Overseas Vietnamese in San Francisco welcome the Horse Gallops in with Traditional Foods of Tết

As the Tran family gathers to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which starts this Friday, they will share wedges of thick, sticky rice filled with peppery pork and mashed mung beans (banh chung), slices of a cold cut made from chopped pig ears and snout (gio thu), pickled vegetables, and perhaps some fish in a caramelized kho sauce. When friends and relatives come by to visit over the next few days, there will be endless cups of tea, served with dried fruits and nutty sweets.

Giant painting at Oakland’s beloved Vietnamese restaurant Le Cheval (French for “Horse”) welcomes Year of the Horse

“Happy New Year” proclaims this box of nut and seed cookies, a traditional snack for the Vietnamese celebration of Tết

These traditional foods are specific to the Vietnamese observance of the Lunar New Year known as Tết. The ancient holiday shares the annual date with the Chinese New Year and both cultures cherish similar traditions of buying new clothes, decorating recently cleaned houses and giving gifts of money in red envelopes. Yet at the essential family get-togethers to honor ancestors and exchange wishes for luck and prosperity in the coming year, the treasured dishes enjoyed around the holiday table will vary considerably.

A festive bundle of banh chung, the quintessential Vietnamese Lunar New Year dish. Photo: Anna Mindess

In the Bay Area, with its large Chinese population and their early arrival as immigrants, Tết, (as well as Lunar New Year celebrations in the Korean, Singaporean and Indonesian communities) seems to get eclipsed by the older and more well known Chinese New Year parade and events.

Owner of Oakland’s Le Cheval, Son Tan, was born in the Year of the Horse. Photo: Anna Mindess

What better place to honor the lively equine spirit of the coming Year of the Horse than Oakland’s Le Cheval Vietnamese restaurant? I recently met with owner Son Tran, who was born in the year of the Horse and started the restaurant with his mother and other members of their large family. When they were trying to decide on a name for their restaurant more than twenty years ago, Tran told me, they thought a Vietnamese word would be too hard to pronounce, English would sound too American, and finally agreed that French, the language of the older generation and an artifact of France’s almost century of colonial rule, could convey just the right tone. Son’s astrological sign became the moniker of his family’s popular restaurant, which was sealed by his lucky find of a huge painting of stampeding stallions that defines the proud spirit of this beloved, downtown Oakland restaurant.

Since the “Horse is a highly intuitive animal,” says astrologer Susan Levitt, “people born in Horse year follow their hunches. Their keen judgment and natural intuition often help them make the right decisions throughout their life.” The Horse personality has also been noted for its independence, stubbornness and refusal to accept failure. These traits undoubtedly helped Son Tran meet the challenges that came his family’s way when, in 2010, after 20 years as a prize-winning, neighborhood institution, Le Cheval lost its lease, was forced to close and had to lay off 70 workers due to a clash with their contentious landlord (who was later found guilty of massive wage fraud and other crimes).

When the building went into foreclosure and then auction, the Trans’ luck finally turned around and they were asked back by the new owner. In 2012, Le Cheval re-opened to the acclaim of neighborhood regulars who couldn’t wait to once more enjoy their bowls of pho, clay pot rice, calamari salad, succulent beef cubes and complimentary creamy carrot soup in the same cavernous space on Clay Street beneath the soulful stares of its iconic herd of horses.

Sweetened dried lotus seeds are another popular snack for Tết.

Tran explained to me the story behind the most ubiquitous Tết dish, banh chung, hefty brick-like packages of pork and rice. In the Vietnam of olden times, shops and businesses would close for at least the first three days of the New Year, so townsfolk needed food to last them till the markets reopened. These blocks or cylinders of stuffed rice, were wrapped with banana leaves, neatly tied up, and then boiled for upwards of eight hours. Although some people made them at home, their labor-intensiveness compelled most families to stock up on premade bundles to enjoy for at least three days, either freshly cut or fried until crispy.

Many Chinese New Year dishes represent good luck by their shapes. A whole chicken, for example, symbolizes family togetherness and dumplings resemble golden ingots. Others take advantage of sound puns. The word for fish “yu” can also sound like “surplus” which portends prosperity in the coming year.

The same principle operates in the  Vietnamese language. Tran tells me it is important to have a Tết display in the home with budding flowers and the following fruits: mangosteen, coconut, papaya and mango, because their names also sound like other words that convey a message. For the answer to this riddle, I turned to Professor Dzuong Nguyen, who teaches Vietnamese language courses at Stanford University.

He revealed that:

• The word for Mangosteen sounds like the verb “to pray.”


• Coconut sounds like “barely”


• Papaya sounds like “enough”


• Mango sounds like “to spend”

So this fruit quartet conveys the concept of “Wishing to earn just enough to spend” (or “Here’s hoping you make enough to cover all your household expenses”).

Award-winning cookbook author and cooking teacher Andrea Nguyen, describes many traditional festive foods like banh chung and kho, (simmered meat or fish cooked in a caramelized sauce of sugar and fish sauce) that are prepared ahead of time and preserve well “…because during Tet, you’re supposed to be out having fun not slaving away in the kitchen!” Son Tran told me about other festive foods, including a kind of sausage made from chopped pig ear and nose, formed into cylinders by packing tightly in cans. Pickled vegetables, such as mustard greens, daikon radish, carrot and cabbage, help with digestion of the fatty meats.

