I visited Da Nang, Vietnam, at the end of last year. It was my second trip to Vietnam, and my first to Da Nang. It was around Christmas time. I went to My Khe Beach, which was a beautiful place with gray water growling loudly all day long and white waves rushing into the soft sandy beach.

Also, I went to Bana Hill where there was a thick forest with many unfamiliar trees flourishing. I could take a cable car there, which was moving quickly as if flying high through the sky. I could see a white waterfall through dark green round-shaped leaves. It was truly picturesque scenery. Bana Hill was a kind of tall mountain, as its name connotes. I wondered how people could build many cafes, restaurants and so on at this high elevation. There were cafes, streets that were modeled after Paris and old dark gray castles with pointed spires that were modeled after Budapest, Hungary. Despite the rainy, slightly cold weather, red flowers were vivid and large bear-shaped sculptures made of tiny balls of various colors were cute.

On arriving at Hue, the old capital city of Vietnam, I could see palaces and buildings that looked similar to the Forbidden Castle of China. Riding a small electric car driven by a young woman through the drizzling rain, I looked around roads and palaces where old kings and queens must have walked and lived. On top of that, there were gardens planted with exotic trees and unknown flowers whose shapes and colors I had never seen before. Some people say that everywhere people live is the same. Power struggles of the old dynasty, invasion of foreign countries, assassination of kings, dethronement of kings, wars ... None of these things were strange to me at all.

I spent my spare time in a certain rooftop cafe with a view of the famous dragon bridge glowing with colorful lights as time went by. I drank a beverage named Poor Cinderella. It tasted a bit sour and creamy with lots of foam. I had no idea why it had that name.

Christmas in Da Nang was exotic and peculiar. It was neither cold nor white with snow as in Korea. In addition, it felt a little bit strange that a socialist country commemorated and celebrated Christmas with lots of decorations such as green trees, pink and white ribbons and flowers. Near the airport on the street, there were huge ornaments (or sculptures) shaped like Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and gift bundles made of numerous tiny electric bulbs. They were shining with golden lights in the night as if singing merrily on Christmas.

Seeing all these, I couldn’t believe the facts that Vietnam was colonized as recently as 70 years by France in the late 19th century, that even before that Vietnam was invaded many times by China as they were geographically close, that Vietnamese women had to go through excruciating sufferings due to sex slavery for Japanese troops in World War II and that it had to fight in the long, tedious and painful war with U.S. since the 1960s. There were some similarities and commonalities between them and us. I rediscovered a neighboring country at Christmas.

Lee Nan-hee studied English in college and theology at Hanshin University.