Understanding a Culture through Food - Unlucky

colorful-life — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:17:00 GMT

Th?t Chó

Unlucky has been lost from his owner for a week. He has an ordinary looking: four legs, two ears, and two dark black eyes. White fur covers all of his body. However, Hanoi’s busy streets with its thousands of scooters rushing around has made his hair all messy, and turned it into a greyish color.

Tonight, Unlucky is caught by a man. The man’s rough hands put Unlucky inside an iron kennel. A rubber rope is used to keep the kennel on a scooter seat. All night, the man rides around the young city looking for lost pets – like Unlucky. It is what he does for a living.

Morning arrives slowly. The man stops at a roadside restaurant. He trades all the pets that he finds that night with the chef. He receives a bit of cash, which will be enough to feed his family for few days. Exhausted from his night of work, he goes home quickly.

The roadside restaurant gets busy during the lunch break. Men and women talk and laugh loudly. They don’t care if anyone is listening to their conversations. There is no privacy at a roadside restaurant because people sit so close to each other. Everyone sits on small plastic chairs, around tiny plastic tables. All they want is to erase the work of the morning.

Lunch starts with boiled peanuts. It’s a common snack at roadside restaurants, served with beer, cheap beer; always lots of beer. After the snack, main dishes are bought to the table. Unfortunately, it is the meat of Unlucky.

The meat with skin is boiled until tender then sliced thin. It is then served with lemongrass, Thai basil, lime and dipped with fresh chili shrimp sauce. People enjoy the crunchiness of the skin and the tenderness of the meat.

The workers eat and talk for around an hour before they go back to work. No one is drunk and no one feels guilty about eating Unlucky’s meat.

It is an unlucky fact that through many generations, eating dog meat -Th?t Chó - is just like eating pork, beef, or chicken in Vietnam.

And, unlucky means not lucky. It doesn't make this fact wrong or right.

Photos: My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited (Life in a village)

colorful-life — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 05:03:00 GMT

Life is full of different color. I want to bring those pictures that I took during my visit to Vietnam– my home country - to this competition. They are not sad or dark pictures but all in various colors. For me, each of them shines on it owns to show different characters of the countryside of Vietnam, under the view of one young Vietnamese who was actually born in the city. Right now, I am studying abroad in the US. I haven’t had a lot of experience in both shooting videos and photography. However I like doing both of them. I remembered when I finished fifth grade, my mom bought me a tiny photographic film camera using AA battery. I didn’t use it for a really long time but I remembered taking a lot of plants or flowers photos. My mom always told me that: “ Why are you taking pictures of plants, not me or you?” and I always told her that: “ I don’t like taking pictures of myself, I don’t like taking pictures of people who are posing in front of the camera, I only like taking pictures of nature.” And since then, I haven’t change a lot. I still don’t like taking pictures myself but flowers or plants or sky – things that you call landscape. I also take pictures of other people when they ask me to or for memory. But I love more taking pictures of people when they are not paying attention. In my opinion, I think those “not posing” pictures are more real and beautiful. For this competition, I am looking for learning more than winning. This is my first time joining any photography competitions; therefore I am not so confident about my experience. However, I tried to bring out the best that I could at the moment to complete my pictures. I am really looking forward for this opportunity to work in Oman, to learn and share my experiences, through my pictures and stories, in the realistic and simple way.

Tu-i

Understanding a Culture through Food - Unlucky

Photos: My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited (Life in a village)