Vietnam

My husband Thomas and I flew out of Los Angeles on 09/11, a short layover in Tokyo, then touched down in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) some twenty hours later.

I’m deeply grateful for two things that made this trip possible. The first was an invitation to speak at NZAMT in Whangārei in northern New Zealand. This honor meant an opportunity to visit Vietnam on the same trip, especially to tour all the regions north of Nha Trang for the first time. I hadn’t returned to Vietnam since 2005. The second is my employment at Amplify which means it’s the first time my vacation days are not tied to the school calendar and peak airfare prices.

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Organized Chaos. That’s how Thomas describes the traffic in HCMC. People pay no mind to the few traffic signals. Our driver claims 13 million people live in the city, and I believe him because half a million are currently on motorbikes at this one intersection. And people honk as a way to alert you of their approach, instead of it being a middle finger to your driving.

Grab, self labeled as “Southeast Asia’s Superapp,” is incredible. You just need to remember that your ride is likely to arrive in less than 30 seconds, so be ready.

Ăn ốc — snails eating — is my new wish for what Heaven might offer. One particular street stall [pictured] on Hang Buom Street in Hanoi is exceptional. In addition to an assortment of snails, she also has clams that she cooks with fresh pineapples, chillies, and lemongrass. Perfection.

If all Vietnam could offer were its beautiful landscapes, I seriously would not care to return. I’ll just watch a documentary. It’s all about the food in Vietnam that I can’t get enough of, especially due to where I live in the States. (I have to drive nearly 3 hours one-way to Little Saigon to get a sampling of Vietnamese cuisines.) Cơm bình dân means “commoner’s rice,” a meal consisting of rice and several side dishes, including soup. Turns out this is the type of meal I miss most. I invite our tour guide and driver [blue shirt, top left] to eat with us at every meal, but I understand if they just want to be alone. After all, our driver speaks no English, while Thomas speaks no Vietnamese.

We spent 12 days with these two gentlemen, and I pray our paths will cross again.

I envy easy access to the abundant and affordable fresh produce in Vietnam. It makes me sad and angry that the stuff that’s good for us costs so much more here in the States. Common herbs — mint, basil, rosemary, thyme — are packaged in little plastic pouches as if they were limited and exotic.

That was the basket! At the break of dawn, a small boat takes us to the fishing village of Duy Hai, Hoi An. The men fish, deferring to their wives the all-important job of haggling over prices with customers. I see it before anything else. I point at it and call out to Thomas, “That was the basket! The basket that my brother threw me in from the cliff! Looks just like it.” [top right]

On the last full day, we went to Vung Tau, a lovely seaside town where I was born.

Fawn Nguyen 1/2/23 Fawn Nguyen 1/2/23

Foreign Things

A young father tells me that his 7-year-old daughter is a very picky eater. And there is evidence. He offers her several possible choices on New Year’s Eve, including macaroni salad, and she hollers a resounding no! to all of them from her bedroom. Tugboat, our cat, is a picky eater too. It can be the exact flavor from the same company, but he won’t eat it if it’s in paté form, the prince wants it as shreds.

I’ve seen parents needing to trim away the outer edges of bread slices. (When I make a sandwich for this kid, he gets to remove the crusts himself.) They can’t pour spaghetti sauce over the pasta. Hide pulverized broccoli and peas inside meatballs.

It’s still a foreign thing when I hear parents asking their kids what they want to eat. My mother never asked us, nor did I to my three kids prior to preparing their meals. I don’t recall getting explicit instruction on family dinner decorum, but I knew not to ask my mother for a second bowl of rice if we had guests over for dinner. I knew not to take the last piece of food because I believed it belonged to my mother who would decide using her chopsticks to place it into one of our bowls. A luxe treat was getting to toss my rice into the frying pan to soak up the pan juices from a small steak that she had cooked solely for her husband. The bits of fried garlic in the steak drippings coated the white rice and made it taste like heaven — sufficient proof that I could tell my friends the next day that I indeed had steak for dinner.

Another foreign thing is a potluck. People really just bring over a dish to share. Essentially I’m invited to a meal where the probability is high that no two foods complement each other. Beef chili and tuna casserole — with watermelon salad. My goodness, where did you find watermelon in late December? I walk along the table half trying to be polite and half trying to decipher this mess of a smorgasbord. Ah yes, of course, deviled eggs. It’s not just the food not getting along and that most of them are not at the temperature they need to be, it’s the fact that I have to work before going to a party. Why would you invite people to a celebratory occasion and make them suffer at the same time?

Even when it’s a themed potluck and I have to examine the taco bar sign-up sheet posted in the teachers’ lounge, the whole thing is inefficient and wasteful. Potentially we’re asking 40 different staff members to get into their car, drive to the store, find a parking space, search the isles for the item that they’d signed for. Soft corn or flour? Hard shells? Ooh, I haven’t seen these shells that stand up! Then do mental math to know how much to buy, get in line to pay, drive home but leave the stuff in the car or else they’ll forget all about it. Finally, we all witness what happens after the gathering — there are leftovers. A lot of food leftovers that people had touched, poked, held up to the light. Did you want to take these cool stand-up shells home? I’m thinking what the fuck for, so I replied, “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Happy New Year, everyone.