Through the ups and downs of history, including several wars, 70 percent of the temple’s original wooden structures are still in good condition. Household items from over a century ago still decorate the house.

Painter and eighth generation patriarch Truong Bach Tuong in his family’s ancestral temple in Hoi An.

The date and time that construction began on the temple is inscribed on a wooden beam in the central room: 5 a.m. on the fifth day of the tenth month of the Lunar year Canh Ty, meaning November 28, 1840.

A portrait of Truong Dong Hiep, the famys fourth patriarch and an educational mandarin for the central province of Quang Nam, hangs in the central room. Hiep moved the house from its original location to a smaller one in 1906.

Parts of the wood and cloth hammock Hiep’s servants used are displayed in the altar room and poetry he composed, dictating the names of future generations, as was common Mandarin practice in Vietnam at the time, hang on the wall.

Ancient Chinese poems and proverbs are written on several cloth banners and tablets that were hung around the house centuries ago.

The temple is now tended by Truong Bach Tuong from the family’s eighth generation in Vietnam.

VietNamNet//TN