The bảohouse is the digital abode of bảo.thiên.ngô, a Vietnamese American designer exploring aesthetics, community, communication, and sustainability in striving towards the dream of building a Vietnamese American community center.
27th
Rice Paper Scissors was created by Valerie Luu (Little Knock) and Katie Kwan (KitchenSidecar), two Vietnamese street food vendors in San Francisco who love sitting on small stools.
Inspired by the sidewalk dining and street food we experienced in Vietnam, we wanted to recreate the experience here in the Mission — complete with small tables, even smaller stools, fresh Vietnamese condiments, Cambodian pop music, and a rotating menu of Vietnamese comfort foods.
Our cafe pops up on front porches, garages, and sidewalks and when we’re not figuring out what kitschy Asian housewares to buy, you can find us at various street food events and every Thursday at Mojo Bicycle Cafe.
(Source: surnameviet)
Police find San Jose girl unharmed, shoot and kill abductor
The terrifying abduction of an 11-year-old girl began with a kidnapper’s gunshots in the early-morning hours Friday as she was grabbed from her San Jose home. It ended almost five miles away and 12 hours later with a single shot, when a SWAT officer killed 42-year-old Tri Truong Le, the alleged kidnapper, during a gunbattle in a narrow staircase.
(Source: mercurynews.com)
26th
Happy Lunar New Year everyone! Yeah, I know this comes a tad late.
Hương is dressed in her áo tứ thân, what used to be the daily attire of (North) Vietnamese peasantry, but has now become traditional attire worn during festive occasions.
The little jovial boy is her baby half-brother Ricky, although at home their parents call him “Chượt”, which means mouse. Apparently they still believe in the superstition that if you call your baby using a nice name, evil spirits become attracted to the sound of that name and will steal your baby’s soul away. So by calling him a mouse, evil spirits won’t be interested. Poor Ricky. I think he’ll grow up confused. Actually, you probably should feel bad for his hair-style, that tacky cut for little boys where you have a patch of hair on the top and on the side. I guess it’s not as bad as a bowl-cut…
Hương is holding a lì xì, red envelope filled with newly-minted money, a symbol of fresh prosperity for the new year. Giving red envelopes comes from an ancient practice of giving prayers for a successful harvest later in the year. I suspect the money is a form of seed fund for farmers to acquire new tools and seed to start planting. The modern practice has changed of course, but the notion of blessing others for a fresh start towards a fruitful future hasn’t changed.
Lighting firecrackers, when China/Vietnam was more superstitious (it still is, though), was a way to scare off the bad spirits from the past year from wreaking havoc on the new year. Firecrackers have largely been banned, if not regulated, due to safety concerns caused by recklessness in the past. So to make up for the missing firecrackers, I guess you can enjoy an electronic firecracker on YouTube. But if you still feel the chills of an evil spirit lurking in your back, use that lì xì money and treat yourself to a day at the spa.
When I saw this Mira Zwillinger bridal gown, I thought, “Reminds me of a jellyfish.” So I photoshopped a jellyfish (macrodactyla aequorea, which lives in the East China Sea) as a stand-in for an umbrella.
24th
Color Connotations in the Vietnamese Culture
Global Color Meanings
- Red – hot, blood, spicy food, squares/cubes, stop/danger
- Orange – energy, thirst
- Yellow – stimulates memory, gold/money, enlightenment, sunshine, caution
- Green – comfort/quiet, spring, new beginnings, rest, road information, safety
- Blue – cool, trust, dependable, circles, salt, hospitals
- Purple – calming, royalty/religion, flowers
- Pink – sweet things, innocence, temporary calm
- Brown – stability, food, earth
- White – pure, innocent, youth, clean, surrender
- Black – dignity, formal, death, mystery
Basic Vietnamese Color Meanings
- Red – happiness, love, luck, celebration
- Yellow – wealth, prosperity, royalty, happiness, change
- Green – jealousy, lust
- Blue – calmness, hope, growth
- Purple – nostalgia, sadness, fragility, tenderness
- White – purity, death, the end
- Black – evil
(Source: internationalbusiness.wikia.com)
2nd
Lily is rousing me from my winter hibernation. She dragged me out of bed to go to Starbucks and do something productive. Not feeling in the least bit interested in being productive, I was doing some research on typography. I was curious about Vietnamese typography, and noticed that the word/name HƯƠNG has hook diacritics (dấu móc) that reminded me of Pucca’s hairbuns. And so I was compelled to make this. I wonder what she looks like in traditional Vietnamese attire.
29th
drvy:
Cal State Fullerton students soon will be able to choose to major in Vietnamese language and culture, thanks to a $238,000 U.S. Department of Education grant to create the program.
Trang Le, hired this fall as a lecturer in modern languages and literatures, is developing the bachelor’s…
(Source: calstate.fullerton.edu)
23rd
A great blog post on “charvey in Vietnam” regarding the contrasts of “ethnic nationality” vs “ideological nationality” in comparing Vietnam/Vietnamese and USA/American. As a Vietnamese American, I can understand the difficulty with which my peers face of “not being Vietnamese enough” and “being too Vietnamese”. I think I’ll write a more extensive exploration of this topic later on. Also another good additional reading on the topic is C.N. Le’s “Assimilation & Ethnic Identity” on his Asian Nation website.
