Huế and Hội An, Vietnam

Two old cities.

The Imperial City of Huế. This is sort of like the Forbidden City in Beijing. This was the capitol under the Nguyễn dynasty (Vietnamese: Nhà Nguyễn, chữ Nôm: 茹阮). Hey, wait a minute. What does Chữ Nôm mean? It means “Southern Characters”. During this time, Vietnamese was written in Chinese characters with Vietnamese extensions, so all of the text in or on these buildings uses those. The Latin-derived Vietnamese alphabet we see today was developed by a Portuguese missionary around 1620, but didn’t take over until the early 20th century.

Hội An is a nearby town with some history to it as well. It has a neighoborhood that was a Japanese trading post. You enter that part by crossing the Japanese Bridge.