The Chinese edition of the book “ Hanoi People, Stories of Eating and Drinking in the Past” (author: Vu The Long) has just won the Influential Southeast Asian Book Award in China in 2025.
The award is jointly organized, selected and awarded by the China-Southeast Asia Cultural Book Week Committee, Guangxi Publishing Group and Baidu based on statistics in China on sales volume, reader feedback and media reviews.
The representative of the Organizing Committee commented: “With a delicate pen, the book has brought to Chinese readers a vivid picture of the changes in the culinary culture of Hanoi and Vietnam, conveying the author's thoughts on the inheritance and innovation of Vietnamese culinary culture, as well as his deep love for Vietnamese national culture. This is an excellent work that perfectly combines knowledge with warm emotions.”
The award was presented to a representative of Chibooks (the copyright holder of the work) within the framework of the China-Southeast Asia Cultural Book Week (from July 3-6 in Nanning, Guangxi, China).
According to author Vu The Long, eating and drinking is a very important aspect of culture. Finding the identity of Vietnamese-Hanoi food culture and going deeper into the identity of Hanoi people's eating and drinking, and from there preserving, promoting and developing Hanoi's food culture is equally important to building a new Hanoi culture.
“To find a way to approach the food culture of Hanoi, Vietnam, I would like to write down what a person of my age who lives in Hanoi knows about what I drink and eat; what my family and people around me of different ages and generations eat; maybe it will be of some benefit to the research and preservation of the food culture of Hanoians,” the author said.
The book explores the story of eating and culinary creation of Hanoians in the early 20th century. Over time, the author recalls and studies how Hanoians “treated” (rejected, accepted, or even “assimilated”) the new culinary colors introduced to the capital through migration and exchange between East and West, South and North...
Translator Phi Thanh Doa, who translated the book into Chinese, said that author Vu The Long uses fluent, comfortable and delicate sentences to tell us about Hanoi in his memories.
"While reading the book, I felt like I was chatting with an old man, listening to him tell stories from the past. Author Vu The Long also has a very special perspective, in each story he writes, he conveys his emotions in it," said the translator./.
Author Vu The Long was born on February 1, 1947 in Hanoi. He is a PhD, paleontologist, anthropologist, environmentalist and cultural historian; former Head of the Human and Environmental Research Department of the Vietnam Institute of Archeology, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences. He is currently Secretary of the Culinary Arts and Culture Club (under the Vietnam Folk Arts Association); Executive Member of the Vietnam Culinary Culture Association.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/sach-am-thuc-ha-noi-doat-giai-thuong-ve-suc-anh-huong-tai-trung-quoc-post1048374.vnp
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