Old Age

Everyone my age is bemoaning their age. I teeter ever closer towards being thirty. I’m not worried about how old I am but sometimes, something jolts me and I think about age, about time passing, about memory, and, as ever, about me.

My eldest nephew is 18. I did not do anything for his 18th. Did not send him a card nor even an email. Oops. In my defence, I thought he was turning 17 this year. Obviously, I am wrong. He finishes high school soon. He has a girlfriend. He’s probably, you know, doing the dirty. We are friends on Facebook and I am loving how proud and subversive he is about his Asianness. He tags ‘FOB’ rolls (banh mi thit aka pork salad rolls; FOB stands for Fresh Off the Boat. I only learnt that a few years ago, from Sume). He is surrounded by Asian faces in his photos; I wonder, if I had as many close Asian friends when I was in high school as he has, would I have been as comfortable with my Asianness as he appears to be with his?

This does not make me feel old. It makes me feel the passing of time. Although, perhaps, I am just playing with words there. I don’t feel any negativity, is all I am saying. When people say they feel old, they are using old as a perjorative. Yes, I feel my age (though I don’t often behave it, so I am told). But I don’t feel it as a bad thing. I feel the weight of history, when I discover my nephew is 18. Eighteen!?

I remember his birth, quite clearly. I remember the first few photos of him sent to me by his proud parents. I am astounded 18 years could have passed. I have to resist doing things such as sighing about what a cute baby he was (and he was) and remarking on how he was as small as a teddy bear, once (I have the photograph to prove it).

I lived with him and his parents for a short period of time when I was the age he is now: the age of asserting adulthood. That time feels both far away and not so long ago.

When I was his age, a newly discovered older cousin told me, sighingly, how he remembered me when I was as long as his forearm. My tart, witty response? I don’t remember you from then.

When I was his age, I threatened his father, my eldest brother, that I would jump out of his moving car and then telephone our father if he took me to a function and left me there on my own. I did not want to go. My brother promised to remain at the function with me.

When I was his age, I lied to my parents about not crying when I phoned them on Tet to say hi and chuc mung nam moi and what are you doing and do you miss me and yes, it’s cold in Melbourne.

Things have not changed so much. I still resort to snarky comments when I cannot think of how to make conversation with someone because they say something to which there is no response (and to pre-empt you: no, polite but ambiguous silence is just not an option (for me)). I still use guerilla tactics on my siblings when I don’t want to do something they want me to do. And I still lie to my parents, partially through pride, partially through not wanting to let them know I’m sad or struggling or sick or … anything negative, really. Ha. I ain’t so grown up. But I must have, right, because …

He’s 18. Can you believe it?

What’s in a name?

A crowfoot flower, tenaciously among the rocks.

I hate people who don’t listen when I slowly spell my name for them: Oh, Ay, En, Aitch. “What? En, Ay, Oh?”; No! Oh [wait for them to say, yes?] Ay [wait for a yes?]; En [wait for another yes? they get impatient] Aitch. That’s all. Then they say, “Okay, why did you not say your name was Ann?” Hmm, because it’s not. My name is Oanh. It starts with an Oh. And is pronounced wun. Shall I spell it for you, again? “Oh, sure. That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Mmm, I murmur, without saying anything else. It’s too much hassle to say, no, actually, it’s not unusual. I have been patient, really, I have. Patient all my life.

I don’t expect anyone to know how to pronounce or spell my name (okay, my family and friends I do expect to know). Hell, I even crack pretty good jokes about my name (if I say so myself). My best was when I rang my best friend in high shool and her father picked up the phone.

Me: Hi, Mr BestFriend. Can I speak to BestFriend? It’s Oanh.

Mr BestFriend: Which Oanh? ho ho.

Me: The only Oanh of course. chuckle chuckle.

Mr BestFriend: Ha! That’s great! [Aside and shouting] BestFriend! It’s only Oanh on the phone!

Of course, sometimes I got sick of my name. Random people, usually men, usually on trains, would ask me my name and I would tell them: Two point four. I thought I was being pretty funny. They did not bother trying to chat me up any further.

I also used to lie – colourfully – about my ‘ethnic heritage’. You know, in response to the “Where are you REALLY from?” question.

Sometimes, I would be an Inuit princess, seeking refuge in Australia from having to marry my sister’s brother because she died, which was a custom of the tribe that I would one day lead. I was here, learning martial arts and survival skills, and I would return when I was strong, to overthrow my father, to re-create the matriarchal society we were supposed to be. That was my favourite story.

