PhucKienphoto:^minzpeter,^ AdobeStock^ /Other^photos^ (5 )^bythe^ authorin the town of hoi an
on Vietnam’s central coast,
gazing out at the Thu Bon River
at night is like looking into an
oil painting. The dark, glossy
water ripples with reflections
of colored light from glowing
silk lanterns hanging nearly
everywhere — from the foot-
bridge crowded with pedestri-
ans, the rowboats carrying
chatting tourists, the façades
of Chinese shophouses and
the balconied French colonial
buildings lining the banks.
The lanterns are the hall-
mark of the city of 120,000 and
its exceptionally well-preserved
Ancient Town. They are also
a symbol of its transition over
500 years from a bustling com-
mercial port on the South China
Sea to a forgotten backwater
to one of Vietnam’s top tourism
destinations.
The lanterns are among tra-
ditional crafts in Hoi An, as are
the long tunic and pants known
as ao dai and bamboo basket
boats, which once were all inte-
gral elements of daily life and
culture; in recent decades, for
better or worse, they have
become merchandise for the
booming tourism trade.
“If you think about it, Hoi
An relies on tourism to live,”
says Patricia Clegg, a consul-
tant for Yaly Couture, one of
the city’s pioneering tailors.
“Before, a lot of people had to
leave Hoi An to work in Ho Chi
Minh [City] or wherever. Now
they stay here because there’s
opportunity.”
Quynh Trinh, who founded
Yaly, embodies that potential.
She was born in the early 1970s
and grew up as the country was
still suffering from the ravages
of war. In the 1980s, she learned
how to make the ao dai from the
fabric sellers in the local market.
That was around the same
time that preservationists start-
ed helping restore the city’s
unique fusion of Japanese,
Chinese, Vietnamese, and
European architectural styles;
this was after two centuries of
neglect, as Da Nang, about 20
miles north, overtook Hoi An
as the major regional port.
Their efforts resulted in
UNESCO World Heritage site
status in 1999 for Ancient Town,
which features ornate pagodas,
temples, and meeting halls.
Quynh had opened her first
tailor shop four years earlier,
making white ao dai mainly forstaff in the few restaurants in
town. But as increasing num-
bers of foreigners arrived,
wanting to buy traditional
clothing, she started to inno-
vate, designing the ao dai in
different colors and patterns.
She also learned how to
make men’s suits, Western
wedding dresses, and all sorts
of shirts, pants, and dresses that
tourists brought in to be dupli-
cated. “I thought, ‘Why do only
the souvenir garment?’ ” Quynhsays. She now has 380 tailors
and three shop locations,
including one large enough
for tour groups from the cruise
ships that dock in Da Nang.
For centuries, inhabitants
relied on fishing as their liveli-
hood, and one of the most
astonishing watercraft is the
round bamboo basket boat.
Fishermen still launch them
from the city’s beaches, but
the boats are most prevalent
on tributaries of the Thu Bonabove (2):
Vietnamese tourists
(left) pose wearing tra-
ditional ao dai. Quynh
Trinh (right), founder
of Yaly Couture,
employs nearly 400 tai-
lors in three locations
making ao dai as well as
men’s suits, Western
wedding dresses, and
other items.right:
Phuc Kien, shown here,
dates to the mid-1700s,
with ornate altars and
shrines. It’s part of
Ancient Town.66 american craft aug/sept 19