Layers of meaning

Hà Nội has 36 old streets and guilds

In Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud likened the human mind to his favorite city, Rome. The mind, he wrote, contains layers invisible to consciousness just as the earlier layers of Roman civilization lay buried beneath the modern metropolis. Those buried streets and monuments represent our unconscious minds, he said, affecting our beliefs and feelings even though they can no longer be seen.

Had Freud visited Hà Nội’s Old Quarter, he might have been forced to modify his theories: here, though much doubtless lies buried beneath the busy streets, many of the older layers remain visible, available for our study and contemplation. What sort of picture of the mind would Freud have developed had he visited Hà Nội? It is an idle speculation, but one more thing, perhaps, to think about while walking the old streets, peering into the old houses and visiting the old temples. 

There is an old Vietnamese saying, “Hà Nội has 36 streets and guilds – Candy Street, Salt Street, Sugar Street…” Virtually every one knows the saying. However, few people notice that the number 36 has not always accurately reflected reality; in different historical periods, the Old Quarter has had a varying number of guilds associated with specific streets. Furthermore, the exact number of streets depends, to some extent, on how one counts, which is to say, how one interprets the historical record.

Actually, a “street” is different from a “guild.” During Lê Dynasty (15^th–18^th centuries), the term “guild” denoted an organization of those people working in the same trade, as well as a grassroots administrative zone of the old Thăng Long (Hà Nội) Citadel. The guilds tended to give the names of their trades to the streets where they did their business.

Illustration photo

According to historical records, the citadel in the Trần Dynasty (1225-1400) had 61 guilds; the figure was reduced to 36 in the Lê Dynasty. The Dư địa chí (Treatise on Geography) written by Nguyễn Trãi in 1438 says, “Thượng Kinh is the capital. It has one “phủ” (town) named Phụng Thiên and two districts, Thọ Xương and Quảng Đức. Each district has 18 guilds.” Vũ trung tùy bút (Collection Written on Rainy Days) by Phạm Đình Hổ in the late 18^th century says, “Thăng Long Citadel is composed of 36 guilds.” So, during three centuries of the Lê era, we can assume that Thăng Long had 36 guilds. These guilds were of three kinds: agricultural, handicraft, and merchant.

The Dư địa chí by Nguyễn Trãi mentions several places located in present-day Hà Nội’s Old Quarter. He noted, for instance, that Hàng Đào Guild engaged in dying red silk and Hà Tân Guild (modern Hàng Buồm) in banking limestone. The streets generally retain their old names today, even though in most cases their original functions have shifted location or ceased to exist. Given Nguyễn Trãi’s remarks and other historical information, we can conjecture that Hà Nội’s Old Quarter began to come into being at the time King Lý Thái Tổ selected Thăng Long as the country’s capital in 1010 and we know it became a crowded and boisterous place after the 15^th century. The Dư địa chí also notes that at the time, the capital of Đại Việt (Great Việt) consisted of 36 guilds engaging in agricultural activities or handicrafts, thus the traditional phrase, “Hà Nội of 36 streets and guilds” known to every schoolchild and tourist with a guidebook.

Hà Nội by night

Many fold songs and poems allude to the traditional numbering of the streets at 36:

We stroll about the Dragon City (Thăng Long),

Noting that it has exactly 36 streets:

Basket, Silver, Hemp,

Sail, Tin, Sandal and Tray…

Or Thirty-six streets:

Paper, Silver, Perpendicular, Silk,

Where there are ladies and gentlemen,

And past Lathing is Hemp…

Though Hà Nội’s Old Quarter has a 500-year history, few building except some pagodas and communal houses remain that have the architectural style of the Lê Dynasty. Most of the houses and shops were built of bricks, so they failed to survive the destruction of time. Even where brick structures have survived, their wooden stairs, doors and window frames, damaged by weather and termites, are not original. Most of the houses modern visitors see in the Old Quarter were built at the end of the 19^th century. But since many of them were erected on their former foundations, they continue to exhibit many architectural characteristics of the buildings that preceded them.

The most distinctive of such characteristics, at least for domestic architecture, is the so-called “tube house”, whose long, narrow structure is the result of both a lack of space within the precincts of the old city and a tax placed by the imperial government of the frontage of shops – a tax calculated by width. These dwellings, which no doubt evolved from early market stalls, are often only 2 to 3 m wide, but they can be 50 to 100 m long. Some houses have frontage on two parallel streets! In the old days, each house would have been occupied by one extended family, but modern times have forced the residents of the Old Quarter to sub-divide the old tube house and now it is common for a family of four to live in a space of 15 to 20 square meters. The portrait studio at 51 Hàng Đào retains many qualities of the older buildings – a visitor can get a feel for the way things were a hundred years ago by peering into this shop. Those deeply interested in architecture might even consider having their portrait drawn in order to have a better look.

All of the long narrow houses would have had interior courtyards in the old days, though many of these have now been covered over and used for storage or even as living quarter. Though small, these courtyards would have provided light and air, as well as a quiet place away from the street for the elderly members of the family to sit and drink tea, cultivate ornamental plants, or raise pet birds and fish. Most of that has been brushed aside with the population explosion – now every square meter is used for commercial purposes or to house the families of the merchants of the Quarter.

There are also a number of temples such as Bạch Mã (located on Hàng Buồm) that date to an earlier period and predate even the old guilds. Bạch Mã, for instance, has foundations from the 9^th century and is dedicated to the white horse said to have shown King Lý Thái Tổ the correct position for the walls of his citadel, which had previously had a habit of collapsing.

Old house at 64 Mã Mây Street

In addition to influencing domestic architecture, the old guild system also contributed distinctive public buildings to the Old Quarter. Mostly, these would have been communal houses for the various clans that had moved in from the countryside, and temples. Guild members invariably built temples to commemorate the founder of their trade or craft and many of these can still be seen by visitors to the Quarter. There is a đình or communal house at 64 Mã Mây Street that retains its original features.

Mã Mây presents, in fact, a very interesting architectural tour and all by itself. In addition to the đình there is the beautifully restored house at No. 87, which is now open to the public. Picking one’s way among the peddlers and motorbikes and the increasing number of automobiles, the careful and observant pedestrian can discern the many layers of architecture that make up the Old Quarter today – from ancient temples to tube houses (some still retaining their single storeyed fronts with red tile roofs), to the more ostentatious buildings of the French colonial period. The twentieth century, now past, has also left its characteristic styles, from Soviet style modernism to the elaborate faux French facades of the early đổi mới period, to what might be called the “boutique architecture” of the 1990s, with its slick stone and expanses of glass.

In Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud likened the human mind to his favorite city, Rome. The mind, he wrote, contains layers invisible to consciousness just as the earlier layers of Roman civilization lay buried beneath the modern metropolis. Those buried streets and monuments represent our unconscious minds, he said, affecting our beliefs and feelings even though they can no longer be seen. Had Freud visited Hà Nội’s Old Quarter, he might have been forced to modify his theories: here, though much doubtless lies buried beneath the busy streets, many of the older layers remain visible, available for our study and contemplation. What sort of picture of the mind would Freud have developed had he visited Hà Nội? It is an idle speculation, but one more thing, perhaps, to think about while walking the old streets, peering into the old houses and visiting the old temples. 

By Hàm Châu-Nguyễn Vinh Phúc