Missing the fish that were caught in nets like this by the rice fields, deep fried, and eaten bones and all.
Missing the color of rice. No doubt the back-breaking labor of transplanting rice shoots in mud all day would change my nostalgia--but, in my defense, the city people love the rice too.Anyway, I close with my favorite language primer text in the world. It's from SIL materials of the 1960s in highland Vietnam, and is of a language closely related to the Bunong tongue spoken in Mondulkiri:
Central Mnong Language Lessons, Richard L. Phillips, Y Kem Kpor
Lesson Fifty-Nine (59)
Are there rats in America?
Yes, but we don't eat them.
We Mnong like to eat rat meat.
Do the Mnong eat the rat's tail?
Yes, we usually eat the tail and also the feet.
Lesson Fifty-Eight (58)
Yesterday afternoon a rat sprang my trap and was caught.
A cat didn't catch it, the trap got it.
The trap trapped the rat, I got him and he was already dead.
I took it from there and threw it away.
This morning Nek took it, roasted and ate it.
Lesson Sixty (60)
How do you roast rat?
First you singe off all the hair.
After that get water and wash it till it's clean.
After washing it, cook till it's done. When it's done we'll eat it.
Can rats bite?
If they bite our hands, we'll have a sore.
Much better than Dick and Jane and the little dog Spot, hmm? Maybe when I get to Mondulkiri in 2008 I can finally try some rat for myself... I'm thinking No to the tail and the feet, though. Rat's feet? Can there be any meat on a rat's foot?
2 comments:
I just bought my daughter one of those learning toys that reads books and offers other educational games. I had to laugh at the thought of the computer generated voice reciting instructions for cleaning and cooking a rat!
I read this aloud to Reid because I appreciated it so. Knew he would too. It makes me love those people... especially the part clarifying who/what trapped/killed the rat (as though credit should be given where credit is due.)
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