Folk performance «Bài chòi Hội An» (Hoi An Bingo Game)

   Every evening at a roundabout by the Hoai River (sông Hoài), in the heart of Hoi An's Old Town, witty verses are sung out while a crowd sits and stands around holding playing cards. This is bài chòi, the sung folk card game of Central Vietnam, inscribed by UNESCO on the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; here it is billed in English as Hoi An Bingo Game.

   The game is run by artists of the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center (Trung tâm Bảo tồn Di sản Văn hóa Thế giới Hội An). The hosts, known as anh hiệu and chị hiệu, call out the cards in song, tell stories and improvise as the game goes on, while the rules of the traditional card game are kept intact. Players clutch their cards, wait with bated breath for theirs to be called and burst out laughing when it «wins».

   Things worth knowing about Hoi An's bài chòi:
— it blends music, poetry, acting, painting and literature, as the Báo Đà Nẵng newspaper puts it
— the verses ring out to the beat of a drum and wooden clappers (phách)
— here the card names and the way they are called draw mainly on old local folk tunes, with theatrical verses written by the artists added on top

   If you want to hear the folk music of Central Vietnam on the street, among people, rather than on a theater stage, head here during your evening walk: the space is open, and you can join the circle of spectators as you pass by.

   The tradition runs deep in Hoi An: bài chòi classes opened at the town's Culture House in 1983, the game joined the program of the first «Old Town Night» (Đêm phố cổ) on September 8, 1998, and on January 16, 2010 the town authorities decided to hold it at this roundabout every evening, as it still is, Báo Đà Nẵng reports. Cultural researcher Phung Tan Dong (Phùng Tấn Đông) calls Hoi An one of the few places in the country to have revived bài chòi successfully, «or, more precisely, to have made it live through tourism».

   The verses are sung in Vietnamese, with the trademark humor of the Quang region (xứ Quảng), and foreign visitors play right alongside Vietnamese ones.

   The game starts at 19:00; no finishing time is announced. On holidays the timing changes: for Tet Nguyen Tieu (Tết Nguyên tiêu), the first full moon of the lunar year, in 2026 bài chòi ran here from 18:30 to 21:30. The roundabout sits at the junction of Bạch Đằng and Nguyễn Thái Học streets, right by the river.

   On an evening in Old Hoi An, follow the sound of the drum and clappers down to the river and try your luck with a card.