Everybody Loves Pho.

I’ve been on an Anthony Bourdain bender lately. The snow is burying up the city, the trains aren’t moving and kids aren’t going to school. Snow days have been Tony days. If I’m not eating and traveling, I might as well watch someone else do it. I’m a masochist in that way. Both Hulu and Netflix have various shows featuring Bourdain, but the gist is all the same, mouthy middle aged white man/chef travels to interesting places in the world and eats his heart out. My dream job if there was ever one. I wouldn’t even mind being a middle aged white man to do it. But really though, I want his job.

Out of all the places that he has been to, Vietnam is his favorite place and I totally get it. Vietnamese food in Vietnam is amazeballs. I moved from Vietnam 15 years ago and could still remember what all my favorite street food tasted like, and even where I used to get them. My only regret from my trip in 2011 is that I didn’t eat enough. In America, I love me some fried chicken/chicken wings, I eat Chinese food like a fiend and I would shell out money for quality sushi, but I approach Vietnamese food like a paranoid cat to a stranger. I’m extremely picky with Vietnamese food in America. 

Now, before I go on, I want to make a clarification, when I say Vietnamese food, for all purposes I mean street food/restaurant food, not meals that you get at home. Things that you see at Vietnamese restaurants like pho or other types of noodles soup, for instance, are considered street food, not meals. People in Vietnam don’t regularly cook food like pho for a daily meal. One is because the broth alone could take up a day of cooking and two is why go to all that effort when you can just go out to the corner shop and slurp down a bowl real fast. The Vietnamese meal experience at home is very different, but I digress.

Moving on… every dish I eat at a restaurant, I can’t help but compare to its counterpart that I consumed while in the motherland. Some come close, and some are probably even better for me with healthier cooking alternatives, but there is never an exact experience. Be it the location, the person who cooked it, the person I am with — eating food at a Vietnamese restaurant in America isn’t as great of an experience for me as eating food at a Vietnamese restaurant in Vietnam. This is especially the case for me with pho (pronounce fuh). 

Growing up as a child, I didn’t eat a lot of pho. I was raised in a household that didn’t have a pennant for snacking or street food. Near our house there was a pho stall (not unlike the one below, but without the propane tank, also in a similar location) that I would pass by at least twice a day. 

They would open early in the morning for the breakfast crowd and early the evening for the late diner crowd. Typing this, I could still smell the aroma from more than 15 years ago. The essence of beef and anise mixed in with the burning wood and charcoal smell from the stove. In a way, pho was the fancy hard to get food that I only get in special occasion, and so whenever I do get to eat it, it’d be an over the top experience, the meat, the broth, the nice burp at the end when you washed everything down with a nice cold Coke. 

I distinctively remember my first bowl of pho in America, and I can only compare the experience to someone’s experience of tasting diet soda for the first time after a life time of drinking regular soda. The taste is there, but not quite the same, something is missing, but I can’t tell what it is. Even thought the pho bowls in America are bigger, there are more meat and noodles, and I can have as many bowls as I want, my palates aren’t ecstatic. Even now, after 15 years of eating pho in America, whenever I’m told that there’s a good pho place, I’m always skeptical — by what standard? I guess you could say that am perpetually chasing that feeling of the first pho love. 

Reading this article on the history and variation of pho, however, I realized that maybe my estranged relationship with pho isn't because I am haunted by the ghost of pho past, but more because I have just been tasting pho made by people from a different region from where I used to live. Simply put, I have some reevaluation of perspective to do. At anyrate, the article features an interview with people who know what they are doing and talking about when it comes to pho, and even has recipes. 

One of the many perks of living in Southern California is I don't have to travel very far for pho when I get a craving. Here's a nice bowl from a hole-in-the-wall down the street from my home in LA.

Since moving to Boston, I have had pho twice and neither was anything to write home about, so I haven't been too keen on grubbing down more pho, or actively seeking out a good place. Though I know it's out there. Without my noticing, pho has become steadily and increasing known, accepted and love by the population, if not the world. I know very few people who have never had pho. When I was living in Ghana, I was told that there was a pho restaurant in Accra, the capital city. Pho in Africa! Who would have thought!? My homie, Tony Bourdain went to New Orleans for food, drinks and debauchery but had pho for breakfast — got Vietnam on his mind! Macklemore loves pho as much as he loves thrift shopping, probably, and his friend loves it so much, he did a Kickstarter project to make a video about it.

