A romantic and idyllic A Luoi
Looking at the homeland... from afar
With many fanpages, such as Review Hue, Check in Hue - Hue travel experience,... every day, a huge amount of information about Hue has appeared on social networking sites.
From the image of the gentle Ao Dai to the hardworking but charming features of the Cyclo drivers, the colors and countless delicious dishes of Hue, all of these images appear vividly and intimately through each page that anyone can experience with just a smartphone.
Photos of Hue are constantly updated
Born and grown up in Hue, but for more than half a year, Nguyen Thi Huong, a 9X generation girl, has not been able to return to her hometown. As the pandemic struck, making her stuck in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Huong missed her hometown very much but could not do anything.
“Therefore, I found pages written about my hometown to see Hue every day. Although through a different lens, Hue is still familiar, close and make me move to tear," Huong said.
Being away from Hue for many years and is now living in Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Thuy is always heading towards the place where her navel-string was buried. She shared: “Usually, I visit home 2-3 times a year. But this year, those long-awaited trips could not happen. I remember every street corner, every shop, every row of trees in Hue. That nostalgia is intense and indescribable.”
Instead of scrolling the phone to watch movies, Huong and Thanh Thuy now spend time before going to bed to see their hometown. Carefully read each article, zoom in to see each photo, in these days of social distancing. That's the motivation to help those two girls being far from home overcome homesickness.
Behind the story of review
In order to produce vibrant photos and stories about Hue, the young people in charge of this work must have good sense and be extremely flexible. Not only images of temples, mausoleums, new places for check-in, delicious dishes or familiar streets and corners have been constantly updated.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tran, a member of the Review Hue fanpage said: "With friends having the same motivation, in 2018, I joined Review Hue. This is a social networking site established for the purpose of promoting Hue tourism to domestic and international friends.”
The familiar road
Not only sending love for their homeland through peaceful scenes, Ngoc Tran and other young people also want to preserve the traditional features of the Ancient Capital, to discover and promote beautiful but lesser-known places. It has become a job, a habit and also an "occupational disease", every path and step the little girl took, the camera and stories came along.
Ngoc Tran said: "Being attached to the profession is also because of the love for the homeland plus the passion for travel, so my work experience are the journeys that I have had. Giving up the degree in land management to encroach on local guide activities (roughly translated as online guides), when the pandemic struck, I decided to become a reviewer with articles and photos about Hue".
Through her writings, Ngoc Tran conveys a beautiful, peaceful and charming Hue to everyone. Those are the green pine trees at A Luoi, or the time that she found the "hot" place of Hue appearing in the MV of a famous singer or capturing the daily moments of mothers and grandmothers at the countryside market.
Although through a different lens, for Hue people who are far from home like Huong and Thanh Thuy or anyone interested in this land, it is also a great joy to be able to see and read those small stories about their homeland every day.
Ngoc Tran shared: "My friends are the same, everyone wants to fully convey the image of the land, cuisine and people of Hue. Especially when life is full of challenges like now. We hope that the images and stories will bring certain values and be a source of positive encouragement to those who love Hue."
Story: Mai Hue
Photo: Provided by the main character