Sometimes I was just apathetic. Yes, I’m from China. It’s a big place. Yes, I eat dogs. And lounge about smoking opium. Sure, I will amend the feng shui in your house. You should place the lucky dragon plant in the turtle corner well away from the phoenix roof. Not good for the monkey vibes. Although, it is the year of the oscillating octopus, so perhaps you should completely obliterate the turtle corner.

Or I would reply to people who called out, “Konnichi Wa!” with Origami! Toyota! Mitsubishi! and they would look at me, failing to appreciate the extent and sheer scintillating brilliance of my wit. Some of them even went on to speak more Japanese to me. Bless their misinformed hearts. Needless to write (but I’m going to write it), I did not date any of them.

And you know what? None of these people I spun stories to ever commented on my Aussie accent.

I used to want to change my name. To something easy. Something ‘Anglo’. Something that, when a relief teacher was taking class I did not have to say, Here-ah when there was a puzzled pause.

I had one relief teacher who was extremely discombobulated to discover that I was named ‘one’. I was sitting in the front row, first desk. He was a young teacher, and it did not help that my classmate (front row, second desk) piped up that he was ‘two’. The poor, young relief teacher assumed we’d been allocated numbers, so he proceeded to call us by the numbers that our seating arrangements would have assigned us. We all tittered quietly but did not correct him. When the principal came in to check on how he was doing, our class got a stern scolding. Me, especially, for allowing it to happen (I was Class Goody-Two-Shoes (otherwise known as School Captain). The relief teacher never then did believe me that my name actually, really was Oanh. I had to ask the principal to affirm that, “Yes, her name really is Oanh”, for the relief teacher to accept any more words that came out of my mouth, asserting anything at all.

Actually, I have strong recollections of wanting to change my name to Karen. I cannot now recall why the name Karen. She’s not in any books that I can remember from my childhood.

I’ve been happily Oanh for a while now.

Comfort food: chao ga (rice congee with chicken)

After my last post, I am struggling to write new posts. Below is something I drafted a while ago, and had not quite got around to pressing the ‘publish post’ button. It is appropriate because it is a recipe for the ultimate comfort food – chao ga (rice congee with chicken).

I have mentioned before that when I am feeling sick, I want to eat chao – rice congee. If I am at home, my mother would cook this for me; although after I moved out of home, I did not tell my mother when I was sick because she would berate me. Because somehow, I am to blame if I catch a cold.

More than a month ago now, I had the flu. It was awful. For one day, I was in bed tossing and turning, moaning deliriously. I could have been a heroine in a Jane Austen novel, and soon the man of my dreams would leap onto his horse to ride hastily with news for my family of the dire state I was in. In reality, the man of my life telephoned work to tell them I was ill and to ask someone to re-arrange a few appointments for me.

When I recovered, I had a lingering cough, so I did not telephone my mother to speak with her for a while. After a few weeks passed, and with the cough still present, I had to call my mum. So I did. The phone rang and rang. It’s terrible of me, but I was glad she was not at home. So I rang my brother to have a chat with him, but he was not at home either. Next, I tried my sister. Thankfully, she was at home, otherwise I would have got all morose.

I hoarsely chatted to my sister, coughing and spluttering occassionally. She asked me about the cough and I told her that I had been so sick that I had taken a week – an entire week! – off work, and that I spent most of the time in bed, unable even to read. She commiserated. Suddenly, I blurted out, “But don’t tell Um! Don’t tell her I was that sick. She’ll worry.”

On one of the days I was home from work, I made a huge pot of chicken congee. I think it cured me (minus that lingering cough).

For the congee:-

• 200gms chicken (whatever part suits you. I used breast, but thighs would also have been great).
• Garlic
• Ginger, about a cm of, sliced
• Carrot, one, diced
• Fish sauce, splash
• Jasmine rice, a cup of, or thereabouts
• Water, a lot

• Coriander for garnish
• Ngo gai (perennial coriander, also known as sawtooth or Thai coriander. I don’t know why it’s called Thai coriander because coriander coriander is also used in Thai cooking, and ngo gai is used in Thai and Viet cooking (and possibly other cuisines, I just don’t know). Probably has other names too.)

