Con Market

In the early morning, while mist still hangs over the streets of Da Nang, Cồn Market is already loud. Familiar voices carry down every row of stalls. The smell of mì Quảng, a rice-noodle dish of central Vietnam, mingles with the smell of bread toasting and of fish just up from the landing. This is the real rhythm of life in Hải Châu, and in Da Nang as a whole.

Cồn is one of the biggest and best-known markets in the city. But calling it big is not enough. What sets it apart is that it sells more than goods. It keeps flavor. It keeps the way people in Da Nang name a bowl of noodles, and the way a customer steps up to a stall they know. It keeps the way a seller looks at a shopper and knows at once what that shopper wants today.

In Da Nang, the morning meal before work usually begins at Cồn Market. There is mì Quảng. Then comes bún mắm, a soup of rice noodles with fermented fish. Next are bánh cuốn, rolls of thin rice batter, and cháo lòng, rice porridge served with pork offal. Last is bánh tráng cuốn thịt heo, rice paper rolled around pork. Each dish has its own history and its own way of being made, and its own seller who has kept the trade for many years. The name is the same, but every stall has a different secret. People who know the market can say which stall makes the sweeter broth, and which one adds a thicker slice of meat. They can also point to the stall where a whole neighborhood has sat down together for as long as anyone remembers.

No tourist map shows any of this.

To walk through Cồn Market is to walk through a book about how people in Da Nang live. The vegetable section is crowded in the morning with buyers and sellers. There are bunches of rau muống, stalks of lemongrass and fresh eggplants, all brought in from the outskirts. The dry section is quieter. It lays out every kind of mắm, dried food and spice that people far from Da Nang buy to take home. Among them is mắm cá cơm, fermented anchovies. There is ruốc from Hue, a fermented paste of tiny shrimp. And there is dried squid from the coast. The smell of each one is the smell of memory.

For people from Da Nang who live far away, a trip home usually includes at least one visit to the market. They do not go to buy anything in particular. They go to stand there. They go to hear the familiar greeting again, to watch the bargaining once more, to hold a bag of green guavas or a bunch of fragrant herbs, and to realize that this smell is like no other.

Cồn Market does not try to impress. It has no grand signboards and no entrance designed for visitors. It is simply itself, every day, from early morning until late afternoon. That is why stepping inside brings a rare feeling: a city that is not putting on a show, but simply living.

When people leave the market, the smell of mì Quảng is still there, clinging to clothes and hair and memory. Anyone who has stopped here will understand why people from Da Nang, wherever they go, still think of this place whenever they speak of the flavors of home.