It makes me feel so good and proud when I see people having love for my culture, or any culture, in a positive way. It makes me want to share with them even more things that they didn’t know to really solidify this love. 

A lot of prints about pho would say that it’s Vietnam’s national food, and I really want you to know that it’s not. You can find it everywhere in Vietnam, but it doesn’t represent all of Vietnam. So since you already spent some time reading this blog post on my feelings about pho, why not catch my next post on the other amazing noodles soups that Vietnam has to offer. It’d only be good for you, I promise. 

Up next, Bun Bo Hue! 

Creative cooking.

For the past few weeks, my usual lunch provider, my counterpart's wife, Vivian, has been out of town. Normally, she doesn't get to go anywhere much because she's always super busy with every possible household chores and then some. (My counterpart, Peter doesn't help much either. Wither her being gone, there were left two people who had to cook to feed themselves. I can't really speak for Peter, but I was quite ready for the challenge of not starving without her. It's a challenge because I opted to not buy a gas stove when I first came to site. There were several reasons behind this. - I wanted to eat Ghanaian food cooked by Ghanians. - The sparse food produces in Ghana did not inspire any culinary inclination in me, I simply didn't know what I would of could make. ( I hate/don't know how to cook beans, eggplants, okra...) - And figuring how to lug a gas cylinder and stove top back to site was the furthest idea from fun, and then having to commit to the task of refilling the gas cylinder every few months also did not appeal. So I bought a coal pot and called it a day. It was really my lucky break that Vivian loves to feed me and is an amazing cook. So for the last year and a half, I would buy the monthly food products, and she would prepare lunch for me everyday. During training at homestay, my host sister provided me with considerable amount of Ghanaian food, but Vivian's cooking allowed me to learn more about all the local cuisines made with local ingredients -- eating soup made from bush leaves, flowers, ect... Otherwise, I probably would either slowly desiccate or get MSG poisoning from overloading on ramen, or just have terrible acne. With that system in place, I had a routine. Regardless of what I was doing, lunch is serve at around noon or 1pm, and I would never be hungry afterward. Lunch is my favorite meal in Ghana because Vivian would feed me to the point that I can't walk straight or have to stand slightly bend forward. She always wants to make up for my lackluster breakfast (popcorns) and dinner (nothing). It used to take me 45 minutes to light the coal pot and the idea of making a meal died with every dead match mounting in piles. Slowly, I started to get better at lighting the coal pot, and would be able to make hot water for tea without losing the entire morning trying. That allowed me to sporadically cook now and then -- still just ramen though, nothing serious. But with Vivian gone, I had to step it up. I stocked up on enough veggies that would not rot for 4-5 days without a fridge and other miscellaneous carby things that I generally dislike but still tolerate like bread and pasta. (Though I look forward to the day when I never have to eat bread ever again). Every morning, I made a fire, boiled water and cooked creative dishes from the 5 ingredients I have available. I managed to have soup, pasta salad, moringa omelette and only ate real ramen twice. Eggs were my main proteins but a PCV friend recently went to Germany and brought back some summer sausages, and I put some in every meal and they were delicious! Summer sausages, what a treat! It had been really fun cooking this way, pretending sometime that I was going camping somewhere in the wild, playing house by myself (I live alone afterall). Ghana has a lot of ingredient that I normally would not opt for back home, but my taste buds have changed over the course of times, and green peppers, bread, tomato sauce found their way into my bowl more often than I though. Probably due to hunger and limited options but I'll go ahead and call it improvement by circumstance. Maybe I can even put that on my resume... The year and a half spent watching Vivian cooks also allowed me to learn a lot about Ghanian cuisine and nutrition, which is good for me when talking about health and nutrition to other community members as a part of my job here. It has been strangely fitting, cooking for myself with a coal pot, to how I had imagined my Peace Corps service would be. Except that, I probably could not manage to do this while actually do other work at the same time. I had to constantly tending fire and cooking during the day time, and by the time I finish and want to rest, it's night and the day is gone. Eating Vivian's food is definitely more authentic, but I enjoyed the autonomy of cooking for myself a lot more than I thought. PCVs talk a lot about the lack of vegetables and fruits in meals, but I enjoyed the pleasures of greens in the form of moringa "the miracle tree", and shea oil (the very same ingredients that makes your lotion or anti-aging make up so expensive is actually used to fry my yam chips and other fried things here.) I think my eating habit is a lot better here than back home (no late night Denny's chicken wings and banana split run -- but I miss it so...) and I hope it sticks when I return in seven months. In the mean time, summer sausages is my latest and greatest cuisine crave. Feel free to send some my way. They don't have to be refridgeratd and is good with everything. What!? So Brilliant! Chau Ngo P.O Box 5736 Accra North, Ghana West Africa.

the removal of 4 wisdom teeth is waiting for me back in the states

I totally saw that coming too.

