Hồ Chí Minh's Name

胡志明

I'm deliriously elated. I just recognized all the characters in Hồ Chí Minh's name as it's written in chữ Nôm. I realized this as I'm sitting in a principal's office, taking a break between classes. I'm here working part time teaching English to 12-year-olds. It's also one of the first times I've ever been in a principal's office without having been sent there by a frustrated teacher who's had it up to here with my shenanigans.

I'm staring at a plaque that hangs above the window overlooking the school's courtyard. The plaque bears the smiling face of Uncle Hồ, as he's affectionately called by many here in Vietnam. The plaque depicts his name in the traditional Vietnamese script, which is essentially Chinese characters that were borrowed and adapted. These characters on the plaque appear exactly the same in Chinese as they do in chữ Nôm.

胡
I recognize the first character from early this summer, when I had started to learn about the the Chinese two-stringed violin. In Chinese, the instrument is called èrhú, or 二胡. The name of this instrument in Vietnamese is đàn hồ. Đàn is Vietnamese for stringed instrument, and hồ is borrowed from the Chinese word hú. It's also the same hồ as in Uncle Hồ.

On this plaque bearing Uncle Hồ's picture, I saw the character for hú. The Vietnamese word hồ has a different meaning than its Chinese root word. In modern Chinese, hú means barbarian, foreigner, or wild, and it could mean recklessly or foolishly. And what's more, it's paradoxically both a common Chinese surname, and a term for someone from beyond China's borders. In chữ Nôm, the character 胡 has two pronunciations: hồ and hò. Hò means to sing, or to acclaim, and the only meaning of hồ is a surname.

志明
The other two characters on the plaque are Chí and Minh, and these are Uncle Hồ's given name. I didn't recognize how to say chí, or what it meant. But I recognized the two characters that chí is made of. The top one means scholar or officer. The bottom one means heart, mind, and soul. Poetic, I know: the mind of the scholar, the heart of the soldier. In chữ Nôm, the character chí means to have will power, or to be pious. Minh is one of the coolest words. The two characters that make up minh are the sun and the moon. In Chinese, this character is means bright, in the sense of light. However, in Vietnamese the word describes someone who is insightful and wise.

I suppose it's worth a mention, in a post about Hồ Chí Minh's name, that this was a name he chose for himself. It's also worth a mention that he held many names. When he was born, he was called Nguyễn Sinh Cung, and was given a new first name, Tất Thành, when he turned 10. In his twenties, he took the name Văn Ba. By the time he reached his thirties, he called himself Nguyễn Ái Quốc. He held this name for most of his adult life, aside from two visits to China in which he went by Lý Thụy and Hồ Quang respectively, a stay in Siam (now known as Thailand) when he was known as Thầu Chín, a period in Hong Kong when he was known as Tống Văn Sơ, and a visit to Moscow, when he called himself Lin. When he returned to Vietnam, he went by Già Thu before finally calling himself Hồ Chí Minh. Today, people call him Uncle Hồ.

Mind you, it wasn't me who imposed an archaic representation of Uncle Hồ's name upon him. I'm only reporting on the plaque hanging in the principal's office. Someone in charge of deciding what should be displayed in this institution of higher learning felt that the chữ Nôm version of Uncle Hồ's name would enrich the students' education. The decision might have been in deference to Uncle Hồ's early career, when he taught chữ Hán, or Chinese script, at a school in Phan Thiết.

I am not under any illusion that this plaque will have any impact on its intended audience. Not a single kid at that school, in all 50 classes with 45 students each, not a single one of them will notice or care. But maybe a fraction of a percent of the nerdy kids will develop an interest after they grow up to become part-time historians, language hobbyists, or all-around renaissance men and women. They could find themselves here someday, in the principals office--maybe to pick up their own child from school, or to start a new job. Here, they will see Uncle Hồ's name in a way that begs to be understood. And they'll begin to wonder. Maybe that's why Uncle Hồ is smiling like he does. Or, not.

Mooncake Mockup

One of the best mooncakes...ever

 

Ice cream. I could eat it all day--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in-between meals. I wish I could live in a house made of ice cream... but I would eat myself out of house and home.

Imagine how mouth-wateringly pleased I was to discover this variation on the seasonal specialty called mooncake. Instead of the traditional glazed pastry, often stuffed with lotus seed paste and egg yolk, this one was made of flan, green tea and green rice ice creams, and a "yolk" made of mango sorbet.

The flan was set in a mold that gave it the characteristic relief and detail of a real mooncake, and the top received a sprinkling of praline nuts. One slice of whole shebang revealed the mango-ey yolk and the layers of green and creamy white ice cream.

Not to let this ice cream mooncake stand alone on its own merit, the ice cream artists made a spectacular serving presentation. They placed this mooncake mockup on a banana leaf atop a wooden tray. They built a lotus flower out of white chocolate, spread sliced strawberries around the edges of the banana leaf, and drizzled syrup and candied ginger around the lot. For the additional touch of class, the whole thing was served with a pot of fragrant jasmine iced tea, complete with a thimble-sized cup.

For most of my life, my favorite ice cream pretender was the whattamelon roll. It's a slice of watermelon and lime sherbet, with chocolate chips throughout, made to look like a slice of summertime heaven. But not anymore. This ice cream variant of the mid-autumn festival specialty totally takes the cake.

Tết Trung Thu - Mid-Autumn Festival

Today's full moon marks the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. This moon marks a major holiday in many Asian cultures. In Vietnam, the holiday is called Tết Trung Thu.

I used to think that Tết meant the lunar new year. Actually, the new year is called Tết Nguyên Đán. I found out that there are four traditional holidays in Vietnam called Tết. The others are the lantern festival on the full moon of the first month, and the mid-year festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, called Tết Nguyên Tiêu and Tết Đoan ngọ respectively.

