[ESSAY] “Shades of Huế” by Cheryl Chong
The heat has a strange way of blurring things in Huế. We glimpse rust-coloured shophouses and dusk-toned homes, most of them melding into a haze as our chartered car nears the city centre.
Our driver, Hoang, is a baby-faced Vietnamese man in his early thirties who looks puzzled when we mention that “we wanted to visit Hue for the Imperial City”. We correct ourselves and say, “Not Hue, but Huế.” There is a small sting in getting a place’s name wrong before you have properly arrived, as though the correction marks you as merely passing through rather than being truly present.
Our hotel is next to the Vincom Plaza, a glass-and-steel-clad monolith distinguished by its precise geometric lines. The building sits uneasily amidst the low-rise residences and shophouses with their timber beams and tiled roofs. Far from being unique, it is one of ninety towers that sprang up from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, built by a conglomerate whose founder first ran a Ukrainian instant-noodle company years ago before returning home to reshape the complexion of Vietnamese cities, one mall at a time. The hotel room itself is just as curious, with an ornate ceiling fan that ticks with each rotation, while the air conditioning works silently against the thickening afternoon heat.
We change into cooler clothing, planning to take a slow stroll towards the Perfume River for dinner. While hoping to stumble upon some alleyway laced with the earthy, umami aroma of bún bò Huế, a noodle soup, we watch the sky change colour. Droplets patter on tin roofs and pelt our faces, while the dusty scent of dry earth rises around us. The droplets swell into sheets of warm rain. We leap over puddles, helter-skelter, towards the hotel.
Outside, as the downpour rages on, Huế seems to change by the minute, swinging from oppressive humidity to sudden rain. Inside the Vincom, capitalism offers its usual consolations: the soft hum of V-pop, air conditioning, bright interiors, and fast-food restaurants, a world in which comforts are, at least, predictable. Digging into a plate of Jollibee spaghetti, I feel embarrassed by my relief at the familiar tang of overly sweet tomato sauce, as though a part of me prefers to observe how picturesque the rain is from a distance rather than stand in it.
The rain has passed by early morning, although the Imperial City we walk into the next day seems to hold traces of it: a moat of murky green circles its fortified stone walls, its broad perimeter woven into the citadel itself. With a series of sprawling gardens, halls, and temples, its layout consists of nested squares and water everywhere: lakes and ponds, with the faint hiss and trickle of rivulets threading their way across a courtyard. These bodies of water bear the same grey tinge as the overcast sky, their surfaces mirroring the clouds above while remaining almost motionless. But beneath their stillness lies the old, steadfast logic of imperial-era Huế: canals carry water through the Imperial City, sluice gates manage its ebb and flow, and lakes gather what the monsoon rains have brought.
That same water went quiet for a while in 1968, when the Imperial City became one of the battlegrounds of the Vietnam War. Having fallen into enemy hands, it had to be retaken wall by wall, room by room, before the water was allowed to flow again. I begin thinking of Huế’s monuments differently: as wounded and dressed, with their residual scars patched over again and again. Their walls have not simply weathered or faded. They have had to be rebuilt, with roofs restored under a UNESCO effort that began after the Imperial City was named a World Heritage Site. Decay is a form of movement, but so is repair; both are ways in which a place stays alive.
Outside the Imperial City, a slight drizzle breaks the lull. Roof tiles and concrete pavements darken to deeper shades, while the streets are briefly transformed. Motorcycles ease in and out of one another’s slipstreams on the slick roads. Keeping a watchful eye out for the re-emergence of the sun, shopkeepers whisk rainwater away in the same practised manner as the masons and workers within the Imperial City, sweeping water from the structures they intend to preserve. The city seems to pause, holding its breath for a moment.
We decide to have coffee at one of the nearby cafés, which offers a good view of the street. The sun breaks through, and with it, the city moves again. Plastic stools are pulled apart like Lego bricks and scattered, still damp to the touch. Awnings are peeled back for food carts to resume their business, perhaps some serving bún bò Huế, although we never find out. Shopfronts spill onto pavements. Parked motorcycles jostle for space with stools, carts, and vendors unpacking their supplies. Everywhere, things are briskly opened, unfolded, wheeled out, set down. A querulous voice rings out, a shrill demand rising above the low rumble of motorcycles and the scraping of stools.
We set down our drinks and return to Hoang’s car. Glancing out of the window, I think about how the canals hold their shadows until the rains come; the stools and awnings stay folded until the sun returns to unfurl them. We had expected something as immutable as the citadel’s ramparts, but found instead a city that was never quite finished, never the same shade twice.
The Vincom Plaza
How to cite: Chong, Cheryl. “Shades of Huế.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 25 Aug. 2026. chajournal.com/2026/08/25/shades.
Cheryl Chong is a Singapore-based writer whose work explores place, memory and the textures of everyday life. She holds a BA (Hons) in English Literature from the National University of Singapore and spent nearly two decades working in public policy and planning before turning to writing full-time. Her work has been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore.