Bon Jour Vietnam

L'Hebdo Dijon's headline for Gastronomic Fair, Vietnam Guest of Honor

     In 1923, André Marie Tao Kim Hai, 18 years old, came to France from Vietnam, to study law, history and poetry. In 1929, he became a French citizen, and in 1939 joined the French Army to defend Poland. But first, he and his family and friends drove to an auberge in the Dordogne town of Brantome, and had a “bombe,” a blow-out multi-course meal, with wine. 

     When the French capitulated to the Germans a year later, and André was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, the German officers failed to understand how he could be in charge of unit of white men. They did not understand just how much of a Frenchman he was.  After a prisoner exchange in 1941, he worked for the Free French, having at least one frightening encounter with the Gestapo in Marseille. 

     Sent by the French to work at the fledgling United Nations, André came to the United States. In 1946, the year I was born, he and his Cincinnati-born-wife,  Ruth, began contributing to Gourmet Magazine and The New Yorker. André had a great love and knowledge of both Vietnamese and French cuisine.

     Noting that Vietnam was to be the guest of honor at this year's Gastronomic Fair in Dijon, I attend with curiosity. In our year of Ken Burn's Vietnam, what is the status of Vietnamese people and cuisine in France? 

     Some context: France's defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 was the end of a colonial annexation begun by the French 100 years earlier. (Our military involvement began in 1955 and lasted twenty years.)

     André was part of a generation of artists and intellectuals who sometimes chose to remain in France, and who formed the nucleus of a community which currently, at about 100,000, is the largest outside of Vietnam.

     It is the representatives of this community who as guests of honor arranged their section of the convention hall. Selling a range of silk dresses, dried fruits, lacquerware and dolls, booths surrounded a stage and restaurant area of two dozen tables.
     Arriving early for the French dinner I found a seat at a table with a view of the stage.

Vietnamese National Theatre of Song, Music and Dance

     I watched and recalled my favorite performance while traveling in Vietnam a decade ago: water puppets! Since so much of life in Vietnam centers around water---for rice paddy, for transportation, for floating markets, some consider water puppets to be the true national theatre. They are performed by people standing waist deep in water tanks, behind curtains, and manipulating puppets from below the water's surface.

Nam and Bun Bo

     My food arrived, and the performance ended. The crowd began to queue, and the musicians began playing Christmas carols on their instruments to entice sales of bamboo xylophone and clay flute. I relinquished my seat.

     I walked past a calligrapher. He wasn't writing chu nom, the Chinese characters used to write Vietnamese beginning 1000 years ago. In the coastal town of Hoi An, there were still practicioners of chu nom, who wrote poems for special occaisons.

Vietnamese Calligraphy For A French Audience

     I prepared to re-enter the French Gastronomic section of the fair, wondering if this was the best the French and Vietnamese-French could do to honor the culture of Vietnam? Or am I completely out of touch with reality?

     I stopped to talk with a young man tending a booth full of dolls in folk costume. We began our conversation in French, but he switched to English, which he began learning at age 6 in Vietnam. His father, a theatre director, and his mother, a music teacher brought him to France. They could not afford to raise their family in Hanoi. He's now in high school. I mentioned the water puppets, and he pulled out his cell phone to show me some of his favorite performances. I, too, love the water buffalo plowing and the dragons, splashing, fighting and spraying water.

     Then I asked if he was familiar with the Tale of Kieu. This story of a disgraced and heroic woman was considered Vietnam's national epic poem, but I have trouble pronouncing Vietnamese, and people seem not to know of it. His face brightened. Of course he knew it, he'd had to memorize sections in school. 

     I love the closing lines: 

If yours a drifting fate, be resigned to it,

Bắt phong trần, phải phong trần,

If yours a noble fate, be complied with it.

Cho thanh cao mới được phần thanh cao. 

     I gave him my card, and said good night.

     When I woke up the next morning, my new friend, TANG Than Long had emailed me samples of water puppet performances and the new English translation of The Tale of Kieu. All of which I tell you to show that this Gastronomic Fair of Dijon is as much about people and their stories as it is about food. And I hope to capture many more of them.