Bridge Pagoda

On the back of the 20,000 dong note is a small bridge, its whole length covered by a tiled roof. It is Chùa Cầu, in the Old Town of Hoi An, and this little bridge holds three surprises. The pagoda here is not dedicated to the Buddha. It does not stand on the ground like other pagodas, either. It sits on the back of a wooden bridge. And the people of Hoi An are used to calling that bridge the Japanese Bridge.

A pagoda with no statue of the Buddha, on a bridge named after Japan, in the old quarter of a Vietnamese town. Yet every part of that is true. To understand why, the story has to go back 400 years.

The bridge is small. It is about 18 meters long and roughly 3 meters wide. It spans a small creek in the heart of the Old Town, and its main face looks out over the Hoài River. At an unhurried pace, the other bank is only a moment away. The whole bridge is covered by a roof of yin and yang tiles. The pagoda and the bridge are both made of wood, painted red and carved with many patterns. Along both sides of the deck runs a narrow walkway, where passersby once rested in the shade.

In the 17th century, Hoi An was a busy trading port, and merchant ships called from many lands. Japanese merchants set up a quarter of their own, and the Chinese had theirs too. The bridge joined the two quarters, so people could cross back and forth and goods could move with ease. People still date the bridge to about 1593, when Japanese merchants built it. That is the traditional date, handed down over many generations. No written record has yet been found of exactly when the work began.

Then something happened far across the sea. In 1635, Japan issued the Sakoku edict and closed the country. The Japanese community in Hoi An slowly thinned, and one by one its people left. The old Japanese quarter faded away. Only the bridge stayed. Today, in an Old Town crowded with old houses, Chùa Cầu is the only surviving structure considered to have Japanese roots.

Now to the pagoda. In 1653, people added a small pagoda, joined to the northern railing and jutting out from the middle of the bridge. From then on, the people called the whole bridge Chùa Cầu, the Bridge Pagoda. Yet step inside and there is no statue of the Buddha. The shrine honors Bắc Đế Trấn Vũ, a guardian deity of the land in folk belief and Taoism. The people of Hoi An simply got used to calling it a pagoda, and the name has stayed with the bridge for centuries.

The reason the bridge was built on this very spot lies in legend. An old tale tells of a giant water monster beneath the earth. The Japanese call it Namazu. Its head lay as far away as India, and its tail reached all the way to Japan. Its back stretched right across the place where Hoi An stands. Each time the creature turned over, the earth shook and the water rose. In Hoi An, people also call it the Cù. The legend says the bridge was raised right on the creature's back, like a pin to hold it still. That is only a folk tale. Still, standing on the bridge and looking down at the water, anyone can feel the deck grow a little steadier.

At the two ends of the bridge stand two pairs of very special guards. At the western end are two monkeys, which the people call Thần Hầu. At the eastern end are two dogs, called Linh Cẩu. The statues look as if they were cut from stone. In fact they are carved wood, painted gray. The best-known folk explanation for the monkeys and dogs is about time. The bridge was begun in a year of the Monkey and finished in a year of the Dog. So those two animals of the zodiac were set to guard the two ends, each in a pair.

The bridge was still waiting for one more name. In 1719, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu visited Hoi An. He was one of the Nguyễn lords, a noble family who ruled southern Vietnam from the 16th to the 18th century. He gave the bridge a formal name, Lai Viễn Kiều, which means the bridge that welcomes guests from afar. A large board carved in relief with those three Chinese characters was hung right above the main entrance, and it is still there today. One small bridge, and it carries three names. The Japanese Bridge, for the people who built it. Chùa Cầu, for the pagoda on its back. Lai Viễn Kiều, for the guests it has welcomed. Its design, too, blends Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese styles in one small space.

Wood does not stand forever against rain, sun and floods. From 1763 to 1996, the bridge was repaired at least seven times. The most recent major restoration began at the end of 2022. It lasted more than 19 months and cost more than 20 billion dong. The bridge reopened on August 3, 2024. Nearly six tenths of the old timber was kept, along with most of the old decorative plates, and set back in their places. The wooden parts kept the color they already had, with no fresh coat of paint to make them look new.

In February 1990, Chùa Cầu was listed as a national historic and cultural site. Since 2006, the image of the bridge has traveled to every corner of the country on the 20,000 dong note. Perhaps a great many Vietnamese have carried Chùa Cầu in their wallets without ever noticing.

On the face of the banknote, the little bridge looks quite ordinary. Few would guess that the pagoda on its back honors no Buddha but a guardian deity of the land. Or that the Japanese merchants who built it left centuries ago. Beneath the bridge, the water of the creek still flows quietly by. At the two ends, the wooden monkeys and wooden dogs still stand guard, as they have for generations. And above the entrance, the three characters of Lai Viễn Kiều are still there, welcoming one more guest from afar onto the bridge.