as I lean back into my seat and gaze through the restaurant patio windows to fulfill my daily quota of people watching, I swirl in my hand what—to most americans who find themselves in europe—feels like a glass of liquid gold. a delicacy sought after far and wide in coffee shops, restaurants, and brasseries. a coveted elixir second only to that of the fountain of life: iced coffee.
and not just any iced coffee. oh no—this rarity is an expert concoction crafted with the perfect ratio of condensed milk and espresso coffee that has been mastered throughout the centuries. Generations of fine tuning just so that a wayward traveler such as myself could one day find herself lucky enough to be gifted by the taste of cà phê sữa đá.
as I savor every sip of this ambrosia and suck the drink dry until my straw starts to echo with gurgling noises from deep in my cup, I take a moment to absorb my surroundings. my seat sits low against a table covered in plastic, surely to provide impermeable protection from incidents of spilled broth and fish sauce. offerings to buddha are displayed on the bar’s countertop alongside menus offering bánh bột chiên, rau muống, and bún riêu. dim lights reflect upon the walls painted a spotted bright green—a stark contrast to the neutrals and muted shades characterizing the cultural landscape of french interior design. in a country that has yet to come to a satisfying reconciliation with its violent colonial history, this pho restaurant stands proudly on Avenue d’Ivry with a name that practically sneers at the faces of parisians: Pho Saigon.
I’m having lunch at this restaurant for what must be at least the twelfth time in my twelve weeks studying abroad in paris. my first time visiting, I had only been living in france for about three weeks. already exhausted by the stunted sentences and mutilated pronunciations I could barely muster up in the french language, I sought out the relief of a more familiar tongue. I made my way to the thirteenth arrondisement—paris’ very own “chinatown”—and warily walked into the very first restaurant I saw that suggested the presence of some vietnamese people like my own (you see, I had already been traumatized once before when I ate at a pho restaurant in a more touristy part of town, shocked to find that the workers were not vietnamese after all when they looked at me with bewilderment after I asked, “cho em thêm giá?”).
the moment I walked through those doors, the waiter looked at me with a certain look of recognition. it’s a look that’s become quite familiar to me here in paris. a look shared with anyone displaying asian phenotypes on the metro or on the street—asking with our eyes, “are you like me?” we silently sized each other up, as if by assessing the jacket on one’s shoulders or the jewelry sitting around one’s neck could tell you if this was a friend or a foe. I broke first: by offering a quick bow and greeting the older man with an enthusiastic “chào chú,” a flood of tension was released. I was one of them. a world of understanding burst open. all the formalities and charades were dropped. although I was not from their country, nor was I from their home, I was one of them. I was one of their vietnamese daughters. from that point on, I was graciously adopted into the family of Pho Saigon.
my decision to study in paris was, admittedly, a careless one. my first choice of studying in vietnam had been cancelled due to covid and I had listed paris as my second choice on a whim simply because I had taken a few years of french in high school (if you’re wondering why I took it, I could lie to you and tell you it was because I wanted to learn about vietnam’s historical colonial roots. in reality, it was because I was a pretentious teenager who didn’t want to take spanish because all the other kids were taking it). to be completely honest, I wasn’t even thinking about studying in a country where I would be able to find other vietnamese people or slurp up a bowl of steaming pho. I wasn’t looking for any familiarity at all. but when I told everyone at the vietnamese american service center I worked at over the summer that I was going to study in paris, their eyes lit with excitement for me. “go to the thirteenth district!” they instructed with the fervor of a mother telling her child to put on a jacket before going out into the cold. “you will find vietnamese people there.” and indeed they were correct. at the thirteenth, I was greeted with a menagerie of grocery stores, restaurants, travel agencies, clothing stores, and nail salons—all similar to the ones I knew at home, but just a little more french.
consciously or unconsciously, it seems that my life has always gravitated towards the pull of vietnamese communities. despite not being able to identify or sort through the memories of the one time I went to visit vietnam when i was seven, my childhood was permeated by the day-old odors of pho that stubbornly refused to leave my jackets, the flurry of the crowd fighting over fresh produce under fluorescent lights at ranch 99, and the droning hymns of vietnamese masses that lulled me to sleep on sunday afternoons. my aunties at the nail salon by my university in california have seen all the broken nails, chipped acrylics, and polished manicures that characterized my college career. whether it be in seattle, washington or san jose, california, deep in des moines, iowa or across the sea to paris, france—I always found myself surrounded by people who also knew the smell of fish sauce staining your skin with familiarity.