In Vietnam, the mid-autumn festival is a celebration of children. In the evening, parents fawn over their kids, give them presents, and feed them rich and savory sweets. They eat square mooncakes filled with seeds, dried fruits and dried meats. Together, families bring tea, wine or mooncakes to relatives, then venture outside to sing, light lanterns, watch lion dances, and admire the full harvest moon. In the moon, people say they can see a person who, according to folklore, was carried there tangled in the roots of a sacred banyan tree. Whether this person was a man or a woman is unclear to me.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Hồ Tây - West Lake

After he had slain the monster fish Ngư Tinh, the Dragon Lord of Lac ventured to Long Biên, on the western bank of Sông Hồng, the Red River. There, he confronted another demon, a nine-tailed fox a thousand years old that had been devouring maidens by taking the form of a handsome man and enticing them into his lair. The dragon lord called upon a great deluge of water, assaulted the demon fox with the water, and vanquished it. In the wake of the battle, a vast swath of land along the Red River's western bank had been destroyed, and in its place was a lake.

It's the last week of August, and today is the first day of the eighth lunar month. This evening, people all over Hanoi are in the streets and burning offerings of wealth like hell money and paper representations of luxuries like gold, cars, new clothes, and even smartphones. The eighth month welcomes the season of the harvest. In fifteen days, the full moon with be large and luminous, and all over Asia people will admire its beauty, feast on mooncakes, light lanterns, and contemplate the change of season.

Throughout tonight, however, the moon will stay hidden below the horizon. And today the sun was still summer strong, and beat down on Mike and I as we took a walk around Hanoi's west lake. The walk was meditative. We felt the change of day like the turn of season. The journey took several hours. The sun meandered from its zenith and disappeared in the smoggy evening haze by the time we finally finished the entire circuit.

A lotus pond shack and little boats taken when collecting flowers and seed cups.

The journey was a laundry list of sights that ranged from offensive to inspirational. We walked with the lake on our right. The faint hot breeze carried the sick mucky stench of rot. In the lake, we saw a floating restaurant called the Potomac, sprawling acres of lotus ponds, bloated and bobbing corpses of countless fish, acrobatic dragonflies and bats, rowboats, an aquatic golf driving range, bubbles of gas that rose from the lake bottom, and ripples from schools of small fish.

Around the lake, trees lined the shore. In their shade, men fished with line wrapped around half-cans of baby formula and hauled catches of carp, crappies, and catfish. Old aunties and young children chattered and swung in green net hammocks, and ravaged-looking roosters crowed and shook their featherless heads. On our left, we passed foreign embassies, dilapidated French-colonial estates, empty upscale cafes, graffiti-covered walls, and several austere temples. Off in the distance, an enormous ferris wheel and about a dozen construction cranes loomed on the smoggy horizon.

Looking at it from far away, the lake was quite attractive. It was enormous and the still surface reflected the blue sky. But close up, the lake was a disturbing sight. The opaque green water seemed nearly putrid. Trash and litter floated everywhere. Pipe outlets dumped runoff and sludge into the water. My first glance at the lake revealed about two dozen dead fish rotting at the surface, all within a few yards of the shore.

However, the locals don't share my sensibilities regarding water quality. We saw many people fishing, by hook or by net, and keeping their catches. On the northwestern side, we saw someone swimming in the mucky green water. And toward the end of our journey, we watched a man wash his clothes in it. The people who use the lake don't seem to be fretful regarding its health.

As we walked, I realized I had seen other details that complicated my opinion of the lake's quality. During the day, I saw dozens of brilliantly colored dragonflies that darted across the surface and fought with each other midflight; to the victors went perches on semi-submerged sticks and the advantage of good breeding territory. In the evening, the dusky sky was full of bats that flitted overhead and stripped the air of gnats by the swarm. Animals like dragonflies and bats give a sense of an ecosystem's health. It seems the bats and dragonflies are in great abundance at Hanoi's west lake. I think I've seen fewer of them in what would be considered more "natural" areas.

Boatmen scoop golf balls from the net spanning the aquatic driving range.
Photo by Mike Cadette

I've started to rethink the way I look at environmental spaces within urban landscapes. My initial impression, that the lake is filthy and ecologically at risk, might not be right. Maybe the reason for so many dead fish is not pollution. So many dead fish could result from overpopulation due to an overabundance of food, perhaps extensive algae growth caused by nutrient-rich affluence from sewage. An abundance of fish would fit with the abundance of dragonflies and bats, which seem to be thriving here on the west lake. The success of these airborne species is bewildering, and a little bit heartening.

As Mike and I finished our lap, the sun vanished in the smoggy haze on the horizon. The air cooled, and the rotten stench, which had risen from the sun-warmed water during the day, had faded. As darkness fell, more and more people filled the shore, to spend their evening outdoors with friends, while in their homes, their televisions sat blank and idle. Vendors peddled icecream and balloons. Incense and the sound of bells emanated from glowing temples dispersed around the lake. And bats, more than one could count, cartwheeled and somersaulted through the air over Hồ Tây.

Tastes of Hanoi

There's only one thing on the menu at this iconic restaurant: it's grilled fish piled high with dill and green onion.

 
 

Phở could be considered to be Vietnam's flagship dish. North Vietnam's style of this beef noodle dish is simple and straightforward, with a few cuts of beef, a couple pinches of green onion and cilantro, and a big clump of fresh flat noodles.

 
 

Although we wouldn't know it in the states, but phở happens to be a versatile noodle. Here they are fried, as phở xào.

 
 

Another variant is called phở cuốn. It's a cold roll of beef and herbs, wrapped up in a noodle sheet and dipped in nước chấm.

 
 

If there's any Vietnamese food I'll miss most of all when we leave Hanoi, it's cốm, a dish of roasted young rice. Tender and nutty, cốm's green hue comes from the natural color of the immature rice. Unfortunately, it's a regional specialty. We can't even find it in Saigon.

 
 

Another reason the cốm has become a favorite: it makes a great ice cream.

30 Years After the War

The other day, Mike and I were walking through Hanoi when he made an interesting observation.

It's been thirty years since the war. The American War is what they call it here, and the Americans incontestably lost. Here we were, two Americans strolling around Hanoi, and we had this surreal feeling, like we were Japanese tourists in 1965 on a stroll through Washington D.C.

But there's a major difference between the imagined experience of the Japanese tourist and our own. Here in Vietnam, there's a strange esteem of American branding. The Japanese tourist in 1965 would never find products labeled "Super Japanese," step over images of Japanese cash lying on the streets, or see the national flag waving from restored Japanese military jeeps. Yet the promotion of American goods seems widespread here.
 

