That Phu Shrine Vinh Long

One building in the middle of Vĩnh Long goes by four names, and which one gets used depends on who is speaking and when.

People who come to make offerings call it Chùa Ông. The heritage records call it the Thất Phủ Shrine. The Fujian community calls it Vĩnh An Cung. Some tourism signs say Fujian Assembly Hall.

All four name one place: a national monument of architecture and art on Nguyễn Chí Thanh Street, in the city of Vĩnh Long.

The story begins outside the gate, with the origins of the place.

In the time of the Qing, many Chinese crossed the sea to make a living in Vietnam. The Qing was the dynasty then ruling China. They came from seven prefectures in the provinces of Trực Lệ, Fujian and Guangdong.

Four of the seven were Ninh Ba, Phước Châu, Chương Châu and Tuyền Châu. The other three were Quảng Châu, Triều Châu and Quỳnh Châu.

Together they formed the Thất Phủ Society and built a shrine to worship in common. In those days the Vĩnh Long market was a busy boat landing, and the settlers chose the mouth of the Long Hồ River for their assembly hall.

Under French rule, the Chinese community split. The people from Guangdong and Triều Châu left to found associations of their own.

The Fujian people who stayed rebuilt the shrine in 1872. They renamed it Vĩnh An Cung and made it the assembly hall of their own group.

Building and decoration ran from 1892 to 1909. A team of craftsmen came over from Fujian, led by a master builder named Hà Tạo.

The Ministry of Culture and Information gave the shrine its national rank in 1994.

Now to the roof and the front. The plan is the style called "nội công ngoại quốc". A front hall comes first, with the main hall behind it. An east wing and a west wing, the Đông sương and the Tây sương, stand on either side. Open courtyards that let in light link the buildings.

The Chinese community calls those courtyards thiên tĩnh. The houses that join the buildings are called hà cầu, like a bridge across a pond.

The roof is covered in yin and yang tiles, with green glazed tiles along the eaves. The eaves curve upward, and the middle bay rises higher than the bays on either side. The whole complex covers about 800 square meters.

Inside stand three main altars. In the middle is Quan Thánh Đế Quân, which is to say Quan Công. He was a Chinese general later worshipped as a god of war, and here he is the symbol of loyalty.

On the left is Thiên Hậu Thánh Mẫu, a Chinese goddess of the sea who protects those who travel by water and those far from home. On the right is Phước Đức Chánh Thần, god of the land and of wealth.

This trio is common in the Chinese assembly halls of southern Vietnam, and it mirrors what people far from home needed. They needed protection at sea, good land to settle on, and luck in business.

The woodwork in the inner hall stands out. The trusses, tie beams, main beams and brackets are all carved with elephants, lions, mythical lân, flowerpots and bunches of fruit.

Carved frames, horizontal boards and paired upright boards, all lacquered red and gilded, make the space dense with things to look at. The style is that of South China.

Local records preserve one more detail. The horizontal board reading "Quan Thánh Phu Tử" was once sent to the colonial fair in Marseille, France, in 1922, and it won a bronze medal.

A board of red lacquer and gold leaf, made in the land of Vĩnh Long, crossed the sea all the way to Europe to be honored.

Many people call this place Chùa Bà Thiên Hậu out of habit. That is not quite right. Thiên Hậu is worshipped here, but at one altar on the left, and not in a Lady's pagoda of her own.

This is the assembly hall of the Chinese community. The names that fit it best are Thất Phủ Shrine, Chùa Ông and Fujian Assembly Hall.

More than a century ago, Fujian people far from home would have sat here in the smoke of incense. They would have looked up at the elephants, lions and lân carved in wood, and prayed for a safe voyage by sea.

Today, under the curved roof of yin and yang tiles at the mouth of the Long Hồ River, that smoke still lingers, and the old prayers seem never to have gone out.