well.

Coupled with the right prices, Hoi An is truly a shoppers’ paradise, one that dictates its western customers on a unique oriental sense of style. Paradox does not end. One imagines never being able to find western food in such a hardcore Vietnamese setting. That turns out not the case. Hoi An is home to multiple restaurants that serve big hearty American meals with only a small portion of the menu dedicated to local food. The locals prefer their sidewalk vendors to the many re-innovated house-turned-restaurants out there.

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Hoi An -The World Heritage

The ancient town of Hoi An, 30 km south of Danang, lies on the banks of the Thu Bon River. Occupied by early western traders, Hoi An was one of the major trading centers of Southeast Asia in the 16th century.
Hoi An has a distinct Chinese atmosphere with low, tile-roofed houses and narrow streets; the original structure of some of these streets still remains almost intact. All the houses were made of rare wood, decorated with lacquered boards and panels engraved with Chinese characters. Pillars were also carved with ornamental designs.

Tourists can visit the relics of the Sa Huynh and Cham cultures. They can also enjoy the beautiful scenery of the romantic Hoi An River, Cua Dai Beach, and Cham Island.

Over the last few years, Hoi An has become a very popular tourist destination in Vietnam.


Light Bright

NO FLUORESCENT LIGHTS. NO MOTORCYCLES. NO TELEVISION. ON THE 14TH DAY OF EACH LUNAR MONTH, THE RIVERSIDE TOWN OF HOI AN GIVES MODERN LIFE THE NIGHT OFF.

In a wood-fronted shops a woman in traditional dress sits at a desk, bathed in the light of a lantern made from a simple bamboo fish-trap. Outside, two old men are absorbed in a candlelit game of Chinese checkers. These scenes, straight out of the 19th century, still take place in Hoi An, a sleepy riverside town in the central province of Quang Nam.

Hoi An has long been a cultural crossroad. More than five centuries ago the Vietnamese nation of Dai Viet expanded its territory southwards, encroaching on the Indianized Kingdom of Champa, which covered much of what is now central Vietnam. Hoi An, located on the Hoai River, emerged when Japanese and Chinese traders built a commercial district there in the 16th century.

These diverse cultural influences remain visible today. Visitors will find Hoi An's Old Quarter lined with two-storey Chinese shops, their elaborately carved wooden facades and moss-covered tile roofs having withstood the ravages of more than 300 years of weather and warfare. These proud old buildings, which back onto the river, remind visitors of another era, when Hoi An's market was filled with wares from as far afield as India and Europe. Colourful guildhalls, founded by ethnic Chinese from Guangdong and Fujian provinces, stand quietly, a testament to the town's trading roots.

While Hoi An's old-fashioned charm is always visible, on the 14th of every lunar month modernity takes another step back. On these evenings the town turns off its street lamps and fluorescent lights, leaving the Old Quarter bathed in the warm glow of coloured silk, glass and paper lanterns. In ancient times, Vietnamese people made lamps out of shallow bowls filled with oil. Later, foreign traders introduced lanterns, ranging from round and hexagonal designs from China to diamond and star shaped ones from Japan.

Let there be light

When developing plans to preserve their town's ancient character, Hoi An residents decided to revive the practice of using coloured lanterns. Starting in the fall of 1998, one night each month is declared a "lantern festival". On the 14th day of each lunar month, residents on Tran Phu, Nguyen Thai Hoc, Le Loi and Bach Dang streets switch off their lights and hang cloth and paper lanterns on their porches and windows. Television sets, radios, street lights and neon lights are turned off.

In the ensuing quiet the streets of Hoi An are at their most romantic, the darkness broken only by jeweltoned lanterns in all manner of shapes and sizes.

Strolling through the lantern-lit streets is like walking into a fairytale. It is all the more picturesque since motor vehicles are banned from Hoi An's Old Quarter. On Trai Phu Street, stop at the beautifully preserved Faifo Restaurant to sample some traditional Chinese-style pastries. Or walk on to the Treated Café, where bamboo baskets, commonly used to wash rice, have been transformed into unique lanterns. These basket lamps are but one example of people's creativity as they experiment with new shapes and materials, including lights made from hollow bamboo tubes.

A Warm Glow

The 14th day of the lunar month is a Buddhist day of worship. Residents place offerings of food and incense on their ancestral altars and visit one of Hoi An's many pagodas. The scent of incense and the sounds of people singing add to the town's enchanted atmosphere. On these evenings, visitors will get a rare glimpse into another era. These nights are a welcome reminder of life's unexpected beauty.
Source:vietnamtourism.com

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Hoi An celebrated in HCMC

HCM CITY — A miniature Hoi An Town with its narrow streets, mossy roofs and centuries-old homes will be created during the Hoi An Culture Day to be organised in HCM City today.

The event starts at 4.30pm in HCM City's Ky Hoa 1 Tourist Park, 16A Le Hong Phong Street, District 10.

The beauty of Hoi An streets lit with colourful lanterns on the 14th and 15th days of every lunar month will be recreated, said Nguyen Su, a senior official of Hoi An Town.

Hoi An was one of Viet Nam's and Southeast Asia's most important and cosmopolitan ports from the 17th to 19th centuries, and its distinctive lanterns have been associated with the ancient town for centuries.

Photo and painting exhibitions featuring Hoi An's well-known Chua Cau (Pagoda Bridge), narrow streets lined with ancient, dark-wood houses and the tranquil Hoai River will be parts of the event.

Other activities will include presentations of Hoi An's culinary art, lantern making, chess games and performances of bai choi, a 1,000 year-old folk music tradition unique to the town.

"We want to offer images and culture of Hoi An to those who have not visited the town," Su said.

The event will wrap up tomorrow night with a concert featuring songs written by Hoi An composers and performed by more than 100 artists.

According to the Hoi An Tourism Department, the town received more than 1.2 million foreign and domestic visitors last year. Over 30,000 visited the town during recent Tet (the Lunar New Year) festival to enjoy its traditional celebrations. — VNS
Source: vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn

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Central Vietnam cities set for glitzy Lunar New Year

The central Vietnamese cities of Da Nang and Hoi An have lined up a slew of traditional cultural programs for the Lunar New Year.

In Da Nang, 29th March Park, where a community house will be built and floral arrangements made, will host a number of the main events including a drum festival, folk music performances, poetry night, and traditional fashion show.

Other events in the city will include a music and dance festival, water puppetry shows, dragon and lion dances, and acrobatics.

In Hoi An, a lantern festival is being held from January 17 to February 6, and it will feature a lantern making competition, the fourth of its kind, to honor the traditional craft.

The city's old streets and mysterious alleys are bathed in the light of lanterns.

There will also be a dancing and singing contest, fashion show, folk singing contest, martial arts festival, and fireworks performance.
By Dieu Hien, Thanh Nien News

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