A US Army Jeep. See the US flag posted on the driver's side?

Hell money for the dead bears images of American cash.

The mirror in our hotel bathroom is etched with a pro-American sounding phrase...

...and the toilet bears a similar mark.

Hồ Hoàn Kiếm - Lake of the Returned Sword

Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, also known as Hồ Gươm, or Sword Lake

 
A brief legend of history:

At this lake in Hanoi's historic center, the gods handed emperor Lê Lợi a sword that he wielded to expel the Chinese from Vietnam in the 15th century C.E. With sovereignty restored, Lê Lợi went back to the lake and returned the sword to the gods. There was a turtle involved.

Morning martial arts

In the present, the lake is a morning spectacle. Martial artists with swords and staves pantomime fights with invisible opponents, with complex choreographed steps. Old timers tip-toe at the water's edge, face the water, and slap their bodies with open palms from head to foot. Walkers and joggers make laps around the lake as the sunrise lights up the green water. People welcome the morning with exercise. Everywhere you look, they stretch, do pull-ups, hang from posts, wave their arms. Hardly any of them are younger than forty. Most of them are at or beyond the age of retirement. But growing old does not mean slowing down for them.

At night, the lake glows with blue, red, green, and yellow lanterns. The surrounding buildings are brilliantly lit as well. And the lake captures all the light, reflects it, and doubles the festive appearance. Around the lake, couples spoon on concrete benches, hawkers peddle fried dough, and bats flit in the lamplight for dinner on the wing.

Lake Hoàn Kiếm is lovely. It's not without a dark side. Foul street runoff, litter, and acid rain threatens to destroy the very symbol of Vietnam's independence. Giant softshell turtles that once thrived in the lake are now nearly extinct, despite attempts to breed them in captivity.

The pagoda on the lake's island is called Tortoise Tower. It's named for the god of legend--a turtle--that lent the emperor the sword that liberated Vietnam. It seems the turtle is an important figure to Vietnam's cultural identity, and it would be a shame if the species in this lake disappeared forever--not just for the turtle's sake, or for the balance of the lake's ecology, but for the pride of the Vietnamese. Today, the people who come down to the lake for their morning exercise or evening festivities seem to believe that turtles still paddle about in the green water. I hope they are always right.

Saigon Funnies

Open Late
They sure don't close early.

 

Electricians
The wires are a cobweb, but I'm not sure if the people are like the spiders, or the flies.

 

Offensive Cream
The fact that it probably reeks of menthol would explain the name.

 

Press
The button to flush this toilet is the size of the lid itself.

 

"Pork" Bun
It's so cute. I want to eat it, but I don't.

 

Bún Thịt Nướng

We had just pulled up plastic stools to the folding metal table. The lady who ran the place assembled our orders of bún thịt nướng. She set out green plastic soup bowls, lined the bottoms with handfuls of cripsy lettuce and fragrant basil, dropped heaping mounds of white, tender vermicelli noodles on top, then sprinkled pinches of green onion, toasted peanuts, and smoky grilled beef over the lot.

The lady who made our food was a serious sort who had had short hair, dyed to a black hue she might have had when she was 30 years younger. When she put the bowls in front of us, I was ready to make short work of it. Bún is ome of my favorite foods.

The way to eat bún is this. Pour a bowlful of garlicy-spicy-salty-sour nước mắm over the the pile. Mix the noodles, greens and meat like a tossed salad to coat with the sauce. Direct big bite-sized pinches towards mouth. Repeat.

I have on occasion seen people hold a chopstick in either hand when tossing a bowl of bún or other mixed foods. This way makes sense, because two utensils are quick to toss up a salad. So I decided to give the two-handed technique a whirl.

The lady who ran the place saw me with one chopstick in either hand. She pointed at my hands and asked a sharp question. Lu responded brightly, laughed a little, and told me the lady had asked if I knew how to use chopsticks.

This misunderstanding amused me. Feeling little devilish, I brought one of the chopsticks closeer to my eyes and scrutinized it, as if trying to find the power button.

The lady barked again. Lữ answered, almost apologetically, and the lady muttered something as she walked away. I looked up from my bowl, which I had been mixing with chopsticks in one hand, the proper way, I suppose. Lữ relayed the conversation.

"She said, are you sure he knows how to use those? I said yes, he does, he's just playing.

"And she said, if he's playing, I'm going to pull his ear."

An American idiom for fooling around is to pull someone's leg. For pulling the shopkeeper's leg, I nearly got my ear pulled in return. I guess that's only fair.

How We Got New York

"He who controls the spice, controls the universe."

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
(Dune)

It all began with nutmeg and mace, the spices that come from the seeds of the nutmeg tree. Long ago, this tree grew exclusively on one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia, which was the world's only source for nutmeg and mace. This island is known as Run Island.

By the 1600s, Europe had become prosperous. Its demand for commodities and luxuries extended to spices of Southeast Asia. European appetites craved the exotic flavors and the preservative ability of spice, particularly fragrant nutmeg. With the introduction of oceanfaring ships, European traders launched fleets of large trading vessels bound for the Spice Islands of Indonesia to retrieve spices for the European market. Nutmeg, being the most rare, was also one of the most valuable. Much blood was shed in the effort to control Run Island.

Britain was first to claim Run Island as a colony, effectively giving Britain exclusive control over the nutmeg trade. The Dutch Republic challenged Britain's monopoly, seized the island, and expelled the British. Conflict over trade escalated into full out war.

Britain reclaimed title to Run Island after the First Anglo-Dutch War. But the Dutch refused to leave, and drove British traders away with the exception of a single year, in 1665, when the British had access to the spice, and more importantly, to the trees. Britain initiated the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which resolved with the Treaty of Breda. Britain ceded claim to Run Island to the Dutch Republic.

It appeared that the Dutch had received the better end of the bargain. The Dutch got to keep their monopoly on the nutmeg trade. But Britain had pulled a fast one. At some point, perhaps during their presence on Run Island in 1665, the British had transferred nutmeg trees to their other colonies. The British could then grow their own nutmeg for trade, and the Dutch monopoly on nutmeg was broken.