Peace Corps info are in a few weeks ago, further dental works is needed, so that's what I will be doing once I'm back this May. That and maybe UCSD Sun God, unless the consensus says that I am too old to dedicate a whole day to getting wasted or UCSD got too lame and it's pointless to celebrate.

Can't say I'm not looking forward to it though. :)

I learned what it's like being rich today in Vietnam. Having your own driver. Owning a Benz while having Toyota is already considered baller status. Living it up in your 40s while learning about life in your 20s and working hard in your 30s is the secret. I think there's hope for little old me after all. I don't want to be rich, just enough for airplane tickets to go around.

I also learned how big the social gap between the rich and the poor can be, as is in every developing country out there. So here comes an obvious realization, even thought we bitch about it, and puts it down, and always wish we were living somewhere else, an average life in America is still sometime better than an average life somewhere else exotic. My one U.S dollar here could get me a ride, or a nice bowl of pipping hot and delicious noodle, or FIVE awesome thirst quenching cups of sugar cane juice, and any of these things are totally worth it.

Tonight, as I sat waiting for my friend at 9pm at night, a middle aged lady carrying two baskets of sweet toasted rice paper walking by, saw and asked me if I would by some from her. Usually I would say no, because I don't like sweet stuff, and because I wasn't in the mood for snacks (I was craving some late night noodles instead) but something about the way she asked me that made me really believed her when she said that business has been tough, and it would have been a favor if I were to buy some from her.

Now, I'm not a sucker for mushy things... not all the time anyway, and most of the time, I can tell if people are lying, because I am a big bullshitter myself. Takes one to know one, y'know, but I said alright, I'll take some. She sold me 3 for 10,000 VND, which is the equivalent of about fifty cents in U.S dollars.

If I dig around the bottom of my book bag, I probably would find enough coins to add up to 50 cents, so for me, this purchase wasn't that big of a deal, at all, but for this woman, she probably could use this 10,000 VND for something useful, like food.

Anyway, after almost an entire day of hanging around a successful relative, that little exchange got me a little sentimental so I thought I'd talk about it. I didn't think to take a picture of the food before I ate it, so both these pics are found online and do not belong to me haha.

How one seller manages two baskets otherwise known as gánh hàng rong

Toasted rice paper or bánh tráng nướng (this is the version with sesame seeds, the one I bought have no sesame and are much sweeter)

*Unfortunately I did not take these pictures. I found them on Google.

holiday drinking with some dirty old men

... but first, a vocab/language lesson:

nhậu : roughly translated as "a drinking party" with some food and lots of beer and alchy.

anh: a pronoun used for a male who is either a) older than the speaker b) the speaker's boyfriend c) the speaker when talking to someone younger than him or to his girlfriend d) the speaker's older brother -- similar to korean's "oppa"

em: a pronoun used for a female who is either a) younger than the speaker b) the speaker's girlfriend c) the speaker when talking to someone older then her or to her boyfriend d) the speaker's younger sister

chú: a pronoun used for an adult male who is either a) someone's uncle b) someone who is older than the speaker by at least a generation -- similar to korean's "ajusshi"

cháu: a pronoun used for a much younger speaker, with status as the speaker's niece/nephew/grand child

People use these pronouns and suffixes depending on their relationship with the other person so they can be changed from formal to informal pending on the status of the relationship.

This weekend is apparently a long weekend, lots of people get Monday and Tuesday off, so I have had the opportunity to hang out with a lot of friends and family members.

Earlier this week my bachelor uncle took me to a cafe where we enjoyed expensive drinks and nice music while being tended by young waiter and waitresses. As a general rule to all food service establishment, all waitresses are to call all male customers anh regardless of their age. So all the cute and young waitresses call my uncle anh while they should really have called him chú. It was half funny and half awkward because later, when my uncle asked, we found out that the all waitresses are younger than me by at least 2 years, so if anything, he could be their uncle too!