Since an essential element of Lunar New Year celebration involves visiting friends’ and relatives’ homes, one must have an array of sweets on hand to serve the parade of guests. Nuts and seeds figure in many of these because, Professor Nguyen ventures, in old Vietnam, nuts were seen as a luxury item, so treating your guests to them was a special gift.

Watermelon seeds made even more lucky by red coloring. Photo: Anna Mindess

Both the flesh of the watermelon and its seeds are eaten, for their lucky red color. Dried fruits are also traditional snacks to be shared with visitors over a cup of tea. “Sweet foods are important for this holiday,” Professor Nguyen explains, “ because we are always wishing each other a sweet and happy life.”

This “Sweet Fortune Snack Tray” contains candied winter melon, carrots, yam, kumquats and soursop. Photo: Anna Mindess

Related Information and Events

Le Cheval will host their annual Lunar New Year celebration on Sunday February 9 at 7pm with Lion Dancers and Martial artists entertaining guests inside the restaurant. Reservations are recommended: 510-763-8495

Le Cheval

Address: Map

1007 Clay Street

Oakland, CA 94607

Phone: 510-763-8495

Facebook: Le Cheval

Events:

• Feb 1 & 2: The largest local Vietnamese Tet Festival take place annually in San Jose at the Santa Clara Fairground.
  
  Facebook: Vietnamese Tet Festival


• Feb 1: San Francisco – Rice Paper Scissors hosts a Lunar New Year Brunch at Brick & Mortar Music Hall

Overseas Vietnamese in San Francisco welcome the Horse Gallops in with Traditional Foods of Tết

Poor overseas Vietnamese in Vientiane presented Tet gifts

Leaders of the Overseas Vietnamese Association in Vientiane present gift to poor overseas Vietnamese

The Overseas Vietnamese Association in the Lao capital, Vientiane on January 23 presented Tet gifts to poor overseas Vietnamese in Vientiane to help them enjoy a warm Lunar New Year of the Horse 2014.

Mr. Pham Van Hung, head of the association, said that over the past year, together with the development of Laos, the living standard of the overseas Vietnamese in Laos in general and in Vientiane in particular had been improved remarkably, however, some families, especially single people, still meet difficulties.

The association in Vientiane has helped overseas Vietnamese in the city both in material and in spirit, representing the kind heart of overseas Vietnamese in Laos, especially on the occasion of the coming Lunar New Year 2014

Poor overseas Vietnamese in Vientiane presented Tet gifts

Overseas Vietnamese learn Vietnamese to retain their origin

Overseas Vietnamese, wherever they live in the world, have been learning Vietnamese language everyday to uphold and promote the national culture identity. However, they meet a lot of difficulties in the study.

Vietnamese need to know Vietnamese

When deciding to leave Vietnam with her family to the US, Vu Minh Hien, who now works for the World Bank in Washington DC, felt worried that her two daughters, Quynh Trang, 17, and Minh Khue, 8, may “forget” Vietnamese.

The two girls have to speak English at school when communicating with friends and teachers. The problem is that they spend more time at school than at home, which means that they speak English more than Vietnamese. This means that the two girls may forget the mother tongue.

Hien, on one hand, encouraged her daughters to communicate more with friends to improve their English and overcome cultural differences to get adapted to the new environment, on the other hand, decided that the girls have to speak Vietnamese at home.

“Our family members have to communicate with each other in Vietnamese,” Hien said. “Though my husband and the second daughter had to practice English hard on the first days in the US, they don’t forget Vietnamese.”

“No English word is permitted at home,” HIen added.

Thanh Phuong, a reporter of the Vietnam Television in Paris, France, also said she always asks the son, Armand, to speak Vietnamese with her. Phuong’s husband is French, and they communicate in French. However, Phuong always use Vietnamese in speaking with the boy.

Armand, now four years old, is a bilingual since he was born. “At first, my husband felt uncomfortable when my son and I spoke in Vietnamese and he did not understand the conversation. However, he later decided to learn Vietnamese from the son,” Phuong said.

A lot of barriers for Vietnamese learning overseas

According to Dr. Nguyen The Ky, Deputy Head of the Central Propaganda Committee, though there has been no large-scale survey on the Vietnamese learning in the overseas Vietnamese communities, he still can say for sure that Vietnamese have been trying to teach Vietnamese to their children and grandchildren.

However, Ky also said the Vietnamese second, third and subsequent generations now have to decide whether to learn Vietnamese and Vietnamese culture.

They need to get adapted to the living environment in the host countries to lead good lives. If they cannot speak foreign languages, they would lag behind and put difficulties for themselves.

As a result, a lot of Vietnamese would forget Vietnamese words and would not be able to speak Vietnamese in the future, even though they don’t want this.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Hoang Yen, Deputy Head of the Vietnam Education Science Institute, noted that it is now very difficult to teach Vietnamese to overseas Vietnamese due to the unfavorable environment.

She said that the documents used to teach Vietnamese are not good enough. At most of the Vietnamese centers, there are not the documents on teaching Vietnamese as second language. The Vietnamese centers and classes have been set up by the Vietnamese communities themselves, while the documents have been collected from different sources.

Overseas Vietnamese learn Vietnamese to retain their origin