One more thing. In exchange for their claim on Run Island, the Dutch gave up their fort in the Americas. Perhaps the Dutch believed that the monopoly they thought they held on nutmeg would be many times more profitable than the American fur trade. So they abandoned Fort New Amsterdam, on an island at the mouth of the Hudson. Little were the Dutch to know that this place would soon be the primary gateway from Europe into what would soon be known as the United States.

Why they call New York the big apple, and not the big nutmeg, is another story.

The Mystery of the Kee Continues

During my wanderings, I often come across a particular Chinese character on the signs hanging above shops and markets. When written in English, the character is spelled kee. Usually the character is the second or third in the name of shops and markets. For example, some noodle shops in Hong Kong:

• 池記雲呑麵家 - Chee Kee Won Ton Min, Causeway Bay
• 權記雲呑麵 - Kuen Kee Won Ton Min, Central
• 劉森記 - Lau Sham Kee, Sham Shui Po
• 麥文記麵家 - Mak Man Kee Min, Tsim Sha Tsui
• 六記 - Luk Kee, Macau (not actually HK, but nearby)

Imagine you're in Macau, and hoping to score some noodles at Luk Kee. Imagine you flag down a local and query, where is Luk Kee? Imagine confusion, shifty eyes, and the local's glaringly obvious desire to make immediate distance between you both. No Cantonese speaker would understand Luk Kee. You could be standing in front of the restaurant, and behind you is a flashing yellow sign with the name of the shop in big bold red letters--in both Chinese and English--but if you ask for Luk Kee, there will be blank stares and awkwardness.

Had you instead pronounced the store name as luk-gei, the way the locals say it, you'd be chowing down on delicious noodles and dace meatballs in no time. Instead, you're stuck in language limbo, because the English spelling of kee is wrong. Why on earth would we deliberately spell a character so it's always mispronounced?

Hưng Ký Mì Gia, a Saigon noodle shop

I want to know where the spelling of kee comes from. The history of language tells no tales, but perhaps a clue can be found in Vietnam. The Vietnamese word ký is the same as the Chinese word. It means designation or record, as in the signature one would put on a document or work. And like the Chinese character, ký also means shop, and it commonly takes the same position as the second or third word in storefront signs.

More than half of Vietnamese vocabulary was borrowed from the Chinese language over the ages. Early Vietnamese literature was written in Chinese characters starting in the 6th century. Therefore, Vietnamese pronunciation of Chinese words likely reflects Middle Chinese phonetic conventions. In China, the spoken languages radiated and were influenced by external factors. These changes would have had little to no bearing on Vietnamese pronunciation.

It's possible that the Vietnamese pronunciation ký reflects the Middle Chinese pronunciation of the character. But, who knows? Even if the Vietnamese pronunciation reflects the Chinese language of antiquity, the connection doesn't explain the original question: why did the English speakers in Hong Kong take a Chinese character that was pronounced gei and spell it kee? The answer remains a mystery.

The Best Karaoke Gimmick Ever?

My experience with karaoke in Asia has been limited to private, exclusive gatherings conducted in small rooms with drink service, which sounds shady, but really is not. Renting a private space in a karaoke club offers a lot of perks. The only people in the rotation are friends. And the shy don't have to muster impossible courage to sing in front of a room full of strangers. These private karaoke rooms are by no means limited to Asia. Two of the best birthday parties I've been to in ten years have been made possible by a reserved room in New York City, an endless playlist, and the caterwauling of close friends that only ended at closing time.

However, the private karaoke room is not the best karaoke gimmick ever. It is silk flowers, arranged in a haphazard bouquet at cafe tables in a dark room as waiters breeze by carrying drinks on trays atop three fingers--silk flowers, with 10,000 đồng notes rolled up and tucked inside--silk flowers, passed from audience member to singer in appreciation and admiration for a good voice, or a good attempt--then silk flowers, deposited in a basket at the foot of the stage and collected as tips for the incredible live band that accompanies the singers with a broad spectrum of Vietnamese tunes and western standards. Oh yeah, a live band. That's a nice touch for karaoke too.

But the silk flowers, they are the best karaoke gimmick ever, for sure.

Cúng Cô Hồn - Strengthening

All through the seventh lunar month, Vietnamese Buddhists pay homage to the spirits of the dead. They offer prayers, burn effigies of wealth, and present various cooked and raw dishes for hungry ghosts that haunt the night. It seems that ceremonies in the seventh month take on special significance. Today we watched the ceremonial opening of our friends' restaurant. Our friends made a special offering to make sure the opening would not disturb resident spirits. This offering is called cúng cô hồn.

The glass altar

Before dawn, many preparations were already in place. The glass altar, mounted to the mint colored wall at the back of the dining room, bore a small plate of fruit, smouldering incense, and cups of liquid--either water or a firey liqour--all set before a porcelain statue of a bodhisattva. This altar was one of two in the room. In the center of the dining area, one of the dark wooden tables was arranged with a much more elaborate spread of offerings with special significance to the ritual to appease the spirits.

The five-fruits tray and globe chrysanthemums

A large tray held a variety of fruits, each chosen for its symbolic meaning. These trays are called mâm ngũ quả, or five-fruit-tray. The number five is auspicious in Vietnamese culture--the hands and feet each have five digits, the body has four limbs and one torso, the elements are five in number, and the five directions are the cardinal points plus the center. The fruits are selected to represent five colors, five flavors, and five sounds. The contents of these trays vary from region to region, according to availability and regional specialty. In the north, it's common to see green bananas, yellow Buddha's hand, red pomegranate, white persimmon, and dark plum. The tray this morning represented the fruits common to the south--green mango, yellow papaya, red dragon-fruit, white coconut, and dark custard apple. Besides their colors, these fruits are also chosen for the auspicious words they rhyme with. When said aloud, the words sound almost like a phrase, something like: "pray prosperous enough to enjoy”. Trays are not limited to five fruits, and this one also contained grapes and an orange.

