Most visitors reach the Old House of Tan Ky the same way: they are walking down Nguyen Thai Hoc towards the market, a guide at the door waves them in, and ten minutes later they are back on the street having seen “an old house with some antiques”. That is a waste of one of the five stamps on your Old Town ticket.

Spend the same ten minutes knowing what you are looking at and the house turns into something else: a warehouse with a shop in front and a river dock at the back, a roof built by carpenters from a village across the river, a cup that empties itself when you pour too much, and a line on the wall that tells you exactly how deep the water stood in November 1964. This guide is written from the shop 400 metres up the road, by people who walk past the house every day and still stop to look at the roof tiles.

Is the Old House of Tan Ky worth your ticket?

Yes, and it should probably be the first of the four merchant houses you use a stamp on. The others are worth seeing too, but Tan Ky has the three things that make an old house interesting rather than merely old: it is the earliest (1741), it is still lived in by the family that built it, and it kept the objects that explain how the family made its money.

Time needed: 20 to 30 minutes with the guide, 40 if you come early and have the courtyard to yourself.

Who built it, and what “Tan Ky” means

The house belongs to the Le family, descended from a Chinese merchant who settled in Hoi An in the early 1700s, when the town was still the busiest port in central Vietnam. The first generation traded; the second generation built. In 1741 they put up the house you see today, at a time when Hoi An’s merchants were selling pepper, silk, cinnamon, areca nut and rice to Chinese, Japanese and later Dutch and Portuguese ships anchored in the Thu Bon River.

“Tan Ky” (Tấn Ký) was not the family name but the trading name the second generation chose, roughly “prosperous business”. Hoi An merchant houses were known by their shop signs, not by their owners, which is why the four houses on the ticket are called Tan Ky, Phung Hung, Duc An and Quan Thang rather than Le, Truong, Phan or Diep. You can still read the two gilded characters on the sign above the door.

The builders were carpenters from Kim Bong village, across the river on Cam Kim island, the same guild that built most of the Ancient Town and later restored the Japanese Covered Bridge. Family tradition says the timber was seasoned for ten years before a chisel touched it, and the carving took another three. Whether or not the numbers are exact, they explain why the beams have barely moved in 280 years.

Seven generations have lived here since. The current family still occupies the upper floor and the rooms at the back; what you visit is the ground floor, which is why a member of the household is usually sitting near the courtyard, and why the house closes when they have dinner.

A merchant house is a warehouse that learned good manners. Tan Ky still keeps the warehouse door.

A house with two front doors: street and river

The single most useful thing to understand about the Old House of Tan Ky is that it runs straight through the block. The front door opens onto Nguyen Thai Hoc, which in the 18th century was the main commercial street. The back door opens onto Bach Dang, which in the 18th century was not a street at all but the river bank. Boats tied up at the back, porters carried sacks through the house, and the goods were sold at the front.

Walk through in that order and the layout stops being a maze:

Notice that there is not a single window on the outside walls. Light enters through the courtyard and through the gap between the two roofs; the effect is that the house stays cool at noon and glows at four in the afternoon. It also means that when you photograph the interior you are shooting into the light from the courtyard, which is why so many pictures of Tan Ky show silhouettes.

Three cultures in one roof

Every brochure says the house “blends Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese architecture”. Here is what that actually means when you look up.

• Vietnamese: the tube-house plan, one room wide and several rooms deep, with a courtyard in the middle. The frame is lim ironwood for the load-bearing posts and beams, and jackfruit wood for the doors, shutters and altar pieces: lim for strength, jackfruit because it carves cleanly and does not warp in the humidity.
• Chinese: the ornament. Carved bats (happiness, because the words sound alike), peaches (long life), pomegranates (many children) and the poems inlaid on the columns. The roof is laid in yin-yang tiles, alternating concave and convex, which you can see best from the street.
• Japanese: the roof structure over the inner hall, a “crab-shell” truss (vì vỏ cua) with short stacked beams that spread the load and let the roof flex. It is the same idea as the frame under the Japanese Covered Bridge, and the reason the house survived floods that pushed water to the ceiling.

