Vietnam Postcards

Postcards

 

Many of the vendors in Hue sell postcards, with scenes of Viet Nam on them.  A good vendor can be found just over the Trang Tien bridge, on Hùng Vu’o’ng Street.

 

Stamps to send postcards to the United States cost 10,000 dong.  2 types of stamps are sold that serve this purpose: one with a picture of Ho Chi Minh for 4,000 dong, and one with a picture of a jeep being driven through a war scene for 2,000 dong.

 

A post office that sells these stamps is located on Hoàng Hoa Thàm Street.  This is just off of Hùng Vu’o’ng Street, 1 long block to the right and down a little side street from the vendor who sells the postcards.

 

Past Summers in Hue

I thought some of this year's students might like to check out the goings on of the program in 2007 when we were last here. One big difference in Huế this year is that the internet is much faster, and its easier to upload pictures to blogspot.com. Everyone in the group is posting - not just me, so the stories in 2009 are excellent! For any of you 2006 or 2007 folks out there, enjoy the new pics and remember your warm, sultry time in Charming Huế!!!

2007 Program:

http://summerinhue2007.blogspot.com

2006 Program:

http://ucrss.blogspot.com

Prof Biggs & Cô Hồng Anh Pics:

http://scuppy.blogspot.com

Housekeeper with a Sense of Humor

I walked into my room today and saw this:

Apparently the housekeeper who tidies my room has a sense of humor :)

Grilling in the Garden

Y Thao Garden, site of our cooking class, is a lush place filled with fish-tail palms, tranquil pools floating with lily pads, and glowing red paper lanterns. It is apparently named after our cooking instructor, Co Cuc's daughter, Co Thao. While Chris was privy to the full attention of Co Cuc due to his French, Co Thao became the focus of our attention as our cooking teacher for the day. The day was long, a full four hours stuffed with a dish per hour. The first day we learned how to make some popular and famous Hue dishes, such as spring rolls (nem ran) and banh khoai, the Hue version of the Southern banh xeo. We donned our clean cloth aprons and got to work. The banh khoai pans were uniquely homemade, appearing to be cut from the bottom of large cans with a sheet of rolled aluminum for a handle. These beat-up relics worked surprisingly well, making delicious banh khoai crepes. Co Thao was a gracious host, smiling and joking along with us and answering all our questions about Hue cuisine and the dishes we were making. After the end of our first long cooking day, we were served a generous feast of dishes we've made and others that we didn't. These included lotus seed rice served wrapped and steamed in banana leaf, and a fig salad served with shrimp chips. Dessert, along with our appetizer, spring rolls served in a carrot and pineapple peacock centerpiece, stole our attention. When dessert arrived, we were all taken aback. It came in a decorated clay plot, sprouting out of shiny plastic leaves. In fact, it looked more like a pot of plastic flowers they had decided to decorate our table with. Soon enough we found that the flowers were actually cakes made from a type of green bean and dipped in a shiny colorful coat of agar. The flowers were so delicate and creatively designed: there were cakes that were mini dragonfruits, cashew apples, cherries, and peaches. We took turns shuttling the vases down the table so we could pose beside this creative edible arrangement. Co Cuc is not just an amazing cook, but a creative one at that :D
The second day of cooking class we learned how to make Hue's most famous signature dish: Bun Bo Hue (Hue-style beef noodle soup). The broth is made from boiling pork feet with lemon grass, scallions, and peppers. A bit of oil, garlic, and chili powder is then added for a bit of kick (which I sadly couldn't handle, since I get heartburn from spicy stuff). Aside from the Bun Bo, we also learned how to grill, Vietnamese style. We marinated pork in lemon grass, garlic, and sesame seed. Co Thao and Co Cuc's assistants heated up traditional clay-pot ovens and we used a type of cage like griddle which clamped over the pork. Grilling was certainly one of the highlights of the day ^__^ We also learned how to make a type of noodle dish with wood-ear mushrooms, wet rice flour spring rolls with the pork we grilled, and steamed fish. We could barely eat all the food afterward at the dinner they again generously provided. Co Cuc and her daughter-in-law came out to answer our questions about Hue traditional cuisine. We learned how the cuisine is spread from mother to daughter through generations, and how in general, men don't really cook. Hue is also the origin of many Vietnamese dishes because it was the capital of the Nguyen dynasty, and emperors always have a penchance for good eats. The pineapple-carrot nem ran peacock we had the first day was an example of presentation in royal dishes, and which continues to be an important aspect of formal food today.
I feel a little sad that our cooking adventures with Co Cuc and Co Thao are almost over. Tomorrow we will interview them, but there will be no more cooking with them :( However, their kindness and generosity will always live on in the new cooking skills we have acquired and will undoubtedly put to good use back at home. I can't wait to reveal the culinary genius of banh khoai, bun bo Hue, grilled pork, and nem ran to my family back in the states...