Tonight, I met up with one of my cousins. He is one of the older cousins I have, around early 40's. He was in the middle of a nhậu fest with his friends when I called so he picked me up and had me join him. I call my cousin anh because he is older than me, and his friend share the same status as anh. If we all count our ages and had meet under different circumstances, I would call those guys chú as they are much older than me and could probably have children who are my age or older. They were way happy that someone my age is calling them anh and isn't a waitress so beside hitting on the waitress, they also tried to flirt with me. Slightly gross I might say.

Local people and my family included have been very liberal about drinking. Vietnam doesn't have a drinking age, so kids aren't sneakingly chasing the bottle and people drink when they want so there isn't much terrible scenarios of alcohol binging and poisoning. And mostly, people drink beer, or rice wine, not hard liquor. Most people, especially men, like to nhậu whenever they can, just like in college when we find an excuse to drink whenever we can regardless of the time. So this weekend gives everyone the perfect excuse to drink, it's a holiday, we have nothing to do, why not party it up!

I learned tonight that the rule of the nhậu table is that, if one person picks up the glass to drink, everyone clinks their glasses and everyone drinks. I wasn't aware of this rule and kept sipping, so every time I picked up the glass, everyone picked theirs up until someone called me out. Who would have thought that I get to learn something new today?

Women don't do much drinking here, especially the older generation, and even when they do, they drink mostly beer, not rice wine or liquor so I felt a bit uneasy about drinking, but it wasn't that big of a deal as people don't seem to care much. My uncles and family friends seems happy because they've found someone else who could party with them.

My cousin was pretty buzzed and decided to call my dad at 5:00 am California time.

"Hi uncle, I'm with your daughter. How're you doing?"

"Wtf why are you waking me up??"

One of my cousin's friend took over the phone and asked my dad,

"Hi uncle, there are two of us here beside your nephew, which of us do you pick (for your daughter)?"

"Your mama you bitch" Then he hung up.

I don't like my dad, but he could be so funny sometime, and apparently everyone who knows him loves hanging around him because he apparently has a deadpan sense of humor. I am very much enjoying getting to know more about my family through other people's eyes. Seeing them outside the mom and dad light is helping me understand my parents more and potentially *gasp* care for (or love) them more.

The big weekend is the memorial for the country's founder, it's going according to the Lunar Calendar and is this Tuesday. I didn't even know about this holiday because it didn't exist ten years ago! and only learned about it from the banner hung around the city.

"eat, eat, fish doesn't make you fat, don't worry" or "why do your jeans have holes in them, did you fall and tear your clothes?"

I've lost track of time completely. I'm not sure what day it is right now. I think it's Monday over here. Losing a whole Wednesday due to the time zone change really threw me off lol. And the whole 15 hours differences and my not having a watch isn't helping. And I don't have a phone yet so everything is off.

I've been here for about 4 days now, and beside living on the dangerous side of riding in the back of a motorbike almost every day, I haven't done much except for getting fed a lot, being stared at by people/locals, being mosquitoes' favorite meals, and being awake way too much during the hours that the sun is still out.

It is almost 9 am right now. I have been up since 8 am. It sounds terrible, I'm sure, considering that it's Spring Break right now in the states. I mean, who gets up at 8 am by choice?

Well, people here get up at like 5 or 6 am. The streets and the shops are alive around that time, markets are open around the same time too, especially in the country, which is where I am. My aunties and uncles get up around 5 or 6ish. After my first night, I got up at 7 am-ish and really didn't believe that my body could do that voluntary. Sleeping until 8 or later is considered too late, and 10 am is considered noon-time for lunch and then people take a (mandatory) nap around 11am or 12pm after their lunch meal until 3-4pm then eat some more and resume their work until dinner time. The sun sets late but fast here, and I feel that after the sun sets people go to sleep right away because it would be around 10pm and houses would have their doors closed and light turned off.

So now there is sort of an assumption that Americans sleep a lot... well, you would too if life doesn't end until 1-2am and you don't go to bed until 3-4 am, and you don't get the privilege of napping for 2-3 hours in the middle of the day.

Honestly, I don't particularly remember how life was like when I was a kid so I can't compare, but it also could be that it's the country side. Maybe when I get to the city it'll be better.

Enough complaining about the sun, let's address the more important topic that everyone is dying to know, "how is the food?"