it wasn’t until I came to europe that I realized I had practically been spoiled by this proximity to culture my whole life. indulged to the point of taking it for granted. france, you see, is quite similar and, yet, quite different from the united states. the two democratic nations founded on revolution and freedom are like two fraternal twins (and I think studying one reveals a lot about the other). and on the matter of race, these differences run even deeper. paris, in particular, is an entirely multicultural city. the streets are outlined with kebab stands, the district of montmartre has wig stores than downtown san jose, and gourmet ramen is served on nearly every block. the city teems with diversity, religion, culture, and race. truly a product of the country’s colonial history. and yet, here in paris, “race” is a bad word. people cringe when I tell them I am an ethnic studies major. according to the french republic, no one here is french-arab, french-algerian, french-morroccan, or french-vietnamese. we are all frenchmen.
in a way, the french make explicit what the united states makes implicit. we tell our folks that multiculturalism is good in our country’s melting pot of identities—all the while waging a war on black communities on the basis of drugs and building walls to keep out mexican immigrants on the basis of socioeconomic concerns. at least the french tell us to our faces that they don’t like colored people. they discourage the creation of communities, citing fears of tribalism and the fractioning of the republic. places like the thirteenth’s ‘chinatown,’ technically, should not even exist. places like the thirteenth’s ‘chinatown,’ technically, are a threat to the republic.
and you can see it when you walk down the streets of point d’italie. in san jose’s little saigon or orange county’s phước lộc thọ, one can see vietnamese street signs, asian art, and historical monuments clearly delineating this territory as the vietnamese part of town. chinatown is lined with red paper lanterns and giant dragon gates in san francisco. streets are named after revolutionary figures in latino history at the mexican heritage plaza of san jose. these physical signs of legitimization and territory are all but absent from paris’ thirteenth. the buildings, street lights, and sandstone walls match the same 20th century aesthetic as the rest of paris, making the neon signs brandishing franco-vietnamese storefronts stick out even more sorely. they are not supposed to be here. they were supposed to assimilate. they were not supposed to create a space for themselves. with this context, the chinese, vietnamese, cambodian, and thai residents that live here have engaged in a process of place-making that is, indeed, radically countercultural.
I think this counterculturalism is inherent to our natural states it’s a survival method. a coping mechanism. we’re drawn to one another because we need one another to survive. it’s an undeniable, almost primal pull. we want to create spaces and be in communion with one another. I’ve been doing it my entire life and I didn’t even realize it.
don’t mistake this for me trying to claim that there’s some mystical otherworldly connection that vietnamese people have for one another. no—much more mundane. I think, rather, that this the nature of diaspora. in this entirely new and globalized world of transportation, immigration, communication, and deportation, we have more people living away from their lands of origin than ever before in history. up until the last two centuries, it was assumed that you would be living on the same land that your ancestors lived on for the entirety of human history. we had familial ties and community relationships that spanned over generations. and suddenly, out of nowhere, a certain generation decided that they wanted a new adventure and permanently changed the course of history for the rest of their family line.
our histories were written before us. so many of us today were born in countries we call our home, and yet, we still hold a certain attachment to a place that we may not even personally know. we are living in an era of peruvian-americans, korean-russians, filipino-italians, african-americans, and french-syrians. we are a generation of hyphens. while I can only speak for myself, I don’t think this attachment is necessarily to the explicit country your parents or grandparents or great (great) grandparents came from. rather, the attachment is tied to a certain feeling. a certain feeling of identity and familiarity and culture and love.
in vietnamese, there is no real way to say “I,” “me,” or “you.” Rather, we refer to ourselves and one another using the words for “aunt,” “uncle,” “grandma,” “uncle of my father,” “cousin,” or “sister.” every single interaction is characterized by a certain familial connection. a certain feeling. there is no way to see a stranger as simply just a stranger. and I think that, because of this, I have been able to find love in every pocket of vietnamese people that I have had the fortune of stumbling upon. diaspora is a separated family waiting to be reunited. it is no wonder we experience joy when we find one another again. no wonder we watch some tv shows simply because “did you know the main actress is argentine, too?” no wonder that we wave mexican flags instead of warriors flags at juan toscano-anderson. no wonder that the moroccan team held the palestinian flag with pride after their historic win in the world cup. we have been able to create families for ourselves in every pocket of the world, thanks to diaspora.
I am more than grateful to the nail technicians, restaurant staff, professeurs, coworkers, and strangers who have welcomed me into their lives as another vietnamese daughter. I am even more grateful to the french-vietnamese who have made this cold and foreign country much easier to warm up to. whether it be helping me with my thesis research by giving up an hour of their time to let me prod them with interview questions or letting me in on all of the gossip while I pampering my nails, thank you for letting me into your lives. thank you for the iced coffee.
here are some spots that I highly recommend to any other wayward travelers who find themselves in paris
Pho Saigon
104 Avenue d’Ivry, 75013 Paris, France
Eva Beauté
233 Rue d’Alésia, 75014 Paris, France
Phở Bánh Cuốn 14
129 Avenue de Choisy, 75013 Paris, France
Pho Bom
71 Avenue de Choisy, 75013 Paris
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nhiều chuyện, by angel lin 