Food as a Language to Connect Wo

Despite the fact that Bihn moved away from Vietnam where he felt lost in his home due to his identity, he still feels lost in France and expresses his state of isolation by saying, “I sat in the doorway of 12 rue de I’Odeon and lost myself in the passing street life. In this way, I am afraid, I am very French, I am enter tained best by the continuous flow of people whom I do not know. I am amused by the faces that fade in and fade out as they pass me by” (Truong 39). From this quotation we can know Binh struggles with his identity because he moves to a new country, but also because of his father. Binh was abused by his alcoholic father,so all of his memories in Vietnam are in the shadows. He is scared of his father’s voice, and even in Paris he can feel his dad around him. All the problems cause him to move to France, but in Paris he changes from job to job. He finds out he lost his name, then he cannot find his personal identity in Paris.Because he is the first generation overseas, he is alone and wants to find a partner. Binh, a gay man, tries to express his sexual identity in France,because he cannot be a gay man in Vietnam. It is clear Binh wants to find a way to learn French when he says, “I wanted to open my mouth and taste each word, ‘interview,’though, slapped me in the face. The word was a sharp reminder that I was a servant who thought himself a man, that I was a fool who thought himself a king of hearts” (Truong 40). Most foreign people who move to the new country will first face language problems no matter how proficient they think they are due to the cross and clash of cultures. My experience to learn English is like that of Bihn. Learning a new language is so difficult for all the dreamers who search for a better life in a new country. Furthermore, people wanting to fit in to a new society is a big challenge:

“Consumption is a social relationship, the dominant relationship in our society – one that makes it harder and harder for people to hold together, to create community. At a time when for many of us the possibility of meaningful change seems to elude our grasp, it is a question of immense social and political proportions. To establish popular initiative, consumerism must be transcended – a difficult but central task facing all people who still seek a better way of life” (bull hooks).

Of course, people have many reasons to leave their hometown to search for a better life. This quotation lets us know that people in the world must move around to find the jobs to support their life. Food is the language that can help some people find a job, which Truong explains in her book by saying, “Powered sugar, cracker crumbs, salt. A short walk out onto these city streets today, and I will be covered with them” (Truong 225). This means our food needs to put all the ingredients together to make food taste good just as people should learn about a variety of cultural aspects to communicate without language. It is the same with our society; people come from all over the world, and we should accept each culture, or any color skin, or any language because people should stick together, it can make our world peaceful. Truong’s The Book of  Salt  in many ways shows how language is important. To make a multicultural world, people should treat each other respectfully. In the world,we can see people for more than the many reasons they leave their hometowns,for this reason, social relationships must connect by the language.

            Our world changes very fast, because people move around in the world. Any way we go, we bring our culture to the new place. Also, we learn something new from local culture. Language and culture from the other countries mix together with the local language and culture. What happens when culture cross over takes place? Sometimes cultures crash against each other, and this turns into war. Between the cultural groups the communication is so important.Each language has a deep meaning for its own social group’s identity. Learning a new language is not only learning how to speak and learning grammar rules or how to arrange words. Learning a new language is about learning new culture, according to The Book of Salt, “You ask me to do the same for you, to tell you a story of my life, to let you hear it in the language that urged me into this world,a language whose words now congest my head and flood my heart because they have nowhere else to go. Trapped as it is inside my mouth, my Vietnamese has taken on the pallor of the dying, the faded colors of the abandoned” (Truong117). From this quotation we can see speaking a language is a part of where a person is born. Like the American people born in the USA, they automatically can speak English, because their mom and dad all speak English. Later they go to school, and during the learning at school about grammar rules, they learn how to write. All we are learning is part of our culture and history. Language can continue to pass culture and history on to our next generation. All the process is about practicing our language and culture. This is the same with people who travel to other countries who need to learn a new language and a new culture. Right now,our world is becoming more open to the people who want to change their lifestyle and also to look for a good future. When people immigrate to the new country they need to learn the new language and culture. Truong says, “Language is a house with a host of doors, and I am too often uninvited and without the keys” (Truong 155). From this experience, immigrants learn language and culture communicate, and can learn cultural communication with the language. The foreigners become close friends for each other, this relationship builds up a stronger new society. Language is the symbol to show whoever speaks their own language,also represents their own culture and history. In other words, whichever language you speak, you belong to that culture group, or where you come from. That’s the culture and language relationship in people’s life.

However, food is a kind of universal language for Binh to show off anywhere he goes, in France or Vietnam. Even though he cannot speak fluently in French or English, he can express himself through the food he prepares. Binh help his mother make food,then he cut himself, Binh says: “I am nine and I am cutting scallions into o’s…my mother looks up and see the color of my shirt, a color that is getting deeper and truer…She takes off her blouse and wraps it in tight circles around my fingers…With one hand, she holds my fingers together. With the other, she squeezes the juice of the lime onto my fingertips. ‘Fire! Fire!’ I yell” (Truong 72-73). Binh’s blood is often mixed with food, but even when he was little boy, food became his blood. That’s the sweet memory of Binh’s mother holding him. Which reminds him of home. When he cuts himself and bleeds into the food he remembers his mother, Vietnam, and the sweet memory of comfort every time he feels lonely and homesick. This sweet memory is a symbol of Vietnam as a colony, also this mixing of bloods with the food is the symbol of the miscegenation. He mixes Vietnamese flavors in to French foods in honor of this memory. Binh always remember his hometown and his mother, and he sees Vietnamese ingredients as personally as his own blood.