“How do you say ‘little sister’ in your dialect?” I asked Sương and Cu Bàng, my new little Pako friends from A Lưới. “A em,” they answered in chorus. “A em?” How come these two sounds feel so close to my heart? I was truck with emotion and memory. And at that time, the first […]
Huế
Huế is my home and paradise.
Huế Food
While I was studying in Bandung, a city famous for its unique cuisine on Java Island (Indonesia), I had thought that my gastronomical urges would be satisfied by the abundance of local delicacies. Besides, there was a Vietnamese restaurant called Hanoi House to satisfy my craving for Vietnamese food. However, I still felt like something […]
Cycling to Cầu Ngói Thanh Toàn
Thư and I met in front of Big C in a cloudy morning to cycle to Thanh Toàn Bridge. That was the second time we cycled there. (The first time was in summertime two years ago.) It was raining on the way there but somehow we loved riding in the rain. In the light rain, […]
Điềm Phùng Thị’s Gifts
Huế, May 3, 2009 Before leaving this beloved world, she dedicated an invaluable gift, which was accumulated from her heart and talent, to Huế – her homeland. She is Điềm Phùng Thị – a renowned sculptor; and the present is her own art works together with the French style residence where she lived during the […]
A Garden of Broken Potteries
When my history mentor Hồ Tấn Phan’s house has no more room for both intact and broken old potteries “excavated” from Hương River, he has to leave them outside in his garden. You’re invited to visit a corner of his pottery garden in the video clip below:
Surrounded with floodwaters
When I was a kid I loved wading in the floodwaters although my mama said the floodwater was very dirty and that it was dangerous out there. Now I think flood is a nuisance and no joke at all (People in Huế expect floods twice a year). Early this week, the flood kept me from […]
Rain Oh Rain…!
Here comes the rainy season again… Wet and cold Gloomy and cloudy days To expect When can I see the sun again?
A Feeling of Fall
One morning in rainy season, she woke up to feel something different – something peaceful, yellow, breezy and waltzing outside her window. She got baffled as what she saw, felt and breathed was something like fall season but she argued to herself that Huế had no such a luxury thing like FALL (there are only […]
When the sun kisses the rain
Especially for sun-seekers, It was the first rainy afternoon of Huế’s wet season. Heavy and fast. When the rain died down in the sunset, it left behind the mist afloat on the Hương River and the clouds lost on the mountains upstream. My heart was filled with a mixture of joy and sorrow beholding the marriage […]
Go jogging in Huế
Especially for Y.Q., Huế people are very early risers. The sun does not wake them up but they stir the dark morning until the dawn breaks. They wake up around 4 in the morning or even earlier to start a pre-working day such as cooking, doing some cleaning, or doing morning exercises. One of the […]