Besides the fruit on the table, there was a set of small glass cups, bowls of dry rice and coarse salt, a vase of yellow globe-shaped chrysanthemums, a plate of betelnut, and stacks of paper, decorated to look like cash and gold. This paper has many names in Vietnam, including tiền âm phủ (hell money), tiền địa phủ (government money), tiền vàng bạc (gold and silver), and tiền vàng mã (gold notes). The burning of hell money is an offering that ensures the prosperity and fortune of the spirits. The tray on the table held a veritable international bankroll, with various denominations of Euros, Chinese Yuan, and US hundred dollar bills. Other hell money paper, lined in foil, represented pure gold. These offerings of wealth were to be burned after the ceremony.

Lighting incense cones

The sun was not yet over the buildings across the street when a Buddhist monk in black robes arrived to begin the ritual. He passed through the restaurant, set his orange bag down on the table, and began making preparations for the ceremony. He lit three cones of incense and placed them in the ash-laden ceramic censer on the table. Next, he lit six incense sticks and placed three, side by side, in censers both on the wall mounted altar, and on the table. Opening his bag, he removed an orange robe, slipped it on, and began the ceremony.

Our friend stood behind the monk and copied his movements. Together, they lit twelve more incense sticks and held them vertically at eye level. When the monk bowed, our friend bowed as well. But only the monk touched his ring finger to his thumb of his right hand, and waved it in the smoky air as if writing unseen letters. Only his lips pursed and quivered in silent prayer. He was natural, unpretentious. A bracelet of thick orange beads with a golden yellow tassel hung over the left sleeve of his robe. His orange robe bore a patch from where a candle had burned a hole. His white socked toes poked out from plain sandals. He was quiet and serious. Our friend said he was well known.

Burning of hell money

Sunlight bounced off the street and splashed into the restaurant. The monk arranged the set of six glasses in a row, opened a plastic bottle of liquor, and poured six glasses. He brought three of them outside, and poured each one onto the sun-warmed sidewalk. He returned, and filled the empty cups with tea. He stacked the white bowls of rice and salt, raised it to his forehead three times, mixed them in a larger bowl, and carried the mixture outside to scatter on the sidewalk. Finally, he offered the tray of hell money, lifted it above his head, then carried it outside to be burned. The monk crouched, thumbed through the stacks of hell money with the speed of a bankteller, scrunched the notes, and lit a wad. Tossing the burning wad to the sidewalk, he added more scrunched paper until the tray was empty, and only ashes remained.

With the account of hell money exhausted, the monk returned inside, removed his orange robe, folded it, placed it in his bag, and departed. We cleared the table of the remainder of the offerings: the fruits, the flowers, the incense and censer. Our friend poured the three cups of liquor and three cups of tea onto the sidewalk. The ritual was complete. Rituals like this are how the reverent announce themselves to resident spirits, in the hopes that the offerings will create a strong, positive relationship between the new business and old ghosts. The scent of incense was still in the air when breakfast service started. Within an hour, our friend hosted more than two dozen customers, and her business was off to a prosperous start.

A Vietnamese Guy Walks Into a Bar...

This blog is a joke. Seriously. Tonight, Lữ told a knee-slapper, and I thought I'd share it. The joke reveals something about the Vietnamese culture, she said. What that something is, I can't say, so I'll leave it up to you.

A census taker goes to a small village, and he asks the first man he sees, excuse me sir, could you let me know what's the population of this village?

Under a thousand, the villager says.

The census taker says okay, but would you be more specific?

The villager replies, eleven.

Vu-Lan - Absolution for Wandering Souls

Today was one of four major lunar holidays in Vietnam. All month long, Buddhist Vietnamese have performed rituals for the sake of the ghosts from the underworld that have been set free to roam the land of the living. Through these rituals, the ghosts receive gifts like food and burned offerings, and, if the circumstances permit, are absolved from suffering for sins committed during life.

Praying at Chùa Vĩnh Nghiêm

On the first day, when the moon is new, Vietnamese families flock to temples and pray, and set copious amounts of food on shrines to feed the hungry spirits of their ancestors. They burn incense and paper representations of wealth that bring prosperity to the dead. Interesting note, it seems the paper "money" commonly burned here is the US $100 bill. The month closes with similar offerings, as the people bid farewell to the ghosts returning to the underworld.

When the moon is full during the month of roaming souls, this day is called Vu-lan, the period when spirits can receive absolution. The observance comes from a Buddhist directive to liberate deceased ancestors from suffering caused by bad karma during life. The day is also called Tết Trung Nguyên, or day of wandering souls. On this day, which was today, the lost and unforgiven spirits wander the streets in full force. They are exceptionally hungry, because they have no families of their own who would feed them.

To appease these wild spirits, people pray, both in temples and at home. At home, they set up shrines to their ancestors, according to Vietnam's Wiki page. On these shrines people place salt, gold, and paper representations of real items. These paper replicas include clothing, appliances, electronics, vehicles...I've heard even paper housekeepers are up for the offerings. These items, once reduced to ashes, bestow prosperity and comfort on the deceased.

Offerings for wandering hungry ghosts

While I didn't run across any devotionals for family ancestors today, I did come across curbside makeshift shrines that people made to offer hospitality for lonely, hungry ghosts that have no family of their own to feed them. As dusk approaches, the living place food offerings on the streets for the spirits of the dead to eat their fill. The people slip indoors after darkness falls to avoid running into any hungry ghosts. Woe be to those who neglect to feed these angry spirits. When ghosts go unfed, they go unpardoned, and the angry ghosts drag the spirits of the living down to the underworld out of spite.

We started the day at Chùa Vĩnh Nghiêm, a temple with a seven story pagoda, which is situated at the north end of our neighborhood. Traffic in front of the temple crawled to a halt as taxis dropped off worshippers, and dozens of scooters crowded the gate, inching their ways between pedestrians and around buses. In the courtyard, people burned bundles of incense and the smoke clung to the air. At the top of the stairs in front of the temple, a man sold sparrows from a wood and wire crate, which are released for good luck. Inside, the altars practically spilled over with food and money offerings. Pink lotus blossoms, with petals folded over to present the golden seed cup within, adorned altars and memorials.

