Phu Tay Ho Shrine

Wind off West Lake stirs the old longan tree at the gate of the shrine. Incense burns in the main hall, and its scent reaches the courtyard. Behind the shrine, the water of the lake glitters.

Phủ Tây Hồ stands in Quảng An, in Hanoi, on a small peninsula that juts out into West Lake. Water wraps around it on three sides. That sets the shrine apart from the streets, close to the center and yet quietly its own. The lane narrows as it nears the shrine. The old longan tree casts its shade, and ahead stands the Tam Quan gate.

According to the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, the shrine honors Mother Liễu Hạnh, one of the Four Immortals of Vietnamese folk belief. Tản Viên Sơn Thánh and Saint Gióng are two of them. Chử Đồng Tử is a third. The fourth is Mother Liễu Hạnh herself. Her worship is part of the worship of the Mother Goddesses of Three Realms, a traditional Vietnamese belief. She belongs to folk belief, not to verified history. Tradition says the shrine was built around the 17th century.

On February 13, 1996, the Ministry of Culture recognized Phủ Tây Hồ as a national historical and cultural relic. Twenty years later, on December 1, 2016, UNESCO's Intergovernmental Committee held its 11th session in Addis Ababa. There the practice of worshipping the Mother Goddesses of Three Realms, as followed by the Vietnamese, was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. That list is for living traditions, passed on from one generation to the next. The inscribed practice is a form of belief that joins the native beliefs of the Vietnamese with some elements of Taoism and Buddhism.

The shrine is a cluster of buildings. The Tam Quan gate stands at the outer edge and the main hall at the center. Sơn Trang Hall, Lầu Cô and Lầu Cậu are smaller buildings. The Tam Quan gate has two levels. At the middle of its roof, three characters are carved: Tây Hồ hiển tích. Inside the inner hall are many hanging boards, paired verses, bronze bells and statues of many sizes.

The main festivals of the shrine fall twice a year, on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month and on the 13th day of the 8th lunar month. These are the times when the most people come to worship. On ordinary days, visitors from near and far still come to perform the rites, and the place is much quieter.

From the embankment behind the shrine, the view across West Lake explains why this place has drawn the people of Hanoi through many generations. A small peninsula in the middle of a great lake. Incense smoke mingling with the sound of bronze bells. The water glimmering far away. The busy city is still hurrying along somewhere out there, but in this small space, time seems to slow down.