Reading passage
Hoi An is a small town on the central coast of Vietnam. It is famous for its old quarter, where narrow streets are lined with yellow houses, wooden shops and old temples. Between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, Hoi An was one of the busiest trading ports in Southeast Asia. Ships from Japan, China, Holland and India came here to buy silk, ceramics and spices. Many foreign traders stayed in the town for months while they waited for the right winds to sail home, and some settled there and built houses.
At the end of the nineteenth century, the river became too shallow for large ships, so trade moved to the nearby city of Da Nang. Hoi An grew quiet, and many people forgot about it. Yet this was lucky for the town. Because there was little money for new buildings, the old streets stayed almost the same for more than a hundred years. While other cities in Vietnam modernised quickly, Hoi An kept its old face. Today, visitors can still walk into houses that are more than two hundred years old.
In 1999, UNESCO named the old quarter a World Heritage Site. More than 800 buildings in the area are now protected by law. Owners cannot change the outside of their houses without permission, and they must use traditional materials, such as wood, brick and clay tiles, for repairs. Inside the old walls, however, daily life goes on. Families still live, cook and work much as their grandparents did, and many houses keep an altar for the family ancestors in the front room.
The most famous sight in Hoi An is the Japanese Covered Bridge, first built in the 1590s. The bridge linked the Japanese and Chinese parts of the town, so that traders from the two communities could meet easily. It has a small temple inside, and its curved roof is made of dark tiles. According to local legend, the bridge also helps to calm a sea monster whose movements cause earthquakes and storms.
Every month, on the night of the full moon, the old quarter holds its lantern festival. All the electric lights in the old streets are turned off, and thousands of colourful silk lanterns light the town. Visitors float small paper lanterns with candles on the river and make a wish. Musicians play traditional songs, and old men play chess under the lanterns. The festival began as a small local event, but now it attracts travellers from many countries, and hotels are often full on festival nights.
Tourism brings money, but it also brings problems. About five million visitors come to Hoi An each year, and the little town can feel very crowded in the high season. Some old houses have become cafes and souvenir shops, and a few local families have moved away because life in the centre has become too busy and too expensive. Local leaders now try to limit the number of new hotels near the old quarter, and they encourage visitors to explore the quieter villages outside the town.
Another worry is flooding. Hoi An sits beside the Thu Bon River, and almost every year the streets are under water for a few days, usually in October or November. People in the town have learned to live with the water. They move their furniture upstairs before the floods come, and many shops stay open even when customers arrive by boat. Some families keep a small boat tied to their front door, just in case.
To pay for protection, the town sells entry tickets to visitors who enter the old quarter. The money from the tickets pays for repairs to old houses, bridges and temples, and also supports rubbish collection and street cleaning. Visitors can join walking tours, cooking classes and lantern-making workshops. These activities give local people new jobs and help them keep traditional skills alive for the next generation.
Many travellers say Hoi An feels different from other tourist towns. Perhaps the reason is simple. The old quarter is not a museum where life stopped long ago. It is still a real home for thousands of people, who wash clothes in the river, buy vegetables at the morning market and greet their neighbours in the evening. Daily life there continues much as it has for centuries.