Later on, I roamed around the Chợ Lớn section of Saigon, to compare Vietnam's Day of Wandering Souls to the Hungry Ghost Festival of China. I was in Hong Kong during the Hungry Ghost Festival in 2009. It was awesome. The night air had more incense than LA has smog. All night long, people burned paper money and paper gold ingots by the sackful. While the adults largely stayed indoors in reverence of the tradition, the younger generations wandered about the city excitedly, questing after hungry ghosts, elusive temples, and dramatic burn-piles. On one of the steep streets near my house, a green dumpster blazed with a fire that licked the sky and cast strange shadows on the city street. It was an unforgettable spectacle.

In Chợ Lớn tonight, the scene was much more laid back. Hardly more than a few visitors came to the temple to the east of Chợ Bình Tây, which is the district's iconic market and which also was largely abandoned and closed down by late afternoon. I passed by a scant handful of curbside offerings. And the streets were as crowded as I would expect on a Sunday evening, with a vegetable market full of shoppers picking up last minute items for dinner.

As I passed through, I saw a small crowd of about six people enthusiastically picking over something on the vegetable mat on the ground. I peeked through and saw a pile of red rambutans, which the lady said was priced at 12 cents a pound. I picked up two, and that was me, wandering through the streets of Saigon like a hungry ghost, and finding an offering of satisfying rambutans.

Ốc - They Carry Their Homes

I took a walk in the rain at the outskirts of town tonight, on roads that made me wonder, what was I thinking when I decided to take this walk? Through ankle-deep, murky curb runoff, over bridges with crowded oncoming scooters and no pedestrian walkway, across a tollbooth as uniformed guards with blinding flashlights harassed hapless truckdrivers. Tired of my taxing trek, I found a bus stop and waited for a bus, on the corner of a moonlit grassy field that once was natural flooded swamp, but has been drained to support commercial development. When the rains come, animals, which once called the swamp home, emerge under the cover of darkness. They hop and creep and crawl and splash, just like they used to before the land was drained.

From the bus stop, I saw three men skulking about in the vines and tall swampgrass. With dim flashlights, they probed the damp vegetation, and intermittently reached out to pluck something the size of a stone from the lush greenery. I snuck in to get a closer look at the bags, saw the form of a conical spiral pile, and realized that the plastic-sandaled men were hunting for snails. I gestured to a guy with a distended bag, smiled, and pointed at the bag with an open palm. He said ốc, ốc, ốc, ốc, rapidly as if he had just stubbed his toe. I think I made him nervous.

I pantomimed eating by drawing my five fingertips toward my mouth as if taking a bite of food. He nodded, which seemed to affirm my guess that he and his companions were gathering edible snails. I could be wrong, since he didn't say the word for yes, that's correct. But I'm pretty sure he was going to eat them. Or perhaps he was going to sell them to one of the numerous late-evening sidewalk cafes that specialize in snails, clams, and fertilized duck eggs, all served with bottles of beer. Finding enough snails to make a meal, or to sell for a decent profit, is a lot of work. Losing ground to development must make it even harder. It seems that the animals weren't the only ones that were left high and dry when the swamps were drained.

The word for snail is ốc. This is confirmed by several people. Interestingly, the word ốc according to Google seems to mean "house," probably because the little guys appear to carry their houses around on their backs. I thought I'd double check with Lữ, but she's not convinced that ốc means house. Whether Google is right or not, snails certainly do carry their homes on their backs.

Either way, it was interesting to see people foraging for dinner in an urban greenspace, just a few feet from bustling trucks and honking scooters at a busy intersection. I don't think I'll have the same luck if I try to forage for dinner in Central Park. And, what would I eat, anyway?

Pl-ice-tic Skating

Skating on synthetic ice is kind of... nice

"Where else can you get bit by a mosquito when ice skating," Mike said, chuckling as he glided by me, a little wobblier than I'm used to seeing when he has skates laced to his feet, but skating nonetheless, on a giant sheet of white, slippery plastic.

We checked out the synthetic ice skating rink, on the third floor (what we would call the fourth floor) of the public sports and rec complex near our apartment. The rink is a jigsaw puzzle of white polymer tiles. Loud techno-pop and air conditioning turned way down greet you when you walk in. The place is full of local kids who go there to learn figure skating, play co-ed hockey, or hang out and flirt with each other. You have the odd adult who chooses to skate laps in a single lane like it was a pool and not a circular rink, who is more of a hazard than anything else. And you have Mike and I, who are perhaps the only people there who know what it's like to skate on real frozen water.

The ice is fake, but the skates are very real. The blades are sharpened metal. The hockey skates are just like the ones we'd use on ice. The figure skates have been slightly modified; the serrated toes are ground smooth so they don't tear up the plastic.

While I wouldn't say that the sensation of real ice is successfully replicated, the synthetic rink isn't bad. Two factors contribute to a reasonably similar skating experience. The rink is lubricated to reduce friction. I think they use some sort of silicone grease. It gets all over everything, and it's kind of gross to touch, but it's not smelly.

However, some friction is still necessary to create the illusion of real ice. The friction heats up the blade. Skate from one end to the other and the blades are too hot to touch. The hot blades literally melt the plastic, increasing the skate's grip. I lost grip and fell a couple times. I could blame my blades for not being hot enough, or blame the nasty grease on the rink, but instead, I'm just gonna say, if you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough.

We ran into a Vietnamese-American, who is somehow involved with either the activities at, or the development of the sports and rec complex. He told us that this is the only synthetic ice rink in Vietnam, until a new one opens at the Vincom Center in about 10 days. He also told us that a mat gets rolled out onto the plastic rink on Sundays, and the rink gets converted into an archery range. You know that's where we'll be.

Renew, Reuse, Recycle

Hand-made fine tuners

Lately I've been learning to play a traditional Vietnamese musical instrument, a two-stringed bowed instrument called đàn nhị. I like it, and I want one of my own. But finding a model like the one I've been learning on has been sort of a challenge. My teacher's fifty-year-old đàn nhị is heavily customized. It has different strings, a different base, and much different accessories than the ones in the stores.

The most significant difference is the fine tuners on my teacher's đàn nhị, which hang from ends of the two wooden tuning pegs. When I was in the music store, I asked the storekeeper if she sold any of the fine tuners. But she never even heard of them. So I went to my teacher to find out what they were called. And they don't have a name. Because they're unique. The guy who made them was a friend of my teacher, the same guy who bolted a piece of metal and wood to the base of the đàn nhị to give it more height and weight. Since the teacher's friend passed away, no one makes those tuners anymore.

