From the historian's notes

Hoi An, 1633

Vietnam · Southeast Asia · March 1633 · spring (dry season)

What it was high

a prosperous river-port town: Japanese quarter with its own headman, larger Chinese quarter, seasonal swell of foreign crews when the trade winds servegrown from the 1570s-1600s under the Nguyen lords into central Vietnam's great port; the Japanese quarter dates from the red-seal-ship boom of the early 1600s

That year

• the sakoku squeeze begins: the 1633 edict restricts Japanese sailing abroad; within two years Japanese may not leave or return home at all — this quarter is about to become a community of permanent exiles, and does not know it edicts 1633-1639 highthe death sentence of the Nihonmachi as a living link to Japan
• the silk-for-silver exchange at its height: Japanese silver and copper for Quang Nam silk, with calambac aloeswood as the lords' precious monopoly good ongoing highthe port's entire reason for existing
• Jesuit missionaries are active in Đàng Trong in this decade, and in their houses Vietnamese is being written in Latin letters as a working experiment 1620s-1630s higha few desks; eventually a nation's script

Who held it high

Đại Việt under the Lê emperor in name; in fact the south (Đàng Trong) is ruled by the Nguyen lords from near Hue, at war with the Trịnh lords of the northLord Nguyen Phuc Nguyen, old and two years from death; a ruler who has courted Japanese trade for decades, even marrying a daughter into itwar with the north resumed in the 1620s and campaigns continue; more fatally for this town, the shogun's first sakoku edict is issued in Japan THIS YEAR — the vise on the red-seal trade that feeds the Japanese quarter has begun to close

Its name medium

Hoi An (Hội An, 會安); foreign traders and mission letters say 'Faifo'Written in chữ Hán (classical Chinese) for record; chữ Nôm for the vernacular; and — being invented in mission houses this very decade — the Latin-letter Vietnamese that becomes quốc ngữ

The date, there medium

Đức Long era of the Lê calendar; Kan'ei 10 to the Japanese merchantsLê era-name dating with the sexagenary cycle; the Japanese quarter keeps Japanese era years (Kan'ei 10) in its own ledgersTemple drums and bells mark watches; the business day runs on tide and daylight; the year runs on monsoon — arrival and departure seasons rule all planning. In the Nihonmachi, Japanese hour-customs persist as homesickness.

Money medium

copper cash in strings; silver by weight for trade sumsthe individual cash coin; Japanese zeni circulate alongside Vietnamese issuesa ferry crossing or a bowl of noodles: a few cash — order of magnitude only

Weather medium

March: the kind month — dry, warm (high 20s C), rivers low and clear; the wet misery and typhoons belong to autumnthe Thu Bồn floods badly in the autumn rains most years — a seasonal fact locals plan around; in March it is only a watermark on posts

Things

Objectsstrings of cash — Vietnamese coins and imported Japanese zeni mixed; silver ingots weighed for silk; steelyard scales; aloeswood (calambac) in locked chests — worth more than its weight in silver; lacquer boxes, celadon and blue-white ceramics in transshipmentFoodrice, river fish, herbs in profusion; cao lầu-style noodle traditions are LATER lore — keep to generic rice noodles without the modern name; tropical fruit ending its dry-season best; tea in Chinese and Japanese styles by quarterClothQuang Nam silk in every stage — cocoon, thread, bale; cotton for daily wear; cross-collared robes (áo giao lĩnh) — NOT the áo dài, which is a later fashion; Japanese cottons and Chinese damasks in the shopsGetting aboutsampans and river ferries as the town's streets; ocean junks and the red-seal ships at the deep moorings; porters with shoulder poles; no wheels to speak ofIn the airriver mud and drying nets; incense coils from the temples; raw silk (a wet-animal smell people forget silk has); sandalwood and aloeswood when a chest opens

What she'd hear

Vietnamese in the streets, Hokkien in the biggest quarter, Japanese on one street of it, classical Chinese as the written bridge, Portuguese as the European trade tongue and mission language. Her Japanese cover means her accented Vietnamese needs no excuse — everyone in the Nihonmachi has one.

Where she could stand

• the Japanese bridge — the covered wooden bridge attributed to the Japanese community, joining their street toward the Chinese quarter
• the riverfront quays — junks, sampans, and — if the season is lucky — a red-seal ship loading silk
• the Japanese headman's street — the self-governing Nihonmachi: shophouses, ledgers in Japanese, a headman answerable to the Nguyen court
• a Chinese congregation temple — Fujianese merchants' temple-clubhouse with incense coils and shipping-god altars
• a silk godown at weighing hour — bales, steelyards, silver being assayed

Researched for this card · confidence medium-high