An American Thanksgiving...in Vietnam

As I have mentioned on this blog too many times to count, I love food. I also love celebrations and holidays. So, naturally I had to find a way to celebrate the great ol' American holiday we call Thanksgiving in Hue.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, how do you have a real American Thanksgiving without access to all the good holiday favorites in Hue like yams, jellied cranberry, pumpkin pie, etc., etc. Oh, and did I mention that ovens are very rare and hard to come by in Vietnam, meaning that we do not have one at our house. Hmm...

Well, my roommate and I bought as many traditional Thanksgiving items as we could during our recent trip to Hanoi (in a very popular expat part of town around Tay Ho district). I also asked my friend whose family owns a bakery here in Hue (bakeries are about the only places that actually have ovens) if we could use their oven for an hour or two.

After spending a lot of time planning, trying to figure out how to make traditional dishes without all of the necessary ingredients, and with help from some friends, the final Thanksgiving menu ended up something like this:


- Roasted chicken breast rubbed in butter, oregano, pepper, thyme and a little bit of chili powder (no turkey to be found but the chicken actually turned out really good!)


- Sweet potato pie complete with lots and lots of brown sugar, butter, marshmallows, ritz crackers and candied yams...amazingly good! (the above picture just features the yummy toppings)


- Stovetop stuffing with vegetables


- Salad...a REAL salad complete with goat cheese, cranberries and vinegreatte dressing


- Jellied Cranberries...a Thanksgiving celebration isn't complete without them


- Pumpkin Pie for dessert



The end result: six individuals (4 Americans, 1 Vietnamese and 1 Norwegian) with extremely full, satisfied bellies.

A Flooded Hue

What do you do when you need to make an emergency visit to the office and your street is completely flooded? Well, just call over a boat floating down the street and ask them for a ride -- at least that's what my roommate Linh did when she needed to make a quick visit to her office and our street was nearly three feet deep of murky brown water.



The above shot was taken from my bedroom balcony. My roommate and I were cooped up in our house for nearly two days with no electricity due to the recent flood.



Boy, I am seriously appreciative of power and the ability to actually leave my house right now!

Vietnamese Weddings

This past week, I was a Vietnamese bridesmaid for the second time since arriving in Vietnam (who would have thought?). After attending six Vietnamese weddings in less than a year, I have learned a thing or two about this cultural tradition in Vietnam.

Here are a few things you should know about Vietnamese weddings -- you know, just in case you happen to come to Vietnam and get invited to a wedding :) :

1) Karaoke is a staple of every Vietnamese wedding -- Karaoke is to Vietnamese weddings what dancing is to American weddings. Every wedding has lots and lots of karaoke -- it is the main entertainment attraction of Vietnamese weddings. Oh, and they love to hear foreigners sing -- so either get your singing pipes ready or else be prepared to consistently decline the offer to sing throughout the course of the event with a big smile on your face.

2) No cake for you -- While almost every Vietnamese wedding has a large, delicious-looking cake just starring at you from the front of the room, do not be fooled. The cake is actually not for your consumption. It is simply cut by the bride and groom and saved for the family to eat -- after the wedding. The first time I attended a Vietnamese wedding I was so excited when I noticed the cake at the front of the room, especially since the Vietnamese culture is not as concerned with sweets and desserts in comparison to the American culture. Yet, as the night wore on and no cake was served to the guests, I soon learned that actually eating the cake is not as important in their wedding celebrations.

3) Come hungry - While guests do not get to enjoy the wedding cake, a big part of this Vietnamese celebration involves eating ALOT of food. In fact, almost every Vietnamese wedding involves serving six or seven courses -- including salad, soup, lots of different meats, rice and fruit -- to the guests, and never-ending drinks all around. Plus, the Vietnamese culture is very concerned with hospitality so people seated around you are continually placing more food in your bowl and more beverages in your cup throughout the entire process.


Below is a picture of myself with the other bridesmaids and the bride and groom at the wedding this past Tuesday. It was a very PINK wedding!

A Hue Halloween

I love eating candy, dressing up and getting scared, so naturally I also love Halloween. Even though people here don't actually celebrate Halloween as a part of the Vietnamese culture, the other volunteer at the Hope Center (Taru from Finland) and I decided to throw the staff and artisans at the Center a Halloween party. This basically involved us bringing lots of candy and the two of us running around in Halloween costumes (myself as a Vietnamese girl in the traditional dress -- how appropriate! and Taru as a male painter) while they laughed and smiled at us.

After awhile though, the Hope Center really did get into the spirit of dressing up for Halloween which involved Taru painting beards and eyebrows on several of the children (to match her own face make up) and the artisans trying on the wigs and clothes at the Center. Taru's partner and son also arrived later on dressed up as girls, which was quite hilarious!

On Halloween night, one of my other fellow volunteer friends (Hy) put on a haunted house with the children at one of the local shelters. HY and the other children at the shelter really put a lot of time and energy into creating an authentic haunted house and it was really quite well done. One of the rooms inside the house even featured The Ring complete with a fuzzy television set and girls popping out as the creepy girl from the movie (and they looked so much like the actual girl from the movie which made it even creepier!).

Even though I missed not being able to celebrate Halloween in the US, I still had a really good holiday here in Vietnam.