Down a narrow lane in Hanoi’s Dong Ngac village, Pham Van Lam is working in spite of the bitter cold. Lam is charged with mortaring the main gate of the village.

Down a narrow lane in Dong Ngac village on the outskirts of Hanoi, Pham Van Lam is working in spite of the bitter cold. Lam is charged with mortaring the main gate of the village. This is no trivial matter.

On the pillars I can see two vertical parallel sentences in Chinese scripts extolling the village’s intellectual and physical prowess – this is an academic village with a passion for martial arts. Back in feudal times the village contributed 25 royal doctors and thousands of inter-provincial competition-examination graduates to King’s government. Today, many high ranking officials in the governments and renowned academics were born in this village.

According to Pham Thi Minh, a 79-year old resident from the village, in the past royal officials couldn’t go through the village gate on horseback. “They had to get off and walk to show their respect to one of the most sacred symbols of the village,” says Minh.

As recently as 60 years ago, the gate used to have two wooden doors which were closed at night. In traditional Vietnamese villages the gate was often the only entry point. The village would be encircled by thick bamboo bushes.

For Vietnamese people, the image of the “village gate” is sacred. Behind the gate was a close knit community. The village was a separate economic, social and political entity and would have its own traditional regulations within its boundaries.

In the morning, the gate would be opened for buffaloes, bulls and villagers to amble outside to the rice fields or the market. In the afternoon, when the sun set, the gate was closed. In case of emergency, the gate could only be opened with permission of the village chief. Those caught trying to come back inside the village after the gate was closed could be heavily punished.

According to the principles of feng shui, the gate was the face of a village – when it was opened a village would receive fresh air from the rice fields. The gate was placed in relation to the position of a village’s banyan-tree, well, ponds or rice fields. All these characteristics influenced a village’s culture, history and way of thinking.

Some gates were known as ‘Cong tam quan’ – a three-arch gate with Chinese characters on its pillars and some traditional figures such as dragons, tortoises, buffaloes or flowers and fruit. On the two sides of the gates vertical parallel sentences declared the village’s craft or stated the village’s wish for favourable weather or bumper crops.

Together with the road running through the main village, the gate was also a witness of all events: processions, festivals, weddings and even romances began by the gate. Villagers would also congregate after a hard day’s work in the fields by the gate. As a result many elderly villagers still have a strong emotional tie to the gate.

For Pham Thi Tu, an 80 year old from Hanoi’s Nam Hong village in Dong Anh district, her life story seems to revolve around her village gate. “When I was six years old, my father was shot to death by the village gate by the local pro-French troops. When I got married, my husband led me out through the village gate and it was there that I saw my mother bury her face in her hands and cry. When we reached his village, I was greeted by his family and friends by their village gate,” says Tu.

But the modern world has caught up with Vietnam and gates are now in many places nothing but a distant memory. “Our gate was destroyed five years ago,” says Tu. “Villages are desperate to be seen as cultural places, but they forget that a gate is one of the most important parts of a village.” But the pace of development is relentless in Vietnam. Even where gates have survived, they are no longer the centrepiece or landmark they once were.

“Dong Ngac is one of the most ancient villages in northern Vietnam, but many new houses have been constructed here and now the village gate is overshadowed by two large modern buildings,” says Minh.

VietNamNet/Timeout