Chau Phu Communal House

In the heart of modern Châu Đốc stands an old communal house. It sits at the corner where Trần Hưng Đạo Street meets Nguyễn Văn Thoại Street. Its tiled roof is mossy with age, and inside rise 40 great wooden columns. Anyone walking past can glance in and see a space quite unlike the pace of life outside. This is the Châu Phú Communal House, Đình Châu Phú.

The Ministry of Culture ranked the communal house a national monument of architecture and art. The ranking came in Decision 1288, dated November 16, 1988. Sources differ on when the house was built. One account says Nguyễn Văn Thoại led the building of the house sometime from 1817 to 1829, and opinions on the exact date vary. The Đại Nam nhất thống chí records the house going up from about 1820 to 1828. That book is an official geography of the country, compiled by court historians of the Nguyễn dynasty. The Nguyễn were Vietnam's last royal dynasty. Tracing the detailed origins of the house is very hard. The old records do not fully set down its lineage, its list of honored spirits, or its legends.

The main figure worshipped here is Lễ Thành Hầu Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh. He was born in 1650 and died in 1700. He was a general under the Nguyễn lords, and he played an important part in the work of organizing the southern lands. The Nguyễn lords were a noble family who ruled southern Vietnam from the 16th to the 18th century. In 1698, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh traveled south on an official mission to the lands of Chân Lạp. Chân Lạp was the old Vietnamese name for the Khmer kingdom of Cambodia. There he set up the first two administrative divisions in the south, Phiên Trấn and Trấn Biên. They laid the foundation for the first administration in the new land. In 1852, long after his death, a royal decree of Emperor Tự Đức honored him. The decree is dated the 29th day of the 11th month. He had already received the noble title Lễ Thành Hầu in his lifetime. Besides Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, the main hall holds other altars. One honors the builder, Nguyễn Văn Thoại, who bore the title Thoại Ngọc Hầu. Another honors the spirits called Chánh phó Vệ Thủy, the chief and deputy guardians of the waters.

The architecture is one of the best reasons to look closely. The house is 16 meters wide and 40 meters long. The walls are brick laid in ô dước lime mortar, under a roof of large and small tiles. The floor is patterned tile, and the columns are căm xe and cà chất wood. Inside, 40 great columns stand in four rows. Then there is the decoration within. There are horizontal inscribed boards, paired panels of verse, and carved wooden screens, all in red lacquer and gold. The carvings show the Eight Immortals, the four sacred creatures, birds and beasts, flowers and leaves, and dragons that carry the mark of the Nguyễn era. They are the work of skilled craftsmen. They reflect the art of the traditional village communal houses of the south.

The house that stands today is bound up with a story worth remembering. In 1926, the French authorities chose the site of the old communal house to build the Châu Đốc hospital. Huỳnh Thị Phú and the village notable Hương chủ Lan rallied the people to give what they could. With that help, the house was moved to its present site and rebuilt. Without the community joining hands that year, it might have vanished. So the 40 wooden columns here today hold up more than a tiled roof. They also hold up the goodwill of the people of that year, who gave together so that the house could have a new place to stand.

There is one more piece of history. In 1978, during the war on Vietnam's southwestern border, a shell fired by the forces of Pol Pot damaged the rear ridge of the roof. The people of the area repaired it soon afterward. The communal house lived through war and still stands. Its mended roof keeps a memory the whole community shares, through many hard times. It is a reminder that this house has never had to stand alone.

Every year, the house holds the Kỳ Yên festival in the fifth lunar month. Kỳ Yên is a communal house festival that welcomes the spirits and prays for peace and good fortune. Here it honors Lễ Thành Hầu Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh and asks for a life of plenty and happiness. At festival time, the living faith of the people of Châu Đốc fills the house. It ties straight back to what the house has kept for about 200 years.

Forty wooden columns stand darkened by time. Above them, carved dragons and the four sacred creatures keep their red and gold beneath the old tiled roof. They show why the people of Châu Đốc hold this house so dear. A new land became home before anyone quite noticed, and people held on to it with their own hands.