Ho Quyen and Voi Re Temple

One morning long ago, the legend goes, an elephant came running to a spot beside the Perfume River. It had come hundreds of miles from a battlefield. It let out a single roar that filled the sky, then fell and breathed its last. The animal had run all that way to die here, where its general had once lived.

Years later, the story reached Emperor Gia Long, the founder of the Nguyễn dynasty. He ordered a temple built on that very spot to honor the loyal war elephant. Its formal name is Long Châu Miếu, which means the shrine of the dragon's pearl. People call it Điện Voi Ré, the Temple of the Screaming Elephant. The name recalls the animal's grieving cry, the scream that rang across the sky before it died.

The temple stands 400 meters from a second site, the Hổ Quyền arena. Together the two tell one story about the elephant in the world of the Nguyễn court.

Điện Voi Ré honors neither the Buddha nor the Mother Goddess. It honors guardian spirits and the bravest war elephants, and that is rare in Vietnamese belief. It reflects a culture that prized the loyalty of elephants to people, a regard special to the Nguyễn court. The court kept an elephant corps at the capital. Many of its war elephants died in battle. The temple is a place to remember the elephants and to thank them.

Hổ Quyền is the only arena for elephant and tiger fights still standing anywhere in the world.

Not one of several such arenas. The only one, in the whole world.

The Colosseum in Rome is the famous arena built in the 1st century. It held tens of thousands of people, and there gladiators fought wild beasts. Many arenas like the Colosseum survive across Europe. But an arena for elephants and tigers like Hổ Quyền exists in just one place, and it is here.

Hổ Quyền was built in 1830 under Emperor Minh Mạng. It is shaped like a ring, much like the Colosseum but far smaller. The outer ring measures 145 meters around. The arena floor is 44 meters across. The inner wall rises 5.9 meters, straight up. The outer wall stands 4.75 meters high. It leans outward by 10 to 15 degrees to make the whole structure more stable.

Five openings are set into the wall. They are five tiger cages, three small and two large. Their doors were made of wood and worked by pulleys from above. The men who ran them sat safely overhead. When the emperor gave the order, a door opened and a tiger ran into the arena. The elephant was already waiting.

On the north side of the arena is the emperor's stand, higher than every other section. From there the emperor could see everything, completely safe behind a wall nearly 6 meters high. The mandarins sat in lower sections, arranged by Confucian rank. There was hierarchy even at a show.

The Nguyễn emperors had their reasons for staging these fights.

It was not simply entertainment. It was a chance to show power. Under the Nguyễn, the elephant stood for good and for the strength of the king. The tiger stood for evil. An elephant beating a tiger meant that evil could never defeat good.

But there is a telling detail. To make sure the elephant won, the tiger's claws were cut and its teeth pulled before it was let in. It was not a fair fight. The point was a show, not a real contest. The message had to be clear: the royal elephant always won.

Before Hổ Quyền was built, the fights were held in the open on Dã Viên islet in the middle of the Perfume River, with no wall around them. In 1750, Lord Nguyễn Phúc Khoát watched a great fight of 40 elephants against 18 tigers. He was the lord of Đàng Trong, the southern realm ruled by the Nguyễn lords in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the end, all 18 tigers were killed. Later, a tiger got loose and injured many spectators. So Emperor Minh Mạng decided to build Hổ Quyền in 1830, to give the fights a solid space that was safer for everyone.

The last fight took place in 1904 under Emperor Thành Thái. He quietly opposed the French. In 1907 the French deposed him. In 1916 they exiled him to the island of Reunion. After that, Hổ Quyền was left abandoned.

The two sites, Điện Voi Ré and Hổ Quyền, tell two sides of one story about the elephant. The temple honors an elephant loyal to its master until death. At the arena, an elephant defeats a tiger and affirms royal power. Together they show the special bond between people and elephants in the culture of Hue, the old imperial capital.

Inside Hổ Quyền today, the wind moves across the quiet walls of fired brick. It is easy to imagine the cheers of the court and the heavy tread of elephants on the earthen floor. And 400 meters away, Điện Voi Ré still keeps the cry of that loyal elephant, in the very name people gave the temple.