Thebruary Thoughts.

That god-like status tuna fish sandwich at Hung Vuong Inn.

This tuna fish has been a big part of my life here in Vietnam.  It was the first thing I ate when I got back to Hue after my Tet vacation.  It’s literally mouth-watering.  They actually give you a complimentary bowl for your excess saliva while you’re waiting.  This may or may not be a stretched truth.

Then, when I got back to the shelter, the first thing everyone noticed was how dark my skin was. of course.  The first thing my headmother said to me wasn’t “Welcome back!” or “Good to see you again!”, but instead was, “You should really get some skin-whitening lotion… that’ll help it go away.”

Eh, what the heck.  While I’m on the subject of bite-sized, random thoughts, I might as well just go through all of them.

One of my kids thoughtfully captured a bug for me that (everyone here swears to Buddha) spits acid at you when you come in close proximity with it.  This one’s particularly glossy in appearance because my kid went overboard with the lavender-scented Raid.

The "acid-spitting" bug.

These next few pictures are of Hue’s famous “banh”’s (which loosely translates to “cake”) that I regularly eat for late afternoon snacks.  My favorite is banh nam- a flat, ravioli-textured dumpling with pork and shrimp and rice dough, steamed in banana leaves.  I recently found out that this particular banh is for the toddler-aged children.  My kids like to make fun of me for eating this.  I tell them that I was told they were exclusively for toddlers and 22 year olds.  They don’t believe me.

banh nam.

And then this is banh loc- made with tapioca flour and shrimp.  They remind me of fossilized insects in amber.  Appetizing, no?

banh loc, nicely wrapped and unwrapped.

The last famous one is called banh beo.  These are tiny steamed rice cakes with shrimp, scallions, mung bean paste, and crispy shallots- all made separately in tiny baby saucers.  All of these banh’s are eaten with fish sauce.  And a smile?  If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been working on my food-marketing skills.

A to-go box of fresh banh beo.

Next on the list: ginger-steamed snails.  Last week, my kid came home from school three days in a row delivering a giant bag of snails to my room.  I guess this isn’t as weird as it sounds after being typed, but at the time I thought it was random to be interrupted during my daily routine with a bag of snails.  Checking my e-mail… reading a book… listening to NPR… oh, now there’s a bag of snails delivered to my doorstep.

chowin' on snail.

Two weeks ago, it was my kid Nhat’s birthday.  He’s the only one I regularly hang out with past 10p.m. (when all the other kids go to sleep.) and I surprised him with a birthday cake.  I soon discovered afterwards that there were raisins in the cake and almost triggered a series of night-marish flashbacks of my irrational fear of raisins… but then, I spit it out and felt okay.

Nhat's birthday cake reveal while listening to his favorite Bon Iver song.

The other day I had a huge craving for New England Clam Chowder.  But, alas, I found every ingredient in Hue except for clam juice.  So, I made tuna chowder instead.  It was the most delicious, late-night 2nd dinner, and since all my kids demonize dairy products here, I had it all to myself.  If you count that bowl of bacon, I used about 20 strips for this meal.  I’m sort of gross… in a handsome way?

mmm... home-made tuna chowder.

Did I ever  mention how there’s actually no hint of irony here in Vietnam? At all?  All the weird things I naturally do/say purely out of spontaneous irony and out of habit with friends from college, always get translated as “Hy… you’re mad.”  Sometimes they give me a pity laugh, probably because they think crazy people like me will get crazier if they don’t show support.  My friend Anh-Thu mentioned how this connects to their love of music and how they seriously love slow rock ballad music like “Michael Learns to Rock.” To the Vietnamese youth, there’s absolutely nothing funny about this.  It doesn’t make sense to anyone that I laugh at Westlife, just for the sake of it being Westlife.  One day, I was taking a walk with two of my kids and told them, “Here. Stand next to this new 5-star hotel.”

They didn’t really laugh.  They must have thought I was actually seeing things.

~ by Hy Huynh on March 3, 2009.