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Vietnam part II

by · March 11th, 2008
Personal Story, Travel, Vegetarian

We’ve now been in Vietnam for well over a week. And while I continue to be, well, pretty much disgusted by the way animals are treated (today we saw a common site here; two live pigs tied to the sides of a motorbike — photos will have to wait until I’m home), I am also partially awed by the Vietnamese willingness to see food as it really is before they eat it.

As I mentioned before, it is nearly impossible to keep kosher here, or for me to remain a vegetarian. I was doing a pretty good job of it so far, but this morning, when served noodles for breakfast with bits of pork in it, our guide reminded our host that I don’t eat meat. We were staying at Ba Be Lakes in a “home stay,” with a family that is incredibly poor, and makes extra money by taking in tourists. Food is plentiful, though, here, even with the poor. Anyhow, after the reminder, he promptly made me my own noodles — in a bowl of chicken broth.

Talk about dilemma — with a family that poor, I didn’t feel I had the right to object. I fished out the noodles and didn’t say a word, while my husband gave me sympathetic glances.

Later, I told our guide what had happened, and he said “Why didn’t you tell me?” The truth is, I didn’t have the heart to say anything. I felt to complain in a house built on stilts with a tin roof and cement floor where four generations sleep in the same room — where nothing goes to waste, it would be incredibly wasteful. I ate the noodles.

We’ve had the most amazing food though, in spite of all that. We’ve finished at least five meals now by saying “That was the best dinner we’ve had so far.” But the faces or body parts of what we’re eating are never far away. At one meal a bowl of chicken was served with a claw sticking out. Fish are often served whole, with the head still on.

I’m beginning to get used to it, and as I said, even admire it in some ways.

The only thing I truly miss is salad; since our Western systems cannot handle the water here, eating any fresh fruit or vegetables is forbidden, unless they can be peeled. This is the same wherever you go in a developing country, and it’s part of the territory (like squat toilets) but like eating the occasional piece of meat or whatever, it’s all part of the experience, which I wouldn’t give up for anything.

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One Response to “Vietnam part II”

  1. Josh Says:
    March 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    I posted the following comment on Alix’s previous entry but am also posting it here to be sure she sees it:

    Dear Alix,

    I’m sorry I am only now seeing your Vietnam posts but hope this comment will be helpful. All Buddhist Vietnamese are familiar with the concept of eating vegetarian in the context of monks, nuns and temples. (Actually, temple food is vegan, not vegetarian, as eggs and dairy products are also proscribed.) But at the same time, contrary to what Barney has written, very few Buddhist Vietnamese eat that way at home, so divorced from the temple context, it’s not surprising that people don’t know what to make of you. If you can convey that you want to eat “temple food”, that will be understood immediately. Barney is correct that if you say you want to “an chay”, you also will be understand immediately. I suggest that you copy out the following sentence and SHOW it to people from whom you are buying or receiving food:

    Thua ban, toi xin ban giup toi nhan duoc do an chay thoi vi toi la nguoi an chay truong. Toi xin ban thong cam. Cam on ban nhieu.

    Even without diacritical marks, any Vietnamese person, even Catholics who have no vegetarian tradition, will understand it. It means (in friendly but respectful language for which the speaker and the person spoken to can be of either gender): “I would be very grateful if you would help me obtain vegetarian food, as I eat vegetarian food exclusively. Thank you very much for your understanding.”

    I want to add that I was very disappointed to read in your previous posts of your decision to resume meat-eating on an occasional basis. While you may have found sufficient self-justification in your thought process, from my perspective you utterly failed to articulate any reason for doing so that is valid on an ethical basis, and what you wrote amounted to pretty transparent rationalization. I hope your Vietnam experience prompts you to reconsider. I have travelled in Vietnam and can identify with your reaction to the animal abuse that occurs there on a routine basis, but I also know that there is no such thing as commercially available “humane meat” anywhere. The temptation to self-deception and rationalization is very strong in all of us (and I include myself in that).

    By the way, Harry is correct that cats are eaten only very rarely, but unfortunately is wrong when he says that dog is eaten infrequently by Vietnamese. That’s certainly true in the US; in Vietnam, though, dogs are actually eaten frequently, but only by men when they get together to drink alcohol. Dog meat is never eaten by women, and rarely served in establishments frequented by both sexes (prostitutes excepted). It is known by various euphemisms so it is easy to be unaware of how ubiquitous it is in drinking establishments and lots of hole-in-the-wall restaurants if you don’t know Vietnamese well or don’t visit such places.) Nobody says “thit cho” (”dog meat”), but if you look carefully in working class neighborhoods, you’ll see lots of places that feature “thit cay”, which is doesn’t mean anything precise but is a universally understood euphemism for dog meat.

    By the way, have you seen the documentary “The Journey of Vaan Nguyen”, about a Vietnamese family resettled in Israel and their conflicted Vietnamese-Israeli identity? (I can’t resist adding that I’m an American who speaks fluent Vietnamese and Hebrew–I lived in Israel for three years and went to graduate school there–and pride myself on being one of what I suspect is a very few native English speakers who can watch it without subtitles!) I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Vietnam and that you will have an opportunity to visit the Meking Delta region, where I think Vietnamese people are the most friendly of any region. I wish you well.

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