How to cook it:-

• In a decent sized saucepan and on medium heat, saute the garlic in as small amount of oil as you can manage.
• Toss in the rice and stir it quickly around the saucepan.
• Pour in enough water to thoroughly cover the rice.
• Add your chicken, ginger and carrot.
• Pour in enough water to cover everything.
• Let the whole mixture boil briskly for about ten minutes.
• Extract the chicken. Let it cool, then tear into strips and put back into the saucepan.
• Turn the heat down and let the chao simmer until the rice grains have taken in so much water that they cannot take anymore. You cannot leave the saucepan – you can wander away but you must not forget it. You will need to keep topping up with water, so have some pre-boiled water handy.
• When the chao is the consistency you like – my Ba and I are at the extremities of the chao consistency spectrum: he prefers his rice grains a bit al dente and his water a clearish broth; I prefer my rice grains thoroughly soft and the chao water thick with the broken up, water sodden rice grains – add a splash of fish sauce. For the way my Ba likes chao, the simmering part only takes about 15 minutes. For the way I like chao, the simmering takes an hour.
• Turn the heat off, let cool for about 5 minutes and then serve into nice bowls, with garnish, cracked pepper and soy sauce.

Easy as!

Although, given that I crave this when I am sick, it is sometimes just too much effort and I will pout instead. Does not work to make my tummy full, but makes me feel a bit better.

Bun Bo Hue

Bun Bo Hue is a noodle soup from the region of Hue, the old imperial capital of Viet Nam. When in Hue with my sisters, we completely forgot to order any Bun Bo Hue from anywhere to eat. We were much too excited by the vegetarian banquet put out before us, and at another restaurant, distracted by the flags that they gave to each table of Viet Kieu. They gave us the Stars and Stripes of the US, before we had even said anything. I looked at it for awhile wonderingly, and then, while the waitress was out of the room, got up and went over to the display of flags and exchanged the Stars and Stripes for the Australian Union Jack and Southern Cross combo. I plonked that flag down on our table , and my sisters affectionately shook their heads at me. Another table watched my progress and then did the same: exchanging their Stars and Strips for the red and white maple leaf affair of the Canadian flag. We all giggled conspiratorially together when the waitress came back and looked from our table, to their table, and then over to the flag table. But she neither frowned nor smiled, so what we had done must have been a neutral act.

It also rained the entire couple of days that we were in Hue, so we did not wander the streets very much; we were chaperoned by our grumpy tour guide from monument, to temple, to imperial palace grounds, to hotel, to market, to restaurant. I found our tour guide extremely difficult to understand: the Hue accent is mellifluous, gentle and musical; the words flow together. I need sharp distinctions in my Viet words to know what is being said. After all, my family speak Viet in sharp ringing tones, like the fishwives they all once were, or were descended from. Initially, I frowned at our tour guide, listening as hard as I could, and then I would look over at my eldest sister, who also looked like she was struggling to understand. If she was struggling, I had no chance. Eventually, I gave up. I wandered away from our guide a number of times to read signs in English, and I don’t think she liked that very much. I also had my lovely red raincoat, so the rain was but minor hindrance to my explorations. She did not like the rain, and she would rush us from one shelter under turned up eaves to another, or from the van door to the inside of temple grounds. I wanted to wander and explore the grounds themselves, not merely the inside of buildings. So I did. My sisters tried to tell her to leave me be, but she would try to call me in to listen to her guiding. I told her that I was happy exploring on my own and that I had trouble understanding her because my Vietnamese was very poor. It was easiest for me to surreptitiously tell my sisters that I would see them shortly and wander away, into the rain, where she would not follow.

As we drove away from Hue, shortly after lunch, I cried out, “Oh no! We did not eat Bun Bo Hue in Hue!” My eldest sister said, “We can stop.” I replied that I was much too full. Her response? “Eat it in Sai Gon, it will probably be better anyway.” And we all chuckled, suspecting this to be true. I was not overly impressed by Hue, but I think that was the fault of our guide, and not of the town, which has much crumbling imperial and colonial granduer to recommend it. Another time, I will visit and I will not be shackled by no grumpy tour guide!

I decided to try to cook Bun Bo Hue recently. So, it being roughly three weeks since the last time I had spoken to my parents, I telephoned my mother. I informed her of my intention to cook Bun Bo Hue and asked her what the ingredients were. I had done a brief internet search to try to locate a recipe, but failed.

I did find some interesting information, however. A number of sites (don’t ask, when I google, I open loads of links and then close them again. I only remember the ones that were useful, and sometimes, not even them) referred to Bun Bo Hue as ’spicy pho’. I thought this was odd, and much pleased when I read Wandering Chopsticks’ comment that Bun Bo Hue is not pho. I like her comment a lot:-

Mini-rant here. No it is NOT pho. Calling bun bo Hue a variation of pho is like saying fettucine alfredo is a version of spaghetti. Sure it’s easy to reference a more popular dish when trying to describe it, but in both cases: different noodles + different flavors = different dishes entirely. OK?

