Beautiful Mizzou campus

                                                                                                                               By Trang Duong

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon when the autumn has just arrived. I was staying home all the morning working on homework and assignments.  Some of the sunny lights found their ways travel through the window of my living room as if inviting me: “ It’s beautiful outside. Get out of your room and enjoy it”.

Putting all the works aside, I decided to take a walk around campus. I never get bored of walking around campus even though I have done it hundreds of times. However, today the campus was incredibly beautiful. Trees started decorating themselves with yellow and red leaves. The sky was perfectly blue. The weather cannot be better for a walk.  As I was walking, a peaceful and relaxed feeling fulfilled my heart, removing all the worries and stress.

All of a sudden, I want to seize all of those beautiful places into a safe part of my heart. There are also many other places on this campus that I have not discovered. I decided to make a small project before my graduation: “ Exploring all beautiful places on Mizzou campus, taking pictures and writing about them”.

Here are some of the photos of Mizzou campus during the Fall. Beautiful, isn’t it?

The Six Column. This is the symbol of Mizzou.
Picture from September VI contest.

Those pictures are collected from the VI photo contests. Fall in Mizzou is beautiful

Pictures from VI contest

 Those photos were taken by anh Huy. He is a Mizzou alumni, and is famous among VSA for his beautiful pictures.

If you have a favorite place on Mizzou campus, please take a picture along with your thoughts to us at lifeatmizzou@gmail.com 

We can't wait to see yours.

Vietnam Corner

                                                                                                           By: Ninh Pham

                                                                                                 Vietnamcorner.wordpress.com

Hello again my dear readers. By now, you probably are so excited to know more about The Vietnam Institute, which I affectionately abbreviated as TVI in all of my posts and tags. What was just a pleasant surprise became an important milestone for the opening of let’s say a Vietnam Corner on MU campus.

In 2004, Professor Joe Hobbs from the Geography Department in the Mizzou School of Arts and Sciences, came to Vietnam for a presentation of caves and how people relating to them. As part of the generation growing up during the Vietnam War*, he had all the misconceptions of Vietnam being a land of battlefields with agressive people. That cannot be further from the truth. He came back, teamed up with other professors who were interested in Vietnam to set up a Vietnam Initiative Group, then The Vietnam Institute was born in 2008.

However, most of information on how TVI was set up and what we are doing, you can always read here. Let’s take a grand tour of the institute, where Vietnamese students can feel at home.

On the wall, there is of course a map of Vietnam. Professor Hobbs bought it in Hanoi and got it laminated. Of course, Paracel Islands (quần đảo Hoàng Sa) and Spratly Islands (quần đảo Trường Sa) ** are included.

Laminated map of Vietnam hanging on the wall in
The Vietnam Institute.
Photo credit: Ninh Pham

          There is no shortage of pictures that remind us              of Hanoi:

A framed picture of vendors paddling on Thanh Nien street.
On their right is Truc Bach Lake and on their left is West Lake,
 where PDA is a common scene during the evening. So often in Hanoi,
people would see flower vendors paddling through streets,
selling seasonal flowers. Photo credit: Ninh Pham

Or life back in Vietnam:

Pictures of Vietnam: rice fields in the north, traffic jam
pretty much everywhere, Ha Long Bay, school girls in ao dai
(traditional Vietnamese dress) and farmers’ market.

There are small versions of Vietnamese traditional music instruments such as this "guitar" (For lack of an English name for it)

Vietnamese Guitar

                                Or this "drum"

Dong Son drum

You might find this funny:

“The guy” in the left is called “Chú Tễu” who usually does the opening act
 for a show in musical theatre in the north of Vietnam.
The one on the right shows you how traditional
Vietnamese women looked like during the old days.

My boss found this fish net in Hoi An when he was there during 2008 flood

Dr. Joseph Hobbs claim this net to be 30 years old

There are clothes that are often borrowed by Vietnamese students for one of those international events on campus

Costumes from the North
 of Vietnam

We also have books about Vietnam,
 in both Vietnamese and English

So come on and hangout with us.

*Vietnam War (1955 – 1975): Vietnamese people call this Revolutionary war against Americans. Most people in Vietnam don’t think about this war anymore.

** The two disputed islands in the South China Sea (East Sea).

First days

Vietnamese students association is a close-nit community. Some would go extra miles to help new-comers to adapt to a new life in Columbia easier. One student (now alumni) shared her experience in the two following pictures.

First Pumpkin

This post is written by Quyen Nguyen, first year graduate stu dent in Public Affairs. Quyen has been in Mizzou for three months and she spent her first Halloween in the U.S. carving her first pumpkin ever.

“I find it quite surprising when realizing my fanciest thing to do in Halloween was not dressing up to turn myself into a cookie, Zelda or a lady bug. I did enjoy see people in costume however. Carving some pumpkins is all I want for Halloween. (Well visiting a haunted house is never on the list. Never!)

Since we don’t really have the pumpkin carving tradition in Asia, my chance to fully experience the atmosphere had finally come here at Mizzou. With my two Chinese folks who shared the same excitement of having the first pumpkin babies ever, we headed to the MU Student Center quite early, only to find a lot of people already lining up to get the carving tools. We happened to meet some friends and a cute Vietnamese kid who was posing among a big bunch of pumpkins. Everyone was just excited for this festive night.

Choosing the smallest pumpkin, I joined my friends in a table and started cutting the top. Here comes the funniest part. Some people couldn’t pull off the cap so we kind of teamed up to help. Imagine you would hear a some “come on we can do it” or “oh be gentle I want the head to look nice”. It was just hilarious!