The guides will tell you the frame was built “without a single nail”. That is true in the sense that matters: the joints are mortise and tenon, wooden pegs in wooden sockets, so the frame can move slightly under stress and then settle back. A nailed frame would have cracked in 1964. Look at the two horizontal beams over the inner hall and the five vertical posts under them: the family reads them as heaven and earth resting on the five elements (metal, wood, water, fire, earth), and the carpenters read them as a very good way to hold up a roof.

The floor is Bat Trang brick from the ceramic village outside Hanoi, and the thresholds and courtyard tanks are Thanh Hoa stone, both shipped down the coast. In a house built to trade, even the building materials are cargo.

The Confucius Cup: physics disguised as a lesson

The object the guides save for last is a small ceramic cup on the altar table, the Confucius Cup (chén Khổng Tử). Fill it to about four-fifths and it holds the water. Fill it to the brim and the whole cup drains out through the bottom, every drop, onto the tray. The family bought it from Chinese traders generations ago; Japanese ceramics experts who examined it dated it at 550 to 600 years old, and it is described as the only one of its kind left in Vietnam.

The story attached to it is Confucian: the master, thirsty on a journey, found a cup that emptied whenever he filled it completely, and took the lesson that whoever wants everything ends up with nothing. It is a good story. The mechanism is even better, because it is a siphon. Inside the hollow central column is a bent tube, open at the top of the column and at the base of the cup. While the water stays below the bend, nothing happens. Once it rises over the bend, the tube fills, and a siphon pulls the water down and out until the cup is empty. Greek engineers built the same device two thousand years ago; it is known in the West as the Pythagorean cup.

The Hundred Birds panel and other treasures

The house has kept several hundred objects, most of them around the age of the building. Four are worth finding:

None of it is behind glass. That is the difference between Tan Ky and a museum, and the reason the “please do not touch” signs are in four languages.

The flood lines: 1964 and every year since

On the wall of the rear hall, near the back door, the family has marked the height of every big flood. The highest mark is from November 1964, the flood people in Quang Nam still call “the Year of the Dragon flood”: the Thu Bon rose so far that water reached the ceiling of the ground floor, and the family lived upstairs for days while boats rowed down Nguyen Thai Hoc. The house lost its furniture to the mud and kept its frame. Below the 1964 line are the marks of more recent floods, 1999, 2009 and 2020 among them, each around waist to chest height.

The marks answer a question every visitor asks: why is there a trapdoor in the ceiling? In Tan Ky, as in Phung Hung two streets away, the ground-floor ceiling has a hatch so that goods, furniture and grandparents can be hoisted upstairs when the river comes in. It is still used. If you visit in late October or November and the river is high, do not be surprised to find the shop-front furniture already stacked on the upper floor.

Ticket, hours and how the Old Town ticket works

There is no separate ticket for the Old House of Tan Ky. Entry is one of the stamps on the Hoi An Ancient Town ticket, sold at the booths on every street leading into the old quarter and at the self-service kiosks:

Prices confirmed with the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, September 2026. The ticket is a strip of coupons; the person at the door of each house tears one off. Keep the stub, because staff on the streets do check. A good five for a first visit: Tan Ky, the Japanese Covered Bridge, the Fujian Assembly Hall, Phung Hung and the Museum of Trade Ceramics, all within ten minutes’ walk of one another.

Opening hours: 8:00 to about 17:45 every day, including public holidays and Tet. The family closes the doors for lunch on quiet days and always by dusk, so arrive by 17:00 to be safe. The best light in the courtyard is between 8:00 and 9:30, before the first tour buses from Da Nang reach the town at around 10:00.

How to get to the Old House of Tan Ky and where to park

The house is at 101 Nguyen Thai Hoc, in the middle of the Ancient Town’s pedestrian core, one block back from the river and about 250 metres east of the Japanese Covered Bridge. From our shop at 84 Phan Chau Trinh it is 400 metres and six minutes on foot (measured with Google Maps: down Hai Ba Trung, left on Nguyen Thai Hoc).

You cannot ride to the door. Nguyen Thai Hoc is closed to motorbikes and cars from 9:00 to 11:00 and again from 15:00 until 21:30 in summer (21:00 from October to March), and outside those hours it is still a slow, crowded one-way street. What works:

• Bicycle: the only vehicle allowed in during pedestrian hours. Lock it to the railings on Bach Dang and walk in through the back of the block. A city bike from us is 50.000₫ a day.
• Scooter or electric bike: park at the guarded lots on the edge of the old quarter, 5.000₫ (the ones on Phan Chau Trinh and by the market are closest; expect 10.000₫ near the river at weekends). Lock the steering, keep the ticket. Full details in our guide to Old Town vehicle restriction hours.
• On foot from Phan Chau Trinh or Tran Phu hotels: five to ten minutes. Bring water; Nguyen Thai Hoc has almost no shade before 16:00.

