One of the important duties of a Vietnamese emperor was to choose the site and design of his mausoleum—the place where future generations could honor him and where his surviving concubines and eunuchs could live out their days in peace away from the court. The hills around Hue are dotted with these tombs. We visited those of one of the first and one of the last emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty. The two mausoleums are strikingly different, as were the emperors who created them. Minh Mang, who ruled from 1820 to 1841, was an isolationist and a traditionalist. His tomb was built in the same Chinese-Vietnamese style as the imperial city in Hue, and its park-like setting reflects Confucian principles of order and harmony. Khai Dinh, who ruled from 1916 to 1925, was widely considered a puppet of the French colonial regime and was enamored of all things French. His tomb is an ornate exercise in personal glorification that feels like a Vietnamese Versailles.
