Tan Ky Old House

Tan Ky Old House is the best-known of Hoi An's old merchant homes and a good place to understand how the town's traders lived and worked. It stands on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street in the heart of the Ancient Town, was built in the late 18th century and has been looked after by the same family for seven generations. In 1985 it became the first house in Hoi An to be recognised as a national heritage site.

The house is a lesson in the mixed influences that shaped Hoi An, where Chinese and Japanese merchants had settled alongside Vietnamese residents by the start of the 17th century, each community bringing its own building traditions. The layout follows the Vietnamese timber-frame pattern known as three rooms and two wings, the lacquered boards, parallel sentences and carvings show Chinese influence, and the flexible wooden frame system reflects Japanese building methods. A central courtyard brings light and air into the deep plot, framed by wooden shutters and an old brick floor.

Look out for the Bach Lieu parallel sentence, a piece of calligraphy made up of exactly 100 strokes drawn in the shape of birds, which is one of the most admired details in the house. The family also shows a Confucius cup estimated to be around 550 to 600 years old.

Tan Ky is included in the Hoi An Ancient Town sightseeing ticket, so it is worth choosing it as one of your sites. The house is open every day from 08:00 to 11:30 and from 13:30 to 17:45, closing over lunch, so plan around the midday break, and keep your ticket stub after the visit, as it is needed to enter and leave the old town.

The house is a few minutes on foot from the Japanese Covered Bridge and sits on the same street as the Museum of Folk Culture at 33 Nguyen Thai Hoc, so it fits easily into a walking route through the western half of the old town. Anyone interested in architecture or family history will find it rewarding, and it pairs well with the Fujian Assembly Hall and Quan Cong Temple on Tran Phu Street for a half-day of heritage visits.