Coordinates for your map app: 15.8764, 108.3278. If you are staying at An Bang beach, the ride in is 4 km along Hai Ba Trung, about twelve minutes on an electric bike, and you park at the northern edge of the old town where Hai Ba Trung meets Phan Chau Trinh.

Tan Ky vs Phung Hung, Duc An and Quan Thang

Four merchant houses are on the Old Town ticket and most visitors have stamps for two at most. The honest comparison:

If you have two stamps, take Tan Ky in the morning and Phung Hung in the late afternoon, when its upstairs balcony catches the light on the Covered Bridge. Quan Thang is the one to add on a rainy day, because it is almost never busy.

Visiting tips from next door

• Go early or late. 8:00 to 9:30 or after 16:00. Between 10:00 and 15:00 the house holds one tour group at a time and you will wait on the pavement.
• Take the guide’s talk. It is included, lasts about ten minutes, and is given in English, Vietnamese and often French. Without it you will miss the cup and the birds.
• Photography: allowed without flash. The courtyard is the only well-lit spot; for the interior, brace against a column and use a high ISO rather than a flash, which is refused and in any case flattens the carving.
• Dress: it is a family home with an ancestral altar. Shoulders covered is appreciated; shoes stay on.
• Do not lean on the furniture. The mother-of-pearl chairs are original and not roped off.
• Combine it with the river. Leave by the back door onto Bach Dang, turn right and you are at the boat landing in two minutes; the lantern boats leave from there after dark and prices are posted at the landing.
• Bring small notes. The house does not sell tickets; buy the Old Town ticket at a booth first (card accepted at the kiosks, cash at the booths).

Frequently asked questions

How much is the ticket for the Old House of Tan Ky?

There is no separate ticket. Entry is included in the Hoi An Ancient Town ticket: 120.000₫ for international visitors (5 sites) and 80.000₫ for Vietnamese visitors (3 sites), valid for 24 hours. Children between 1 m and 1.4 m pay 50.000₫ or 40.000₫; children under 1 m enter free.

What are the opening hours of Tan Ky Old House?

Daily from 8:00 to about 17:45, including holidays. The family who lives in the house closes the doors at dusk, so arrive by 17:00. The quietest time is between 8:00 and 9:30.

Is the Old House of Tan Ky still lived in?

Yes. The seventh generation of the Le family lives on the upper floor and in the rear rooms. Visitors see the ground floor: the shop front, the inner hall with the altar, the courtyard and the rear hall with the flood marks.

What is the Confucius Cup?

A ceramic cup on the altar table that holds water when filled to about four-fifths but drains completely if filled to the brim. It works by a siphon hidden inside its central column, the same principle as the Greek Pythagorean cup. Japanese experts dated it at 550 to 600 years old, and the guides will demonstrate it on request.

How high did the 1964 flood reach inside the house?

To the ceiling of the ground floor. The mark is painted on the wall of the rear hall together with the lines of the 1999, 2009 and 2020 floods. The family moved upstairs through the trapdoor in the ceiling, which is still used in flood season.

Can I ride a motorbike to the Old House of Tan Ky?

No. Nguyen Thai Hoc is closed to motor vehicles from 9:00 to 11:00 and from 15:00 to 21:30 in summer (21:00 in winter). Park at a guarded lot on the edge of the Ancient Town for 5.000₫ and walk, or come by bicycle, which is allowed at all hours.

How long does a visit take?

Twenty to thirty minutes, including the guide’s explanation. Allow forty if you come early and want to photograph the courtyard without other visitors.

Shop: 84 Phan Chau Trinh, Hoi An · info@hoianit.com · Roadside help 24/7: +84 766 766 087

Ticket prices and opening hours checked in September 2026 against the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation. Construction dates and object ages are those given by the family and the Hoi An heritage office; distances measured with Google Maps from 84 Phan Chau Trinh.