Bánh Khoái Cá Kình

Right at a corner of chaotic Chuồn Market, there is a woman, surrounded with people, struggling with a dozen of pans. It’s O Lành (Auntie Lành), a great “bánh khoái cá kình” maker. She used a short stalk of a banana leaf coating the pan’s bottom with a thin layer of cooking oil. She then […]

A meaningful trip to A Lưới

“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 […]