Ong Temple in Can Tho

Three minutes' walk from Ninh Kiều Wharf, a bright red and yellow building stands in the middle of Cần Thơ. From outside, it is easy to take it for a Buddhist pagoda. But it is not one. This is Quảng Triệu Hội Quán. Chinese settlers from Guangdong province in China built it more than 130 years ago. They wanted a place for their community to gather, and a place to worship their guardian god in a new land.

People in Cần Thơ know it as Chùa Ông. The Ông in that name is Quan Công, a famous general of the Three Kingdoms period in China. He lived in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries. In Chinese he is called Guan Yu, and he was later worshipped as a god of war. But Quảng Triệu Hội Quán is the official name, and it holds a whole story of migration.

The Quảng in the name stands for Quảng Châu, the city of Guangzhou. Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong province in southern China. The Triệu stands for Triệu Khánh, the city of Zhaoqing. It is another city of Guangdong, close to Guangzhou. Hội Quán means a meeting place. So the full name means the assembly hall of the Chinese who came from Guangzhou and Zhaoqing.

Chinese settlers came to Cần Thơ long ago. Groups from Guangzhou and Zhaoqing followed the waves of migration to Trấn Giang, the old name for Cần Thơ, from around the 17th and 18th centuries. The Mekong Delta was opening up at the time. It became good land for people set on hard work.

The Chinese community of Cần Thơ was never a single block. It was divided into five groups by home region: Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka and Hainanese. Each group had its own assembly hall and worshipped its own guardian god. Quảng Triệu Hội Quán belonged to the Cantonese.

Work on the hall began in 1894. That was the 20th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu, of the Qing dynasty. The hall was finished two years later, in 1896. Most of the building materials were shipped straight from Guangdong: wooden columns, stone column bases, glazed tiles, and even a bronze bell. Each of these pieces is carved with the year 1896. The carvings also mark the overseas Chinese donors who joined hands to raise this shared home.

Inside, the first thing to notice is the floor plan. The hall is built in the shape of the character Quốc, which in Chinese means a country. That character has four closed sides and a space in the middle. In the building, this becomes four wings closed all around, with an open courtyard in the middle. The courtyard is called thiên tỉnh, which means a well of sky. It does three jobs: it lets in light, lets air move through, and catches rainwater. In Chinese feng shui, it also gathers energy and brings prosperity.

The building went up in three periods. The main hall is the oldest part. Later, the son of the man who built the main hall added the guest house. Then in 1931, another donor, named Dương Lập Cang, added the kitchen. One shared roof holds the work of three periods and many generations. It is the picture of a community that endures.

At the heart of the hall is the main sanctuary, dedicated to Quan Thánh Đế Quân, which is to say Quan Công. His wooden statue sits at the center of the sanctuary, with a red face, a long five-tufted beard and a green robe. Two generals from the Three Kingdoms novel stand beside him. In that novel, Quan Bình, on the right, is his adopted son. Châu Thương, on the left, is his loyal bodyguard.

Chinese merchants worship Quan Công for a deep reason. He is famous for loyalty and righteousness. He never betrayed his lord, however harsh his circumstances. In the tradition of Chinese merchants overseas, he stands for keeping one's word in contracts and in business. Many Chinese shops have a small altar with a statue of him. This hall is the shared altar of the whole community.

Besides Quan Công, the hall honors four other gods. Thiên Hậu Thánh Mẫu is a goddess of the sea who protects fishermen and merchant ships. She was especially important to the Chinese who crossed the sea to settle here. Ông Bổn is the patron god of Chinese communities overseas. Địa Tạng Vương Bồ Tát is a bodhisattva of Buddhism. And Thần Tài, the god of wealth, could never be missing from the faith of a trading community.

This is typical of the faith of the overseas Chinese: many gods, blending Taoism, Buddhism and folk religion. In Vietnamese, the word chùa is very broad. It covers communal houses, shrines and assembly halls, as well as true Buddhist pagodas. That is why people call this place Chùa Ông. In truth it is an assembly hall and a temple to many gods, not a Buddhist pagoda in the narrow sense.

On June 21, 1993, the Ministry of Culture recognized Chùa Ông as a national monument of architecture and art.

The Cantonese community of Cần Thơ still keeps the hall today. Each year, two days are awaited. The first is the memorial festival of Ông Bổn, on the 15th day of the third lunar month. The second is the feast day of Quan Thánh Đế, on the 24th day of the sixth lunar month. On that day, people bring vegetarian dishes, fruit and incense.

The red, yellow and green of the hall still glow among the city streets. They carry the story of people far from home, who kept their culture, their language and their faith for more than 130 years on the soil of Cần Thơ.