Bonne nuit, Viet Nam

A busy day ends with me back in my room, forty thousand dong richer after a coup at poker (played, in true Hue style, with toothpicks instead of poker chips). Who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?

My day was filled with banh mi, incense, and the familiar sound of Vietnamese-accented French. First, I was treated to my cooking teacher’s well-developed, deep Parisian accent, as she tried to reinvent Hue imperial cuisine for a young American vegetarian (this process included what seemed to be improvising recipes on the spot, such as lemongrass and sesame seed tofu). After four hours in the kitchen, nodding and responding “oui” and “je comprends", I was fully ready for relaxation.

Unfortunately, though, upon leaving the cooking school, I found myself lost in the labyrinth that is backstreet Hue. I wandered for a good forty-five minutes in the dark, before walking into a secluded café where I happened to run into an art teacher from Hue University who spoke enough English to communicate with me. He was kind enough to order me a taxi.

I managed to get back to the hotel in time to fulfill an evening coffee appointment that I had with Ms. Thi, a lovely and kind Vietnamese teacher at the University who was originally supposed to be my partner on a project I was going to undertake (on French culture here in Central Vietnam). She brought along her husband, who, like her, prefers to speak in French, and who, also like her, is as charming and likeable as can be. We all got on motorbikes and ended up in a little café with good views of the French, Eiffel-built bridge on the Perfume River, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes and chewing on watermelon seeds (apparently, this is usual snacking fare). I might have shut my eyes and been on the banks of the Seine. It was all very, very French.

Sometime in the coffee conversation, we ended up talking about the war (“la guerre americaine”). I am cautious enough to know that bringing it up myself in casual conversation with a Vietnamese acquaintance might be considered impolite and/or insensitive, but it came up nonetheless. What was clear from the conversation was that the war is just as taboo here as it once was in the US, and that the Vietnamese (at least the two affable, well-educated, young “vietnamiens” that I was talking with) would rather have it forgotten.

I, who am neither a Vietnam War buff nor a big fan of the whole war and blood and guns scene in general, was perfectly content to let the talk return to the familiar terrain of having my Vietnamese hosts try to marry me off.

With that, I bid the day, and Vietnam, “bonne nuit".

A Fruitful Country

One thing I envy about the Vietnamese is their access to fresh, tropical fruits. They have many different types of fruits here that are not available in the United States. Here is a short guide to the fruits we've encountered so far:

Mangosteen & Rambutan (left and right, respectively)

Many of us have encountered mangosteen for the first time here in Vietnam. The fruit has a rubbery, dark purple outer rind which encases a soft, white, segmented fruit inside. Mangosteen has a sweet and sourish taste, and we all pretty much went ga-ga over how good it was. Its Vietnamese name is 'mang cut.'

Rambutan is ubiquitous here in Vietnam. Our hotel provides us with a fresh bunch of rambutan as a part of their daily fruit rotational. We have dubbed it 'the furry fruit' because of its appearance. In appearance, the edible fruit looks similar to lychee and longan. It is more chewy and less juicy than lychee, and the pit inside has a wooden texture, like a small mango pit. It is called 'chom chom' in Vietnamese.