Tangentially, I also found this and this. The first is a recipe from Khmer Krom Recipes for a soup remarkably like Bun Bo Hue, but of Cambodian origin, and the second is an interview with the author of the website, Mylinh Nakry, by another blogger on Cambodian food, Phonmenon. I am probably going to get myself into trouble here. Oh well.

Mylinh Nakry, of Khmer Krom Recipes, says:

Vietnamese people loves this Khmer Krom soup so much that they changed Khmer Krom recipe name to Vietnamese name *Bun bo Hue*, and never gives us any credit which is no surprise to me since they also took our land. On 6-4-1949, French government illegally gave *Kampuchea Krom*( now know as South Vietnam) to Viet Nam. Hue (now know as Central Vietnam)was part of Champa that Khmer Empire was once ruled Champa and most of South East Asia.

She also makes this claim of Bun Rieu and pho, and probably some other dishes as well, except that I don’t know; I was looking, and then started to feel a bit silly. I cannot speak to her claim about the origin of Bun Bo Hue, or Bun Rieu, or pho. I do not know enough about the history of food and politics in Viet Nam and Cambodia / Kampuchea. I am prepared to accept that the borders of the region of what is now known as Viet Nam that borders what is now known as Cambodia were porous, and that cultural exchange, including inter-marriage, linguistic exchange and food exchange would have occurred. Perhaps one cuisine influenced another; more likely, the exchange was both ways. I am not prepared to accept that when Kampuchea Krom and Champa existed, one culture and one people and one food type existed and then continued, unchanged, to now, or to 1949. Nor am I prepared to accept that the Vietnamese people who first made Bun Bo Hue appropriated a Khmer Krom dish, and renamed it, in the same way they appropriated the land. It’s just not that simple.

Maybe they made something like it. Maybe the Cambodians used a spice, or herb, that the Vietnamese had not before and they thought, “Gosh, that’s tasty. Why don’t I chuck me some of that into this here soup I be making?” (Although perhaps not in a fake Aussie/Irish brogue.) Probably, the people who lived in the Champa kingdom are the ancestors of the people who live there now and their diaspora. As now, there were some indigenous and some not. But eventually, if you just keep living there, you belong there. Who were they? Cambodian? Viet? It would be fiendishly difficult to disentangle what ‘belongs’ to one culture / ethnic group or another. And for what? A claim to authenticity? Nationalism? Parochialism? To what end?

I’m very pleased that Mylinh Nakry feels strongly about her cultural / ethnic identity (however she would describe it) and applaud her attempt, via her website, to bring some attention to how Cambodian cuisine has languished in the shadows of its neighbours. But not in this simplistic way, that is so potentially damaging. I also don’t condone the hateful, and hate-mongering, and indeed contemptuously ridiculing, comments posted to Phnomenon’s site about Mylinh Nakry either. I got myself kind of lost in it. First I was mildly amused, and then outraged, and then, just saddened.

Whatever its origin, it’s a delicious dish. And I, because of my ethnic background, know it as Bun Bo Hue.

Back to my story.

When I spoke to my mother, to ask her the ingredients of Bun Bo Hue, she asked me if the local Asian grocery store stocked stock cubes. Perplexed, I said that I thought they did. She told me to find the one for Bun Bo Hue, and to use pork feet instead of beef bones in my stock. I said, “But don’t you make it from, you know, lemongrass and chilli and other things?” She replied, “No. I never cooked you Bun Bo Hue. Or if I did, I probably made it from the stock cube. Ask your brother-in-law. He knows how to cook it.” I was flummoxed. Had I never had Um-cooked Bun Bo Hue? I wracked my memory, and decided it was probably true. I had eaten Bun Bo Hue with my family, but rarely. More likely, we would have had Bun Rieu (which is on my list of things to work out how to cook). If we wanted to eat Bun Bo Hue, we would ask my sister in law to cook it. After further miscellaneous chit-chat with my mother, I rung off.