After scraping off all the seeds and pulp, the main part of carving a pumpkin was there for the one who is very bad at drawing – me! Not having a sample sheet and being aware of a possible small disaster I might make to the pumpkin face, I decided to play it safe by sketching the most basic style. My baby turned out to be cool. I was proud, even though I also have to admit I felt extremely humble when looking at a guy beside with his carving which had a shape of a tower with lots of small details.

It was definitely a fun night for everyone. Lots of workout and attempts were made to have the most precise cuts. My Chinese friend was so happy that he decided to leave his bike overnight at school and catch a bus to bring his baby home.

One thing for sure, Jack definitely had a lot of choices for a place to warm his soul along the way that night.”

Source: http://vietnamcorner.wordpress.com/

Vietnamese Restaurants in Columbia

                                                                                         By: Ninh Pham

                                                                                    http://vietnamcorner.wordpress.com/

The wonderful mother of my roommate visited us lately and got me think about online reviews. She always checks out reviews of hotels, restaurants, etc. whenever she wants to go somewhere. That is when I decided on the topic of one of my blog entries: Reviews of Vietnamese restaurants in Columbia, downtown Columbia to be exact: Saigon Bistro and (more or less Vietnamese) Chinese Wok Express.

Now, for disclaimer, I am not affiliated with those two restaurants. I know through friends that Saigon Bistro is owned by a Vietnamese American professor at MU, Henry Nguyen whom I never met. I have no idea who owns Chinese Wok Express.

Judging by their names, Saigon Bistro sounds more Vietnamese than Chinese Wok Express but names don’t really reflect the quality of food they serve or how authentic the food is. Several online reviews gave more generous comments for Chinese Wok Express, especially for their pho (Vietnamese signature noodle), like this reviewer on Urban Spoon:

I’ve had one dish here, the Pho Tai (aka #9), and I had it two days in a row. If you want Pho in Columbia this is the only place to go.

Well, two days in a row is a bit hard core. She/he might turn into a Vietnamese in no time as we (can) eat pho three times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner, well even supper. Yes, many of us love pho, thank you very much!

Hieu Nguyen, who came to Missouri 10 months ago, though pho in Chinese Wok Express, even though is not as good as pho in Vietnam, but it is close enough. Other food that served with broth such as bun bo Hue (Hue vermicelli with beef) are “absolutely the best in Como.” This might sound ironic to some people as the name of the restaurant has a “Chinese” in it.

Now we have to understand that Hieu is still very fresh and if I can make any assumption here, he still very much remembers and misses Vietnamese food at home. Having said that, many other old-timers share the same opinions. Thong Thai, who finished his master’s in architecture at MU last semester, was so sure that the owner of Saigon Bistro, who he knows, can cook pho very well. However, the fact that they don’t have the exact required ingredients is a bit of a disadvantage.

What Saigon Bistro lacks in the “pho department”, it compensates with let’s just say “non-broth” food. Huy Nguyen, a PhD student in Environmental Engineering at MU, said his favorite in Saigon Bistro is Vietnamese sandwich with pork (banh my kep thit). Speaking of which, it cost only a quarter to have banh my in Vietnam and here we have to pay at least $7. Spring rolls (goi cuon), dish with grill porks are recommended by Hieu Nguyen at Saigon Bistro.

For Mai Vu, who is famous among Vietnamese community for her cooking, Saigon Bistro and Chinese Wok Express are too Americanized. Mai is from the north of Vietnam and for her food in those too restaurants are more similar to Southern Vietnamese cuisine.

Speaking of the vibe of both restaurants, Saigon Bistro, which is nicely decorated, is more of a date-type dinner kind of place while Chinese Wok Express is more relaxed, lunch type of thing, Hieu Nguyen said.  (Culture note: Lunch for Vietnamese is more of a friend thing, while if you’re invited to a dinner, that can be considered a date. But it’s good to be invited to eat anywhere anyway, right?).

Overall, Thong Thai gave Saigon Bistro an 8 on the scale of 10. Thong has been to many Vietnamese restaurants across the U.S. including Houston, St. Louis, Kansas and California. The blogger forgot to ask him to rate Chinese Wok Express.

Have you eaten at either of these restaurants? What do you think?

Welcome to Life At Mizzou

Dear VSA family,

The Fall has arrived. I am so excited for the changing colors of trees and the chilly weather. The Fall always brings with it the nostalgic and romantic feelings, which may be a good inspiration for talented (but not discovered yet) writers to have some masterpieces ;)

With that thought, we are glad to announce the creation of Life at Mizzou blog, which is a place for everyone to share your feelings, your beautiful memories, or crazy things you have experienced here so far. You may share with us anything, from your personal stories such as a place you like the most, your feelings in a snowy day, your cute baby, your cozy homes, and your road trips, to some broad, academic topics such as studying in US, classroom environment or how to survive through the finals!

Every topic is welcomed, every creation (writing, pictures, drawings, songs) is encouraged, a sense of humor is great, a romantic is better than good, and your contribution is much appreciated :)

Time goes by, things change, but memories remain. Let’s together keep our beautiful memories in Mizzou safely at the Life at Mizzou corner. Let’s leave our footprint at Mizzou via the blog. Let’s our friends and prospective students know our Life at Mizzou, a life full of challenging but also not less rewarding feelings and beautiful memories.

Oh, don’t forget that Dr. Joe Hobbs and Dr. Jerry Nelson are more than happy to edit your English when necessary.

You share, we listen