That Perfect Gift

That perfect gift from Vietnam, what would it be? For twenty-five years, I've been coming and going in Vietnam in a restless pattern that creates havoc in my relationships with family and friends in the States. Each time, when returning home, I have cast about for the perfect gift.

What souvenir could possibly encompass the sights and smells, the tastes and textures of Vietnam? What present might recreate the sturdy yet delicate vibrancy of Vietnamese life? What special gift could help my friends and family in the U.S. understand the qualities that keep pulling me back to Vietnam?

Now, at last, I have the answer.

In the last week, four different readers of Vietnam News, Vietnam's English-language daily newspaper, have told me they regularly clip Huu Ngoc's "Traditional Miscellany" columns and paste them into a notebook for safe-keeping. Who else out there I wonder, has been doing the same? And how many Sunday readers wish they had been saving Huu Ngoc's gems?

If you are among the latter, relax. Huu Ngoc has collected his columns (and much more) into Sketches for a Portrait of Vietnamese Culture, a coffee-table size book of some 500 pages. An attractive design and full-page color photographs of Vietnamese art, architecture and festivals make Vietnamese Culture the most beautiful book yet produced by Hanoi's The Gioi (World) Publishers.

With typical modesty, Huu Ngoc says in his foreword that Vietnamese Culture is a "receipt, marked 'paid'" made in payment to foreign friends who have asked him for a book that would introduce them to Vietnamese traditional culture. The volume draws on Huu Ngoc's decades of research, writings and translations of Vietnamese tales, legends and proverbs. Huu Ngoc has divided the text into three parts. Part one, "Cultural Snapshots," contains the pieces that readers of Vietnam News have come to love. Now, Huu Ngoc has collected them according to themes, including the traditional village, festivals, plants and animals, the arts, spirituality, and especially enticing Vietnamese dishes. Like the entire book, this section resembles Huu Ngoc's Sunday offerings: the reader can enter the journey at any point.

In part two, "A Brief Introduction to Vietnamese Culture," Huu Ngoc takes us on a delightful dash through 3,000 years and a multitude of uninvited guests (Chinese, Mongols, Siamese, French, Americans) whose cultures have melded with that of Vietnam. He ends this summary with a short piece, "Vietnamese-ness, in Brief." There, Huu Ngoc notes that "in a world full of movement and transformation, Vietnamese culture, subjected to a wide range of influences, is searching for a way to redefine, without repudiating its identity."

Part three, "Miscellany," introduces us to the depth and whimsy of Vietnamese letters. The emphasis here is on popular and folk literature, with samples drawn from legends, fables, folk songs, riddles and proverbs. With these Vietnamese life lessons that have been passed from generation to generation, the reader can at last grasp the reason Vietnamese friends often pause in a conversation to say, "We have a tale..." or "We have a saying...." But this summary of Sketches for a Portrait of Vietnamese Culture is too cursory, for it leaves out the book's essential ingredient: Huu Ngoc himself.

Huu Ngoc takes us - both his Vietnamese and foreign friends - in hand. With Huu Ngoc as our guide, we visit Hanoi's Old Quarter in the days of his childhood, when retired scholars on Hang Gai Street still printed nom texts with wood blocks. We listen to the plaintive strains of a Vietnamese flute, or we stop at a modern-day street stall to savor the quintessential flavors of pho. Regardless of our backgrounds, we all have much to learn and enjoy from this book. In a time of flux as outside lifestyles pour into Vietnam, Huu Ngoc has done us all a great favor by shaping traditional Vietnamese culture into a burnished gem we can treasure forever.

If you have been casting about for that perfect gift for family or friends or if you have been searching for a loving summary of Vietnamese life lessons for yourself, then you need look no further. One last word of advice: Best hurry, for soon many will know the Vietnamese saying, "A gift from the heart is valuable."

Published on 4/1/96