Rebuilding the past in Hue

Most visitors to Hue's Imperial City, the palace complex of the Nguyen emperors, spend their first ten minutes photographing red columns, golden dragons and freshly painted gates. Then their guide tells them that much of what they're looking at is new. 'People are often disappointed at first,' says Lan, who has shown tourists around the citadel for twelve years. 'After that, they start asking better questions.'

The citadel was badly damaged in the fighting of 1968, and for years afterwards grass grew where palaces had stood. Restoration began in earnest in the 1990s, and it has moved one building at a time. The work is painfully slow. Craftsmen have had to relearn old methods, such as mixing traditional mortar and carving wood in the Nguyen style. Sometimes the only guide they have is a faded photo taken a century ago. A single carved panel can take months to finish.

All this raises a question that still divides experts: how much should be rebuilt? One group wants the site to look as it did in its glory days. Rebuilding, they say, brings in tourists, creates work for local craftspeople and keeps old skills alive. A ruin also means little to a teenager who can't picture what used to stand there. In a city that lives largely on tourism, that argument carries weight.

Others are worried about guesswork. If a hall is rebuilt without reliable plans, they argue, you get a modern building dressed up as history. Some would rather leave the scars of war visible, because the damage is part of the city's story too. Lan has some sympathy with this view. 'My grandfather lived through 1968,' she says. 'For him, the broken walls are the real history. He used to bring me here when I was small.'

Hue has tried to steer a middle course. Buildings with good records, like the Kien Trung Palace, have been carefully rebuilt. Others remain as bare foundations, with signs showing what once stood there. Lan's favourite stop is a patch of open ground near the throne hall. 'I let people stand there for a minute and imagine,' she says. 'It's the only place where nobody takes a photo.'