Langsat is another fruit unique to Southeast Asia, and I've never seen it before in the states (not even at Asian groceries). The fruit comes in bunches attached to a small branch, almost like a mutated corn. Although it looks somewhat similar to longan, there are several distinctive differences. First, langsat is soft while longan's outer peel is stiff and scaly. Second, the taste is completely different. Langsat tastes like grapefruit, and its pits are bitter when bitten into. A Vietnamese friend taught me how to eat langsat, or bon bon as it's called in Vietnamese: 'Massage' the langsat with your hand to make it easier to peel and sweeter. (Image courtesy of google image search)

When you walk around the streets bordering Hue's citadel walls, you see many women and men squatting on the ground by piles of longan. Longan literally means 'dragon eye' in Chinese. It is a small, round, translucent fruit when peeled, encasing a round, black shiny pit. The Vietnamese spelling is 'long nhan.'

When we visited a traditional Vietnamese garden house as part of our tour of Hue, our gracious hostess served us this fruit from her garden. I don't know yet what this fruit is. It looks like a tiny cherry or plum, and has a slight bitter taste and translucent flesh.

Jackfruit was another fruit grown in the Vietnamese garden. It can grow up to huge sizes, and you can see many fruit venders selling peeled jackfruit. It is called 'mit' in Vietnamese.

We have dragonfruit every morning as part of our hotel breakfast buffet spread. The fruit is one of the most recognizable here, with its bright pink rind and dragon-snout shape. It uniquely grows on a long, cactus-like hanging vine. The flesh inside is white with tiny black edible seeds, and has a refreshing, albeit slightly bland, taste. Here in Vietnam it is called 'thanh long.'
(Thanks to Wikipedia for the Vietnamese names of some of the fruit)

Once in a Lifetime

It was our first night in Hoi An. For many of us, it was also the first time we had the opportunity to explore Vietnam outside of Hue.

One group followed a dirt path and found a restaurant nestled among decades old houses. It was the Sleepy Gecko, the most wonderful establishment in all the country. It was run by an ex-pat and filled with ex-pats. All night long, stories were traded and the food never stopped coming. Potato salad, hot off the grill barbecue, and even pizza were to be had, and due to the generosity of the host all of it was free. The hours flew by with the tastes of home and the company of newly made friends. Australians, English, American -all were brothers and sisters at the Gecko. It was the most unlikely paradise to be found in this small corner of Southeast Asia.

The other group walked across the bridge into the city proper. By coincidence, they met the tour guide along the way. He brought the group to a restaurant where the drivers of the tour bus were already waiting. Each had a seat at a table and each ordered the same. Chicken with rice, a small bowl of soup and a cold glass of iced tea. There was a certain wistfullness and even nostalgia in the air even as the group partook of the simple, but good meal. Would such an experience ever occur again in the group's lifetime? To eat as the locals ate, to drink the drink of the locals, to sit together and figuratively break bread. It was like being home, except the group's home was now Vietnam, if only for the duration of the meal.

Afterwards, the second group continued to wander the city. From the middle of the river to the air above the streets, lanterns hung festively. The shops beckoned with their wares. How many decades or perhaps centuries had some of these shops been standing? How many generations had worked at perfecting the production of the finest cloths and tailoring? People wandered carefree. The city struck the perfect balance between bustling and overcrowded. It was majesty of a lost era.

On the way back to the hotel, the group found a cafe set up in the playground of a school. The branches of a tree bedecked with lights provided enough cover for all the tables. At the cost of fifty cents each, the group had deliciously sweet flan in little tin containers and refreshingly sour yoghurt drinks chilled with ice. To sit on little plastic stools in the near dark and enjoy the some of the greatest and most inexpensive snacks of the group's lives, this was the Vietnam they had searched for.

The two groups met back at the hotel pool. The cool waters washed away the heat and exhaustion of the day. Stories of their experiences were told. The first group proclaimed the Gecko as heaven on earth. The second group expoused the beauty of the city and the simple wonder of yoghurt and flan.

Plans were made. The next day, everyone would tour the city, enjoy some sweets, and then retire to the Gecko. It was to be the greatest night of summer.

Then it rained all afternoon, and everyone holed up in their rooms with nothing to do but study.

Or if you, dear reader, do so wish, you may choose to believe that the rain cleared up and the show went on without a hitch.

Or perhaps what really happened was a compromise between the drab rain and the wonder of Hoi An.