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General information
| Address | 276 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ward 11, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City |
| Opening hours | 6:15 am – 5:00 pm daily |
| Level of Monument | The Architectural and Artistic Relic at nation level in 2001 |
General introduction
Quynh Phu GuildHall, also known as Hai Nam Quynh Phu GuildHall, was located at 276 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ward 11, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City. There was a place of worship and community activities for the Hainam people, China, there was built in 1824. Initially, due to the small number of immigrants and the difficulty of economic, building GuildHall was encountered many obstacles, but later, based on the contributions of the community, This GuildHall was expanded and restored many times, becoming a majestic structure as today.
Quynh Phu GuildHall was recognized by the Ministry of Culture and Information as The Architectural and Artistic Relic at nation level in 2001 under Decision No. 52/2001/QĐ-BVHTT dated on December 28th, 2001.
The GuildHall had an area of over 2,000m², was located in a prime location with bustling trade. Its architecture included the front yard, the front hall, the skylight, the central hall and the main hall, along with two rows of houses being the East and West Hall. In particular, the West-Hall was used to be the Van Trang school established by the GuildHall, now is Tran Huu Trang High School. The East-Hall was a community meeting place, above which was the altar of Hoa Quang Dai De, reflecting the beliefs of the Hainam people in Saigon – Cho Lon.
The architectural style of the GuildHall was not only designed with a typical style of Chinese people but also decorated with many unique patterns. All of wooden surface with the embossed patterns were continously embossed with Chinese characters. In addition to meanings of literary and calligraphic, some horizontal lacquered boards and parallel sentences were also carved with strange scenes of the aquarium, the Eastern-Sea Old Dragon, the Northern-Sea Prince with shrimp-soldiers and fish-generals… The wooden carving art at the Quynh Phu GuildHall was also unique, not only depicts familiar motifs such as the four sacred-animals, the Phong Than story, the fishermen – woodcutters – farmers – readers… but also other animals closed to the common life such as a school of fish wagging their tails and playing together, a crab holding a shrimp’s whiskers in a clump of reeds, a mother-deer feeding leaves to its baby-deer, a gourd vine with laden fruit… In some reliefs, the animals were carved in pairs side by side such as a pair of birds on an apricot branch, a pair of fish in a rice bush, a pair of deer beside a pine tree…
According to tradition, each lunar year at the GuildHall was organized worship days: Tet Nguyen Tieu (January 13th, 14th, 15th); Thien Hau Thanh Mau (March 23rd); …
The days of Thien Hau festival (March 23rd) and Thuy Vi Thanh Nuong festival (October 15th) were organized the most solemn. On these days, Hainam people and their compatriots gather at the GuildHall with the GuildHall’s Board of Directors performed the worshiped rituals, prayed for national peace and prosperity, favorable weather, good business and successful careers. According to custom, the main offering must be goat meat.
The Nguyen Tieu Festival was richly organized, in addition to the performance of the troupe Quynh, there were also lion, qilin and dragon dances which were performed by the lion-qilin-dragon dance teams.
Like other Chinese GuildHalls, Quynh Phu GuildHall regularly organizes activities such as visiting the graves of ancestors and grandparents on Thanh Minh festival; social responsibilities: Serving the heroic Vietnamese mothers in her whole life, Visiting the gravestones of Hainamese martyrs who sacrified in the resistance war against the French and the Americans, Meeting relatives and families of martyrs; other social charity activities such as building Great-Unity houses, Visiting the Elderly Care Center, Supporting the poor people.
In particular, Quynh Phu GuildHall always pays attention to the work of encouraging learning and talent, giving scholarships in order to Hainamese children have the opportunities to improve their talents and intelligence then help society.
Quynh Phu GuildHall is a relic that records the presence and development of Hainamese Chinese in the old Saigon area – the today Cho Lon area, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City. For nearly two hundred years, Quynh Phu GuildHall has always been preserved and conserved to preserve for future generations about the unique cultural identity of Hainamese Chinese in the Chinese community in particular and in the Vietnamese ethnics community in general.
