Hoi An and Hue - Architectural Renovation and Reconstruction

The Vietnamese, who are hurtling toward development - unfortunately mostly on recklessly driven motorbikes, are simultaneously expressing pride in the history embodied in old structures. In Hoi An, a seventeenth and eighteenth century trading port, TV aerials were ordered removed (this is a communistic country after all) and replaced with cable service.

The street environment of earlier centuries is restored even to the extent of banning motorbikes for certain hours each day.  Storefront which formerly housed trading businesses now host tourist shops and restaurants. Brides and grooms pose for wedding pictures, the brides in the traditional costume.

A traditional house owned by five generations houses a  demonstration of silk production, from worms to cocoons through spooning and weaving. We learned in a second such operation that that different types of silk emerge from different periods of boiling the cocoons. One hour produces raw silk, two a dull finish and three the smooth, shining service we associate with silk.

A striking structure is the 400-year-old "Japanese" bridge, originally built by Chinese.

In Hue, renovation and reconstruction is underway on a massive complex inspired by the Forbidden City in Beijing. Construction began in 1802, almost simultaneously with the Monroe House of the Arts Club of Washington. I occasionally reflect on the contrast of the United States in those years when Washington was a raw, muddy settlement struggling toward cityhood compared with the grandeur of European capitals.  At the same time the Vietnamese were developing an elaborate royal complex of reception halls, king and queen's palaces, administrative buildings, etc.

Ironically some of the complex's buildings were obliterated by bombing in the "American," as they call it, and French wars, but will be reconstructed.