A Night of Cultural Food

The English Club today had a meeting a Shi Lei's room, in which individual members brought food from home or from outside that were unique to Vietnam in a potluck food session. 2 Foreign friends were invited as well, Dr Vattana from Laos and Sammy Norris from the United States of America, both of which contributed some delicious food as well, such as pizza, a western cultural dish to share among the Vietnamese students.

Some of the delicacies on show by the Vietnamese students include
Fried Nem,(Fried Spring Roll) Pho Chuon(Spring Roll) Bun Cha (Vietnamese Noodles)

Western food from our special guests , pizza!


Thuy and Ha, enthusiastic students!


Daniel Foo

Today's session is on the food culture of Vietnam. And I sort of got my first cultural shock.. well I prepared and cleaned up the tables so we can eat on the tables, but the studetns came in and immediatedly started spreading newspapers on the floor.. so we end up eating on the floor. However, I realised this was better, as we could sit close to each other and see everyone faces as we crowd around the food.

Every member brought along something that they either made or bought. There was introduction to the types of food there was, and they taught us how to go about eating them. Actually, VIetnamese cusine is not that easy to eat correctly. With all the sauses, nuoc man ( fish sauce), nuoc tom (prawn sause) and nuoc chanh ( lime juice) you dont know when is the correct one to dip your food into. Also, if you are not used to Vietnamese cuisine, you will not know how to eat your rice paper with the vegetable and other ingredients properly. How I know? cos Sam our American friend and Dr Vatana sort of used to eat them separately, until they were showed by our English club members the correct way to eat it.. the food that the members brought along reflected the food preference of the vietnamese, mostly hervs and fresh greens, so this is the reason why they are all so small in size!!!! haha

We played some games so as to encourage interaction. Bascially, it invloves formulating questions ( of course in English so that they will be given more clues to solve a puzzle. at times, most of the members were lost, but after close to half an hour of struggling.. they managed to solve Daniel's puzzle. Most importantly, I think everyone is starting to become more comfortable with each other. : ) so there is more laughter and talking in the club.. which is really really good for us!

and to congratulate them, I ordered pizzas to go around..but i think pizzas paled in comparison to what the members have brought.. maybe I am turning vietnamese in my food preference too.. hehe.
-shi lei