““Home’s where you go when you run out of homes.”
―
Hi, I’m Alice Nghi Nguyen. My journey began with a small country in Southeast Asia, my very first “home”, the place I grew up with in Vietnam. It’s a beautiful, S-shaped land that is home to 54 ethnic groups of people. Foreigners may know of Vietnam through our signature dish: Pho, a hot, delicious beef soup served with rice noodles. But even in our cuisine, each part of Vietnam has its special way of cooking. In the north, Hanoi for example, the people prefer food that uses rice noodles, such as Pho or Bun Cha Ha Noi (rice noodles served with fish sauce, young papaya, and grilled meat). Go farther to the middle part where Hue or Da Nang is located, the taste of cuisine becomes spicier and sour. Famous dishes from these towns include Bun Bo Hue (Hue beef noodle soup) and Mi Quang (a dish originated in Quang Nam with a bowl of broth, noodles, herbs, chicken, and roasted rice paper chips. Lastly, the southern part of Vietnam with well-known places for vacations or holidays like Da Lat, Vung Tau, and Phu Quoc island. My hometown Ho Chi Minh City is also a part of southern Vietnam, a destination for entrepreneurs from around the country to come and follow their dreams. For that reason, southern cuisine is a well-mixture of all flavors across the country. But there is a familiar dish to all people in Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, another friendly name that can be used to call this city), that is Com Tam-broken rice with grilled meat, tomato, cucumber and served with fish sauce. It’s a perfect description for the term “breakfast”, a fast, easy-to-make and-to-eat dish we usually have in the morning to fill the energy for a long day. Not only having cuisine as a remarkable part, Vietnam’s poem and literacy is also a signature I want to introduce to you.
There’s a well-known poem in my country which I really love, it called “Đất Nước (Country)” by Nguyen Khoa Diem:
“Nhưng em biết không
Có biết bao người con gái, con trai
Trong bốn ngàn lớp người giống ta lứa tuổi
Họ đã sống và chết,
Giản dị và bình tâm,
Không ai nhớ mặt đặt tên
Nhưng họ đã làm ra Đất Nước.”
“But do you know
There were countless boys and girls
In four thousand generations who share the same age as us
They have lived and died,
Simple and calm,
Faces that no one remembers,
But they had created the Country.”To me, Vietnam is a country build from more than four thousand years of history, a country of peace, joy, and happiness that was traded by blood, sweat, and tears, a country with so many significant, heart-warming moments that can find from the smallest things in daily lives.
Through the Zoom meeting in my International Relations class, I got a chance to know people around the globe. One of my exchange partner comes from South Central, Los Angeles in California, USA. Just like me, he grew up there 18 years of his life before moving to Carlisle, Pennsylvania to attend college. But unlike Ho Chi Minh City where most of the population is Vietnamese, South Central is a home to many races of people: Asian, White, African-American, ect. But according to the 2000 United States census, Mexican and Unspecified African were the most common ancestries. With his Mexican root, my exchange partner said that South Central represent every part of him, all his childhood memories, family and friends, cultures and identity remain there. He stated in his introduction: “My roots are in South Central.” and South Central is one of the biggest parts of who he is.
Even though we may come from different countries with different history, language, and background but we all have a place that we called “home”. A place that nowhere can compare to, a place that always stay in our hearts. We can travel around the world, been to many places, but home is home. It’s a feeling of comfortable, safety and relax, but also a place with people who care deeply for us.
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