People make things here. And they repair things when they get broken. For a place that has street sweepers on hand 20 hours a day to sweep up the styrofoam, plastic bags, and empty bottles from the sidewalks and streets, I'm not sure I'd call Vietnam a throw-away culture. People in a throw-away culture buy cheap things and use them until they break. They throw the broken things out and replace them with new things entombed in packaging and shipped from far, far away. In a throw-away culture, to be "green" and "environmentally friendly" is considered hip and trendy, yet it's more of a marketing gimmick than a lifestyle choice.

Coconut lacquer vase

On a walk through Saigon, I pass by cobblers with pants smeared in black glue, who tack new rubber soles onto piles of old shoes. In a market, vendors shovel crepe-mix and rice into bags using modified plastic bottles; the tops of the bottles are cut away at an angle, turning them into rather effective scoops. And coconuts are recycled, too. After the juice has been imbibed, the husks are dried and used as fire-fuel. And the hard shells are crafted into wine bottles or lacquerware.

I've been told that cars here do not depreciate in value like cars do in the states because the ones here aren't easily replaceable. An imported car has a 100 percent import tax tacked on the price tag, and to the best of my knowledge, Vietnam has no domestic car. So, instead of buying a new car every five years, people keep fixing their old ones.

One time, I saw a guy scraping hard white meat from a brown coconut into fine shreds. Considering the glut of coconuts we enjoyed a while back, it would have been nice if we had some alternative to spooning the meat out in clumsy chunks. We could have pressed the shreds to extract the coconut cream, or mixed them with black sesame to pile onto rice crêpes and roll into homemade bò bía ngọt. I thought of the held-held tool the guy used, and Lữ seemed to remember it too, so we began a hunt to find one and buy it.

When we made bánh tét last week, we learned the sticky rice is mixed with shredded coconut. There was a lot of sticky rice, and the pile of empty husks told us there was a lot of shredded coconut. Lữ asked her cousin how she shredded them all, and she showed us a tool, which was homemade, that far exceeded our needs. It was a cut and bent piece of iron the length of an arm. The tool had a serrated edge on one side and a tripod on the other that rests on the ground. The person places a bowl under the edge and sits on the tool. As the person rotates the coconut around the serrated edge, shreds drop into the bowl below. Lữ's cousin, as generous as she is a phenomenal cook, offered us her coconut shredder to take home. Her polite insistence made it hard to decline the offer, but the tool is as big as some garden equipment, and it far surpasses our needs.

So we went to the market and asked the vendor for the handheld variety. They didn't have one. In fact, they didn't even know what we were talking about. You would think in a country that makes so much use of coconut, that the vendors would know the tools, which would be available everywhere.

Well, they are available anywhere, in a sense. I just saw one tonight. It was a steel bar the length of a pen, with a bottlecap bolted on at one end. No one here would think of sell something that can be slapped together in minutes for free using scraps from a garage. Vietnam, while I wouldn't give it that trendy label of "green," can offer many lessons of how to make things last, and how turn trash into treasure. For now, though, I don't trust my instrument-making skills. So if I want a đàn nhị that doesn't sound like a cat in heat, I'll have to buy one. And, maybe one day, I'll make the fine tuners myself.

Loanwords from French... On Loan

We were ordering food at a restaurant, and I found a word on the menu that looked a little familiar. I think it was "Alcart." I asked what it meant. Mike laughed at me. "À la carte."

It had occurred to me that the Vietnamese language is full of various words from other languages. For example, the Vietnamese word for t.v. is tivi. Since I don't know French, I probably run across these loanwords all the time and don't even know it.

I thought it would be fun to browse through the internets and find some interesting Vietnamese loanwords. Thought it would make a good blog post. Then I stumbled on this blog on French loan-words. And I realized my post on loanwords would only stack up if I found another thousand words that weren't already posted. So that blog's prolific author is "loaning" us this list, as it were.

I don't know Chinese either, and I've heard, from a semi-reliable source, that Chinese words constitute about 60 percent of the Vietnamese vocabulary. A post on Chinese loanwords would be similarly interesting. Due to the variety of Chinese dialects, to include the ancient language of the first 1000 years or so of Chinese occupation, those loanwords are tremendously complex. For now, I'm thinking about a post on that subject sometime. But if I come across a source as comprehensive as the one on French loanwords, it might just loan us the information, too.

Wow, getting other people to write my posts is... kind of lazy. Hope this doesn't come back and bite me in the butt. Never a borrower be, quoth the bard.

Luxury and Sadness

Shortly after introductions, the Vietnamese people I meet are usually concerned that I'm not married. They ask why, and since my vocabulary is limited to the words for hug, fifteen, and pomelo, it usually falls on Mike or Lữ to field an explanation. I'm somewhat grateful that my siblings haven't yet resorted to using canned answers. "It's funny you should ask that, you see, my brother isn't married because..."

"...he's been widowed seven times." or,
"...he's saving himself for the princess of Monaco." or,
"...physical contact causes him to lose bowel contol."

I imagine the asker's reaction to one of these statements might be encouragement, a pat on the shoulder, and positive thoughts. "Don't worry, you'll find someone." People's reaction to the truth is much more grim. One time, Mike told someone that I have high expectations, to which the response was, "oh, no wonder he's single."

The first follow-up question (directed at my translator) is often: how does he eat? The idea that a man knows how to feed himself causes further bewilderment. What we have here is a cultural dissimilarity. In the states, every man knows how to find sustenance. He just opens a can of tomato soup, pops a frozen waffle in the toaster, and calls it dinner. Men in Vietnam seem equally incapable in the kitchen, but they stubbornly refuse to subsist on the American male's scavenge diet of chocolate chips, jarred olives and dry cereal. Instead, as I've been told, Vietnamese males live at home until the moment they get married. Then they grab what they can carry from their room in their parents' house and make a run for the new home before starvation sets in. This procedure safely guarantees the men will never need to bother with learning how to peel a potato or to boil water. He simply trades his mother's cooking for that of his wife.

