ONE MORE REASON TO DISTRUST THIS GENERATION

An author, of Vietnamese ancestry, living in the United States, posted: "I want Donald Trump gone so that a deeply divided Vietnamese American community can go back to arguing over the things that really matter, like whether northern or southern phở is better."
And: "The answer: southern."

Well, okay. Opinionated he is.

So of course several other Vietnamese Americans chose to comment. Keen partisans of phở Bắc or phở Nam. We whitey-white Americans have been mostly exposed to phở Nam, of course, and tend to eat phở with rau. It's almost as essential as fish sauce or Sriracha.
We seldom use tương đen. We're heretics that way.

Personally, I have an immense fondness for phở gà.


In any case, dawdling over coffee afterwards is essential. Followed by illegal cigarettes smuggled in from Canada, Singapore, or China.

Wisely I refrained from expressing any opinion, however. Phở is a memory device. Once it's locked in place, logic no longer has a bearing. It's like pizza to a New Yorker, pork chow mein to a Midwesterner, or herring to a Dutchman.

Of course I'd much rather have herring than pizza or pork chow mein -- as would any sane person, really -- but I shan't tell them that. No need to start a war over something so trivial as mediocre cheese pie or tasteless limp greasy noodles.

There were over four hundred comments.



I mean pizza, fer chrise sakes!

Y'all weird.




PS.: Dinner tonight was bittermelon and bacon with chilipaste and fish sauce.
It was very white food, trust me. Everything had a name in English.




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