Truong Tien Bridge

An old Hue folk verse goes:

Trường Tiền Bridge, six sections and twelve spans. I try to follow you, but I cannot keep up. Pity me, my love.

In Hue, everyone learns that verse by heart as a child. A bridge of iron and steel has found its way into folk song, and into the heart of a whole region.

And yet something is odd. Anyone who stands on the bank of the Perfume River and counts on their fingers gets only to six. Six curved steel spans link one to the next across the water, not twelve. Half of the twelve spans in the verse seem to be missing. That small riddle can wait for now. The story begins more than one hundred years ago.

In 1897, the French opened a competition to choose who would design and build a bridge across the Perfume River. Many people still believe it was Gustave Eiffel. The name Eiffel will sound familiar, because the company that bore his name built the Eiffel Tower in Paris. But that year the prize went to two other French firms, Schneider and Letellier. It was they who designed and built the bridge that spans the river in Hue. The Eiffel company came to the bridge only decades later, when it was called in to repair and widen it.

At the end of 1900, the bridge was opened, in the reign of Emperor Thành Thái of the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty. The royal court paid 190,000 Indochinese piastres, and the French helped with the rest.

Now take a closer look. The bridge has six comb-shaped spans of steel girders. From a distance, the six spans curve like six combs that some skillful hand has set end to end on the river. Each span is 67 meters long. Joined together, the six spans make a bridge 402.6 meters long and 6 meters wide.

When the bridge first opened, its deck was laid with ironwood, a very hard timber that resists rot. A few years later, that wood was replaced with concrete. The bridge follows the Western Gothic style, with graceful curved steel arches. It was one of the first bridges in Indochina built with a steel structure using Western techniques.

Now back to that small riddle. People who know the bridge well explain that it has six spans, while its steel sections are joined in six pairs, twelve sections in all. Perhaps to make the verse flow and rhyme, the folk song quietly swapped the two numbers, making six sections and twelve spans.

The bridge has carried four names.

When it was first built, it was named after Thành Thái, the emperor then on the throne. Later, the French renamed it the Clemenceau Bridge, after a Prime Minister of France. In 1945, it was renamed the Nguyễn Hoàng Bridge. And since 1975, its official name has been Trường Tiền. Four names, like four coats the bridge has worn, one era after another.

The name Trường Tiền comes from a street. In 1899, Emperor Thành Thái gave that name to a street near the royal mint of the Nguyễn court. Trường Tiền means a mint, a place where coins are cast. The bridge stood at the head of that street, so it took the same name.

But this gentle bridge has lived through some fierce days. It has been wrecked no fewer than three times.

The first time was in 1904, when the bridge was not yet four years old. A great storm swept through and damaged it badly. People mended it and set it back on its feet.

The second time was on December 19, 1946, the day President Hồ Chí Minh called on the whole nation to resist. In Hue, the blow came from the Việt Minh, the organization that led the struggle for Vietnamese independence from French rule. They brought down the spans on the left bank to stop French troops from advancing on the citadel. In 1948, the bridge was patched up for a time. Only five or six years later was it fully restored to its old form.

The third time came in the fighting of Tết Mậu Thân, the Lunar New Year of 1968. It was one of the events that shook the history of Vietnam. The Liberation Army held the old capital of Hue for nearly a month. Then South Vietnamese and American troops counterattacked from the south bank of the Perfume River. To stop their advance, the third pier and the fourth span of the bridge were mined and blown up. The bridge broke in two. Afterward, a pontoon bridge joined the two banks for the time being. In 1969, the bridge itself was patched back together.

A storm, then war, then war again. And still the bridge would not leave the river.

After nearly one hundred years of hardship, the bridge was given a major restoration, from 1991 to 1995. No one built a new bridge. The restorers kept its old shape, so the six comb-shaped steel spans could stand firm across the river once more.

After 2002, the bridge gained a system of color-changing lights. As the sky over Hue darkens, the steel arches begin to glow. Blue, red, yellow, purple: colors of every kind take turns washing over the six spans. Their reflections shimmer on the surface of the Perfume River.

Midway across the bridge, the view opens on every side. Upstream to the west stand the Imperial City and the Phu Văn Lâu pavilion. Downstream to the north lies the islet of Cồn Hến, home of cơm hến, a specialty of Hue. Below the bridge, dragon boats drift slowly on the water.

At nightfall, on the bank of the Perfume River, it is worth counting once more. Six arches of light shine on the bridge. Six more arches of light lie on the water, trembling with every ripple. Six above, six below, twelve in all. The river slips quietly past the piers, as it has through so many seasons of sun and rain. And in the heart of whoever stands watching, the old verse sounds softly once more: Trường Tiền Bridge, six sections and twelve spans.