I then telephoned my brother in law, to ask him. I did not telephone my sister in law because she is more difficult to track down. After a chat with my sister, and telling her the true reason for why I had called, I spoke to my brother in law. He is the pho cook in the family. He also used to work in restaurants and can roll spring rolls at an alarming speed. We competed once (I’m a mean spring-roll-er myself, from way back) and he won easily; he rolled four for every one of mine. “So you want to cook Bun Bo Hue?” he started. “Yep”, said I. “With pork or with beef?” “With beef!” It is, Bun Bo Hue after all (bo means beef). “Okay. Well make sure you have oxtail then. That’s the best meat. Nothing from the shoulder, okay?” I made agreeing sounds although I was already going to disobey him. “Next, if you go to the Asian supermarket, you can buy stock cubes. You can get Bun Bo Hue stock cubes.” “What?” I burst out. “That’s what Um told me to do! I don’t want stock cubes. I want the ingredients!” “Oh, okay,” he conceded, “I just wanted to make it easier for you.”

Stock cubes! I can’t believe my family use stock cubes.

And on that note, this post is long enough already. Next post will be the recipe. Promise.

Um & Soy Sauce

Recently, it was my mother’s birthday. But I did not call her, because I forgot. Luckily (for me), my family don’t really celebrate birthdays – at least, not on the actual day. Birthdays occur when they’re celebrated, so when they’re not celebrated, they don’t occur. Make sense? I think so!

I call my mother Um. This is not a common thing to call one’s mother, even if one is Vietnamese. It is more common to use Me or Ma, or even Vu, which really puts your mum in her place because vu means breast.

When I was young, I knew I was different from the Aboriginal, white, Greek, Italian and Lebanese kids at school, but I did not realise that I was different from other Vietnamese kids, until we talked about our mums. Or asked for soy sauce. These were the two greatest differentiating factors between me and other Viet kids. Perhaps there were a few others.

Um is pronounced like Oom. Or like mmm, but you start with your mouth open. It is sometimes used by Chinese/Viet kids as a title for distant older relatives, the same as Bac in more mainstream Viet. It’s a term of distant filial respect. In my father’s family, Um means mother. This is to avoid confusion with my father’s mother, who was the supreme ruler of my father’s (rather extensive) clan. Everyone called my paternal grandmother Ah Ma, and calling anyone else Ma or even Me would have been just too confusing. I guess. Now, my mother is Ma to all her grandkids and Um to all her kids, in-laws included (well, the ones who speak Viet at any rate).

I have a strong recollection of my first “but you’re Viet and you’re different from me!” experience. I would have been about 6 years old. My Um had sent me to the corner shop to buy some soy sauce. I knew the particular bottle like it was a close friend. (It kind of is, actually. Soy sauce, that is. Steamed white rice and soy sauce, now that’s comfort food!) I wandered around and around the narrow aisles, looking for the particular bottle my mother preferred. Eventually, I gave up and went to the counter and asked where they kept yi tam. The woman behind the counter looked at me. There was another woman with a young girl at the counter. The young girl was about my age and she looked over at me like I was some strange specimen, speaking another language.

The woman behind the counter asked me what I wanted and I repeated, yi tam. The other woman said, I think she’s Uncle #5*’s daughter. She’s after si dau. Si dau is the more common term for soy sauce, but I did not know that at the time. I said (because it was true), I don’t know what si dau is. I want yi tam. The other woman’s daughter looked at me aghast. You don’t know what si dau is? I said to her, No. Why should I? The other woman went and got me a bottle of soy sauce – it was just the bottle I was after. The daughter said, That’s si dau. And smartarse me said, No it’s not. It’s yi tam. We both just looked at each. I thought the girl was very stupid. She must have thought the same of me.

(*Uncle #5 (Bac Nam) is what everyone who knew my dad, except people who were actually related to him, called him. Actual relatives called him by whatever the family relationship was. He was not any Viet person in Australia’s fifth uncle, because very few of his extended family emigrated from Viet Nam.)

I took that bottle of yi tam home and showed it to my family and told my story about how strange the people were in the corner store. Um laughed and laughed. So did most of my older siblings. Ba too. Everyone laughed at me, and I honestly had no idea why. I learned, shortly afterwards, a salty lesson in diversity.

Um told me all the different names for yi tam and I was astounded. In the north, they tend to call it nuoc tuong (which is rather confusing because it literally translates as sauce water, or if you’re being pedantic, water sauce). Some call it si ieu and some si dau. Me? It’s yi tam and nothing else (although I will no think you’re stupid if you call it si dau. Swear.)

NT and Wandering Chopsticks both expressed curiousity about why I call my mother Um. I’m no good at being brief in my answers, so this is my answer. I am also no good at staying on topic.