Pretty fuckin' awesome, guys.

I'm eating so much fishes, and delicious noodle soup, I can not complain. It helps that the country side area I am staying at is near the coastal front/a beach town, so every seafood I eat is pretty fresh. I am anticipating a hook up with some scrumptious blue crabs soon. I'll tell you about it, and maybe even post pictures of our rendez-vous. I haven't had many chances of taking pictures of my food because (a.) It looks just as silly as someone else doing it (b.) My locals relatives don't get it and make fun of me. But I do have a few pics for you to see, so don't worry my loyal reader(s?)

I have had street food more than thrice already, and my stomach has been fine so far, granted that most of these street food have been togo-ed home. Okay, I lied, the second day my stomach wasn't too happy, but Pepto Bismo is my friend. These little pink pills have my back, so I'm not so worried.

On top of street food, my relatives and everyone around have been really putting in an effort to feed me under the ASSumption that I must really love to eat because I am not chubby for no reason. I am being fed stuff that they think I would like/stuff that they think I should try which is all fine and dandy but sometime it hurts because I can only eat so much. Plus I am still not used to the hot weather, and being too full on food is even more uncomfortable while sweating. But if I turn them down, saying I am full or not wanting to eat more, they think it's because I am afraid to be fat even though I seriously just ate a ton of food 15 minutes before! So they would try to persuade me to eat by telling me that "fish won't get me fat" or "sour fruits don't make people fat" and therefore I should eat more of them.

In the Vietnamese culture, people do a lot of assuming and analyzing as making answering for what is out of the ordinary or what they don't understand. The same method in which superstitious belief or even religions are created. Thus is the same approach my relatives take when it comes to me. It's goes unmentioned if I am agreeable to their suggestions, but if I state otherwise, lots of "explanation" as of why comes up, and in term of food, all assumptions point to either I-love-it-therefore/because-I-am-fat or I-hate-it-because-I-am-fat/afraid-0f-getting-fat. I try laughing it off, but after a few days, it's getting harder and harder to find it funny.

Anywho, here's some food I've eaten. They don't look too fancy, but they sure are delish!

Quãng-style noodles, can be made with pork, chicken, beef or shrimps, or combination of all

Crab and corn soup. Simple and scrumptious

I get stared at a lot. I think they know I am not from around here. Compare to local girls, I am not any taller, but definitely wider and protrude in more places. When going shopping, people don't believe that I am a size S despite the store selling American brands with American size. I kept being handed M or L and they think the only reason why I fit in smaller size is because the style/cut is loose and baggy.

It also doesn't help that people here are not as conservative as travel websites make them out to be. I was worried that I would stand out too much dressing too open and "American" so all I brough with me are loose and baggy clothes, but girls wear tight, short and flashy stuff here plenty. I have only been wear sport bras because to be even more conservative, but all is for naught because everyone is getting pretty modernized and like to show their goods just as much as anyone else in the world. I only get more stares because I am not doing what they are doing. Young people stare because they notice that I am not wearing the same trend as they are, and old people stare because they just don't get trend in general. I visited my great-aunty wearing a pair of ripped jeans, and she kept asking me how did I tear my jeans, and why don't I throw away clothes that are ripped and buy new ones LOL.

In addition, the culture values and appreciates pale skin, due to the past few months of me hiding from the sun, I've been quite pale so I come off a chubby and pale girl from America, a image displaying the sign of wealth and prosperity, even though we all know it's quite the opposite as I am, sadly, a broke ass fool. So please stop staring, people because as much as I love the attention, I am shy and get stage fright and would rather you talk to me instead.

Even mosquitoes think my blood has something else to offer more than the locals. People joke that it's because my blood smells sweater, and I have more meat to offer (more fat jokes). Ever since my arrival in Nha Trang, a famous seaside city for tourists, I have been pretty much a feast for these miniature draculas. I did bring some anti-mosquitoes repellent, but because I wasn't bitten at all for the first 2-3 days, I got a little cocky and didn't bring it with me to this city. Well fuck, that was a bad decision if I ever made one. In one sitting, I killed 3 mosquitoes, but they kept coming, and thank lord baby Jesus for Cortizone, the magical itch medicine, otherwise, I think I might have to hurt someone to feel better.

Can't always drink my blood and get away with it, bitch

Spot the bites. Go

Next post will be about Nha Trang, a tourist destination, wait for it... :)