Ky Lua Market

Few market quarters in Vietnam can say their history began with leveling hills and opening seven roads. The one at Kỳ Lừa, in Lạng Sơn, can.

Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam.

The story starts in the 17th century with a man named Thân Công Tài. The Lê court gave him the title Hán quận công. It sent him to govern the land of Lạng Sơn, a strategic post on the border with China. He leveled hills, cut into mountains, opened seven roads and founded the market quarter of Kỳ Lừa. He did this together with Vi Đức Thắng, who held the title Vũ quận công.

His aim was a trading center on the frontier, where people of Vietnam and China could meet to do business, safely and under proper management. The quarter drew Chinese traders from across the border, who came to make a living there. One stele in the Tả Phủ Temple, raised in 1683, carries the words Lưỡng quốc khách nhân, which means guests of the two countries. It is a clear record that Kỳ Lừa was a place of international trade even then.

The roads Thân Công Tài opened still have names in the heart of Lạng Sơn today. His old streets now match streets called Kỳ Lừa and Thân Công Tài. Two more are Thân Cảnh Phúc and Ngô Văn Sở. Another two are Phai Món and Lương Văn Tri. The last is Bắc Sơn Road. Street names change, but the layout he left behind is still the backbone of this part of town.

Kỳ Lừa was never only a place of trade. It was once the main market of Lạng Sơn, a place to buy and sell, and also a place where peoples met and shared their cultures. These peoples were the Nùng, the Tày, the Kinh, the Dao and the Hoa.

The Tày and the Nùng are two peoples of northern Vietnam with closely related languages and similar cultures. The Kinh are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam. The Hoa are an ethnic group of Vietnam, made up of Vietnamese citizens of Chinese ancestry.

Five peoples appeared together in one market space. It was a small picture of how varied the population is along the border.

The market meets by session. There are six sessions a month, so a session comes every five days. On a session day the pace of the market is quite different from an ordinary day. People pour in from the villages around, the goods are more varied, and many languages crowd into the air.

In 1996 the market was newly built, on an area of about 2,700 square meters. It took the name Kỳ Lừa Night Market.

A walk of about 90 meters from the market leads to the Tả Phủ Temple. It is the place where Thân Công Tài is worshiped, and it is tied to the whole story of how the market quarter came to be. The temple was ranked as a national monument in 1993.

Every year the temple holds the Tả Phủ Kỳ Lừa festival, from the 22nd to the 27th day of the first lunar month. Its high point is the Đầu Pháo festival on the 27th. Since 2015 the Đầu Pháo festival has been recognized as national intangible cultural heritage.

Today the market quarter also has a walking street. On weekend evenings the roads around the market fill with cultural activities, folk games and music and song. The quarter is still used as a shared cultural space, much as Thân Công Tài imagined it 400 years ago.

In the middle of the market there is more to hear than to buy. Goods are laid out each seller's own way, and buyers and sellers bargain good-naturedly. The five languages of the Nùng, Tày, Kinh, Dao and Hoa weave together in the air. A short walk away, the Tả Phủ Temple looks quietly out over the street, where incense smoke mingles with the cries of vendors and with laughter.

Four centuries ago, a man of vision cut into hills to build this place. Today every session at Kỳ Lừa is still as lively as he imagined, a corner of the frontier where two countries, five peoples and four centuries meet in one market morning.