The Vietnamese people I meet seem to doubt I'm capable of so much as lifting a spoon to my mouth, much less cooking for myself, when you consider how often people comment on how skinny I am. But comments on your deviations from beauty standards are not meant to be rude. On the contrary, these comments on your weight and skin just mean people care about you. The other day after the bánh tét rolls were wrapped and boiling, I sat down to lunch with the ladies in the kitchen. One of them said to another, "you're getting fat." I didn't catch what the second lady said, but the first lady went on: "and you've gotten really black*; what on earth are you doing in the sun all day?" These comments aren't meant to be, or perceived to be offensive. They're just observations, and it's up to the listener do decide whether it's a bad condition or not.

I wouldn't be so skinny if I only had a wife, they say. As if marital status could change the fact that I have the metabolism of a teenager with a gut full of tapeworms. I'm not sure why I'm so skinny, but I blame genetics, and not for want of nutrition. I've always seen myself as a voracious eater. But Lữ recently has begun to tell people that I only eat a lot when food is put within line of sight, and otherwise, I eat rather little. This comment induces further pity for my perceived state of emaciation. And the solution, they say, is to marry, since a wife will fatten me up good and proper.

To kindly help get me a wife, they ask me two kinds of questions. One question is, do you want a Vietnamese wife? This question is sometimes obscured with the more indirect phrasing: do you like Vietnamese women? The other question is, do you want to live in Vietnam? This question is less direct than the first. Interestingly enough, it's also asked almost exclusively by women, whereas the first question is most often asked by men. There seems to be a significant difference here. To the men, all that matters is that the wife is desirable. The women, however, are concerned with whether my wife would be taken away from Vietnam or not. They seem to understand the personal hardship of separation more than the men do.

Women being taken away from Vietnam is a modern epidemic. The cliche is of the old western bachelor who flies to Southeast Asia to find a wife to bring home with him. This cliche is not without merit, but like most cliches, it paints a narrow picture. Many Asian foreigners also take Vietnamese brides back to their countries. The first time I heard of this was in Taiwan, when our teacher told us how Taiwanese bachelors with low prospects would travel to Vietnam in search of wives. What the teacher didn't know was that one of her students was half Chinese, half Vietnamese, and he was not too amused by the teacher's disdain for the practice. And a generation of the One-Child policy in a country that exceedingly values male children has resulted in many thirty-something men in China with a serious lack of marriage options. So they come to Vietnam to fill the gender gap. Most of the marriages between foreigners and Vietnamese women are voluntary to an extent. But many women, and even children, are kidnapped and sold to be brides. There must be a sense that Vietnamese families suffer from losing their daughters. The women I talk to seem particularly sensitive to this.

Assuming the foreigner presents himself honestly, to marry a foreigner isn't necessarily bad. But going back to the husband's country means she leaves behind her home, her family, her community, the life she knows, the language she speaks. Her connections will fizzle and fade. She won't be able to find that certain brand, or regional specialty. She won't be able to have conversations like, "you're getting fat," without inadvertently offending someone's western sensibility. Going back to the husband's country must create an awful feeling of disconnectedness. Mike summarized this idea in a phrase that means the Vietnamese in America are living in luxury, yet living in sadness.

I asked Lữ why someone would choose a life of sadness over a life rich with close ones and cultural comfort. She said, so they can send money and support to their family at home. Marriage has a different meaning here than it does in the states. It's not about the relationship between the two people, but how the couple fits into the larger family group. Often, the family pressures the woman to marry a foreigner in the hope that she'll send money back home. A marriage that benefits the larger family group will be imposed on her, not a marriage based on mutual admiration, the joy of togetherness, and a deep connection.

I respect the sense of familial responsibility that could compel a woman to marry a man she doesn't love so she can provide for her family back home. But the sorrow that separation brings her would weigh on me, as would the idea that her reasons for marriage were familial pressure. There was another question someone asked me in the kind attempt to find a way to fatten me up. It was, would I find it easy to be married to a Vietnamese woman? The answer is, it would be as easy, or as hard, for me as it would be for her.

What began as a post ripe with levity has descended into alarming gravity. This all unraveled from the oft-asked question of why I'm not married. I suppose the best thing to do while I'm in Vietnam is to wear a ring and have my siblings tell people I have a wife back in the states, and she's a great cook. I'm just skinny 'cause I'm allergic to food.

* In this sense, black means tanned, and tanned skin is devalued. In my experience, Asian cultures associate skin tone with socio-economic status. Darker skin indicates low-class outdoor work, like gardening, street-sweeping, and construction. Lighter skin is associated with higher class. As a result of this distinction, the markets are saturated with skin-lightening products, and the sweltering streets are stocked with women in full-body clothing--face included--to hide their skin from the sun. It's like they're wearing UV suits.

How to Roll and Bind Bánh Tét

photo by Lữ Như Tiên

In what may be my longest photo-layout yet, I thought I'd share a how-to for rolling and tying bánh tét. When you're an expert at making this classic dish of sticky rice and filling, the whole process takes just a few minutes.

Besides the ingredients, the necessary equipment is banana leaves, string or grass cord, and a giant kettle with a lid for boiling these sticky rice cakes.

Recipes for the rice and for the fillings vary. Unfortunately, I don't have one for the coconut rice, the mung bean and porkfat filling, or the bananas in syrup that you see here. I might make them a repost later on if I can track them down.

Of course, if you really want to do this dish right, you're gonna need to invite about a dozen friends and family to come over and participate in the process. After all, isn't that how food is supposed to be?
 

Banana leaf goes smooth side up.

A bowlful of coconut rice is next.

The rice gets spread evenly...

...into a square-shape.

Here goes the mung bean filling...

...or the banana, as you like.

The roll gets, er, rolled.

The center gets tied.

Two leaf strips cap the roll.

Then it's tied on both ends.

Long grass ties a package knot.

The first ties are replaced.

Ties are equally spaced.

The excess sticks out the top.

The longest strand of grass...

...wraps the rest of the excess...

...all the way up until the end.

The excess is tied off, and done!

The rolls boil for eight to nine hours.

They do look prettier once they're cooked.

photo by Lữ Như Tiên